Savitribai Phule 1998 India

Savitribai Phule was born on 3rd January 1831. She completed her study from the Normal School during 1846-47. Savitribai Phule understood the importance of education and educating women became her life mission. She was also the first Indian woman who took the training in teaching in Mrs. Mitchell’s of ‘Normal School’ where Savitribai’s educational potentials were tested. She was wife of social reformer Mahatma Jyotirao Phule who initiated pioneering work in education and shared his thoughts on the importance of women’s education.
Savitribai Phule and Mahatma Phule together started first girls’ school. Those were the times when the concept of educating girl received very meagre importance. It was therefore difficult to propagate the need of educating women in the society, even though they individually believed that if girls are educated and informed it would not only help the girls themselves but the next generation to come will be benefitted which will ultimately upgrade the society in general. Eventually their joint efforts began to show its effects. It was so mentioned in a report compiled by education inspector Cap. J. F. Lefter on 26th December 1856. Both Jyotiba and Savitribai genuinely believed that education means knowledge and information and so it has to reach at every strata of the society. Later in the year 1852, school for the untouchables was started. Girls from these castes began to join the school.
Pioneering work of Savitribai did not limit to education itself but liberating women from the cultural patterns of male dominated society became the prime cause of her living. She supported widow remarriage and initiated the ashram place for brahmin widows. She also supported the concept of court marriages.
Savitribai Phule, in 1868, welcomed the untouchables to use the well in the backyard of her house to drink water and she also adopted a son of a widow in the year 1873. She was appointed as the President of Satyashodhak Samaj Parishad in 1893.
Savitribai’s poems and other writings are still an inspiration to others. Two books of her poems were published, Kavya Phule in 1934 and Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar in 1982. Recently the Maharashtra government started an award in her name for Women Who Work Social Causes.
On 10 March 1897 Savitribai Phule expired while serving the plague victims.

Issued Date: 10-03-1998
Denomination : 200 Paise