Savitribai Phule.
Credit: X/@VSReddy_MP
Mumbai: In what would be a befitting tribute to the visionary social reformer Phule-couple, the Maharashtra government has decided to come up with a grand memorial at their residence in Pune and at the first school for girls that they had started.
Mahatma Jyotirao Phule (11 April, 1827 – 28 November, 1890) and his wife Savitribai Phule (3 January 1831 - 10 March, 1897) worked towards education, eradication of caste discrimination, upliftment of the oppressed classes.
A national memorial is set to come up at Phule Wada, the residence of the couple in the Ganj Peth area of Pune.
Recently, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) demolished the dilapidated structure of Bhide Wada, where the Phule-couple started the first school for girls in 1848 in the Budhwar Peth area of Pune.
The Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court cleared the way for the PMC to build the national memorial at the site and ordered shop owners and tenants residing around the dilapidated structure to vacate the premises.
The government is also planning a memorial for Savitribai Phule in Naigaon in Satara, her birthplace.
The Phule-couple had also started the Satyashodhak Samaj (The Truth-Seeker’s Society), which was established on September 24, 1873 to mitigate the distress and sufferings of Dalits and women.
It espoused a mission of education and increased social rights and political access for underprivileged groups, focused especially on women, peasants, and Dalits in Maharashtra.