ERASURES of historical events and even historical persons have been used to serve political and ideological ends of the powerful over the centuries.  It is not a coincidence that the first great emperor Ashoka remained unknown in the land of his birth for more than nearly two thousand years after his birth.  It was only after the inscriptions on the pillars that he had distributed in different parts of his empire were deciphered by James Prinsep, a British colonial administrator in 1837, that the facts of his existence and his significance became known to his fellow Indians and were soon incorporated into the history books taught in schools.  It is very probable that this erasure was the deliberate work of those who monopolised access to the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and were committed to uphold and strengthen the Brahmanical order that ensured the continuance of this monopoly.  That Ashoka was a Buddhist emperor who propagated Buddhist beliefs throughout his empire and beyond and developed important Buddhist sites that encouraged pilgrimages made this erasure essential for a Brahmanical revival.

In recent years, we are experiencing erasures and falsifications of history aimed at both demonising and deflating the lives and achievements of various Muslim rulers as part of the RSS-led Hindutva project to establish a Hindu Rashtra.   A recent event has now demonstrated that even social reformers are now threatened with extinction and erasure.  A well-known journalist, Dileep Mandal,  who gained recognition as a ‘Bahujan’ propagandist and who for years researched and wrote about social reform, secularism and the ignominies of the caste system, shocked his many admirers and readers recently when he was appointed to the post of consultant by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.  He has now transformed himself into becoming a paid propagandist for the Hindutva forces.  Not surprisingly, his comments and blogs on social media have become increasingly anti-Muslim.  To retain his credibility, he has taken up cudgels against the entire Muslim community on the grounds that it is intrinsically incapable of undertaking reforms and that it, therefore, acts as a roadblock for the Bahujan movement for social justice. He blames Mughal emperors for promoting upper caste Hindus and keeping the caste system intact when they had the power to destroy it.  The fact that he does not fault British rulers on the same grounds displays not only his intellectual dishonesty but also the fact that he has now dovetailed his own pronouncements with the agenda of the Hindutva forces who have also been supporters of British rule even during the struggle for Independence and have been supporters of Imperialism subsequently.  The venom that he has spouted against Muslims has increased with each blog and post and his commitment to create an unbridgeable chasm between Bahujans and Muslims and, in fact, to make Bahujans despise Muslims not only because of their lack of commitment to the cause of social justice but because they accept his argument that Muslims are responsible for the failures and weaknesses of their own struggles for social equality. 

OBNOXIOUS

CHICANERY

Most recently, in an astonishing display of obnoxious chicanery, Mandal has taken it upon himself to not only erase the memory of lesser known but very significant Muslim woman, Fatima Shaikh, who was committed to social equality and gender justice, but has gone on to actually deny her very existence. He has advanced the preposterous claim that Fatima Shaikh is a figment of his own imagination, created to advance the importance of secularism in the days when he himself had been a committed secularist!

The strong sense of impunity that impels people like Mandal to advance claims of this nature is amazing!  In recent years, Fatima Shaikh’s name has become inextricably linked with that of Savitribai Phule who has assumed iconic proportions.  Savitribai herself was not known very widely until a few decades ago when the women’s movement of the 70’s rediscovered her, and scholars, many of them women, uncovered details of her extraordinary life and contributions.  Till then if at all she had been remembered it was as the wife of Jyotiba Phule, the indomitable fighter against Brahmanical beliefs and social constructs who dared to confront these in the heart of Pune which remained a bastion of Brahmanism for years after the defeat of the Peshwai in 1818, a Peshwai that prided itself in having implemented the most cruel aspects of the Manuvadi varnashram dharma or caste system. 

Throughout our history, many women, most of whom have belonged to the oppressed castes, who dared to confront suffocating social norms and caste and gender oppression have been partially or completely obliterated from our memories.  Fragments of their poems and shreds of their histories are all that remain to speak to us of their courageous lives and histories.  In recent years, painstaking research, again very often undertaken by women, is resurrecting them.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Fatima Shaikh, a woman belonging to the backward caste weaving community and a Muslim too, has been unremembered for years. In fact, it is only the interest in Savitribai’s life that has made Fatima Shaikh come alive too!

As the wife of Jyotiba, Savitribai’s name could not be erased and, with each passing year, her letters, her poems, her writings and her stories have been discovered and published and she has attained iconic status.  Her birth anniversary on January 3rd is being observed by more and more organisations dedicated to social justice and equality including many women’s organisations like All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA).  Her contribution to the access to literacy by women and that too by women belonging to the most exploited and shunned groups – widows, unmarried mothers, backward castes and dalits – is now known, studied and acknowledged. 

Savitribai was born on January 3, 1831 and was married to Jyotiba at the age of 9.  Even as a child she had watched her brothers learn to read and write and used to try and steal a look at their books.  She was scolded for this and told that she would remain unmarried if she tried to get educated.  Her love for books was so great, however, that she carried a book with her to her marital home!

MISSION TO

EDUCATE WOMEN

Savitri, unlike so many child-brides, was fortunate.  Jyotiba was not only kind and considerate, but he also taught her to read both Marathi and English. Jyotirao, himself, had studied only till class 7 when the Brahmins in his village made his father take him out of school.  Fortunately, (Times of India, September 25, 2023), Ghaffar Munshi, a school inspector, convinced Jyotirao Phule to continue his education.

Jyotirao, realising the emancipatory nature of education, went to great pains to teach Savitri and his cousin Sugana.  After her rudimentary education was completed, the Phules visited a Christian missionary school for girls in Ahmednagar where the supervisor was Ms Cynthia Farrar.  Savitri enrolled here in the teacher’s training course under Ms Farrar. A young Muslim woman, Fatima Shaikh, was her fellow-student.

After Savitri finished her training, she and Jyotiba started the first school for girls from the backward and dalit communities along with young widows and unmarried mothers in 1848.  This was an act of great courage and it immediately enraged the Pune Brahmin community that was unswerving in its commitment to uphold the principles of Manusmriti.  The Brahmins forced Jyotiba’s father to turn both of them out of the house.

Jyotiba’s old friend, Ghaffar Munshi came to their rescue and told them to meet Usman Shaikh who turned out to be the brother of Savitri’s batchmate, Fatima Shaikh. Just as Savitri had been fortunate in having a husband like Jyotiba, Fatima had been fortunate in having a brother like Usman,  a most unusual man for the times, who did everything to ensure her education and training as a teacher.

When Jyotiba met Usman and told him about their plight, Usman immediately invited him and Savitri to stay in their home.  After this, Fatima became part of Savitri’s mission to educate women and girls considered immoral and outcast and she suffered the same attacks and insults that had become part of Savitri’s everyday experience.

Within a few years, Savitri and Fatima had started 18 schools in Pune.  While Savitri became involved in other activities of a social nature, the responsibility of running the schools was taken on increasingly by Fatima. Due to the prevalent custom of child marriages, many young girls became widows.  Their lives were a living death.  Some of them became pregnant, often because they faced sexual assaults in their marital homes and sometimes because they entered into relationships. As single mothers they were often forced to commit suicide.  In 1853, Jyotiba and Savitri opened the doors  of their ashram, the ‘Bal Hatya Pratibandhak Griha’ for such ostracised women.  Even today, this would be an extremely courageous step to take.  In those days, in the heartland of Brahmanical Manuvad, it was unthinkable.  But Jyotiba and Savitri constantly did what was unthinkable for others! 

The women inmates of the ashram were taught some skills which helped them to earn their livelihood and their children were admitted to the schools run by Savitri and Fatima.  One of the pregnant women who was taken into the ashram was Kashibai.  Her son, Yashwant, was adopted by Jyotiba and Savitri and was educated by them.  He became a medical doctor.

Some years after Jyotiba’s death, there was a plague epidemic in Bombay and Pune in 1896.  Savitri immersed herself in helping people and contracted the disease herself.  She passed away on March 10, 1897.

CARRYING ON

THE MISSION

Fatima Shaikh continued to run the schools that the two friends had started together but there is not much that is known about her life. The date of her death has not yet been ascertained.  About her birth, there are some who believe that she was born on February 9. Savitribai left behind many diaries and poems and her letters to Jyotiba are also well-preserved.  She wrote about Fatima “When I published Kavya Phule in 1854, I insisted that she (Fatima) publishes a book of her poems too. She has immense knowledge of Urdu and had composed many poems. Sadly, she never published….”  From this we learn that Fatima too wrote poems but, sadly, they have not been brought to light.

Savitribai often said that her efforts to start a school for girls belonging to the dalit and backward communities would not have succeeded had it not been for someone named Fatima Shaikh about whom she said “Fatima was my closest friend, my most dependable ally in our success in the education of girls…” The lives of Savitribai and Fatima Shaikh have inspired millions of women in our country.  Their strong bonds of friendship and exemplary courage have been a source of strength for many.  The extraordinary relationship between a Hindu and a Muslim woman who even shared a home for some time, is a wonderful example of the unity that is so essential for the struggle for social justice to succeed.

This is precisely why Mandal has had the temerity to state that Fatima Shaikh existed only as a figment of his own imagination.  When this was challenged with facts and figures, he modified his claim and said that she may have existed but only as Savitribai’s maid servant. Accepting Fatima Shaikh as a Muslim woman social reformer whose own brother was committed to both reform and social justice would have removed the foundation of Mandal’s thesis that Muslims as a community were not only incapable of social reform but actually placed impediments in the path to social justice for the Bahujans.

Fortunately, it is highly unlikely that Mandal’s attempts are going to meet with any success.  What is important, however, is to understand the lengths to which Hindutva supporters like him are willing to go to damage and divide the struggle for social justice by negating not only the role but even the existence of Muslim reformers and thereby undermine and weaken the unity of the most oppressed and exploited that is essential for the success of the battle for social justice and equality.

It was their unbreakable unity that gave Savitribai and Fatima Shaikh the strength to confront the Manuvadi forces that insulted and humiliated them at every step of their courageous journey.  The Hindutva forces that have gained much strength and success in recent years are, in many ways, the inheritors of Manuvadi beliefs and convictions.  The same unity that gave strength to Savitribai and Fatima Shaikh is needed in even greater measure to carry forward their struggle today.