Kolkata, Jan 09: To honour India’s first female Muslim teacher, educator and feminist icon Fatima Sheikh, the famous search engine Google on Sunday paid glowing tributes and dedicated a doodle to the inspirational personality.
Alongside tributes were given to fellow pioneers and social reformers Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule, Sheikh co-founded the Indigenous Library in 1848, one of India’s first schools for girls.
Fatima Sheikh was born on this day in 1831 in Pune, India. She lived with her brother Usman, and the siblings opened their home to the Phules after the couple was evicted for attempting to educate people in lower castes.
The Indigenous Library opened under the Sheikhs’ roof. Here, Savitribai Phule and Fatima Sheikh taught communities of marginalized Dalit and Muslim women and children who were denied education based on class, religion, or gender.
The Phules’ efforts to provide educational opportunities to those born into India’s lower castes became known as the Satyashodhak Samaj (Truthseekers’ Society) movement.
As a lifelong champion of this movement for equality, Sheikh went door-to-door to invite the downtrodden in her community to learn at the Indigenous Library and escape the rigidity of the Indian caste system.
She met great resistance from the dominant classes who attempted to humiliate those involved in the Satyashodhak movement, but Sheikh and her allies persisted.
Although Sheikh’s story has been historically overlooked, the Central government shone new light on her achievements in 2014 by featuring her profile in Urdu textbooks alongside other trailblazing Indian educators.
