Savitribhai Phule’s Contribution to Education with Special Reference to Dalit Education

Abstract

Savitribai Phule was one of the greatest architects who helped to formulate the base of the modern Indian education system. Indian social mechanism, based primarily on caste identity, is responsible for creating hindrances against uniform education system, and many people who were considered 'dalit' were historically denied any right to education as well as social security. It was only after Independence that they were given the constitutional right to education. Savitribai Phule, who herself was a Dalit woman, realized the need for education after getting education from her husband. She tried to spread education among the women and downtrodden so that they could become self-conscious and able to come to the mainstream of society. Even before Independence, when no men could even imagine starting schools for women, she raised the importance of education and started schools for women and dalits. The modern Indian development of equality in the educational sectors is much more indebted to her struggle in the British colonial period. She was the first Indian woman who established schools for girls and became the First Indian woman teacher, also from the dalit community. She was the mother of modern poetry stressing the necessity of English through her poems. Her Kavya Phule, the first collection of poems, was published in 1854. She condemns Manu for creating an unequal society. Later, in Go, Get Education, she says that human beings become animals without wisdom that comes from knowledge and advocates knowledge as greater than all riches. She calls for a war cry, to rise to learn and act, and requests to learn English to become self-reliant by learning English. Thus, she is one of the towering figures who fought for human rights, equality, justice and liberty for the depressed class, along with Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Jyotiba Phule.