Women’s Day 2025 | Celebrating the legacy of women’s learning

The right to education has been a critical benchmark in assessing women’s empowerment. This year, the International Women’s Day theme, ‘Accelerate Action’, calls for actions that can advance gender equality. Empowering women in education, employment, and leadership roles are some of the means to overcome systemic hurdles and move towards gender equality and inclusive growth. 

Besides, the year 2025 is also a pivotal moment as it marks the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – the foundational document on women’s and girls’ rights. These occasions offer an opportunity to recall the struggle of female revolutionaries for the cause of women’s education in India. 

Education and feminine domesticity

Women’s education was one of the central areas of focus of the social reform movements that happened in pre-independent India. However, education was not envisaged as something that could radically alter women’s lives. Women’s education was supposed to reform the existing societal structures and processes, not dismantle or alter them.

The curriculum for women’s education included domestic economy, cooking, needlework, moral education, and hygiene. Home science became an integral part of women’s education focussing on practical skills in food and nutrition management, home management, maternity and child welfare, clothing and textiles, and hygiene and preventive medicine. The objective of women’s education was to train them to become good wives and mothers, and socialise them into an ideal of feminine domesticity.  

This development of domesticity was closely linked to the ideas of the nation and nationalism, especially in the context of colonial modernity. The task of reforming the home had automatically rested on the ‘civilised’ and educated women. In addition, women’s education had become desirable to facilitate their participation in the freedom movement. 

Women were projected as cultural bearers of the nation and society. The ideal woman was imagined as a good blend of traditional virtues associated with domesticity and modern education.

However, despite these broader societal expectations, there was notable regional variation in the enrollment of girls in schools during the pre-independent period. According to a report titled Progress of Education in India: Quinquennial Reports of 1922-27 and 1937-47 by the government of India, Madras (renamed Chennai in 1996) and Bengal had the highest rates of female enrollment. This could be attributed to the role played by social reformers as well as Christian missionaries in these regions. 

Struggle of female proponents for education 

In the pre-independent times, several female revolutionaries struggled hard for the cause of women’s education, including Savitribai Phule, Fatima Sheikh, Pandita Ramabai, Chandraprabha Saikiani, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Sarala Ray, Anasuya Sarabhai, and Abala Bose. These female reformers played a vital role in championing the cause of women’s education, and cut across caste, religion and region, indicating the diverse nature of the Indian women’s movement. The lasting influence of some of these figures is explored below. 

Savitribai Phule

Savitribai Phule was a Dalit woman who challenged the upper caste hegemony of education through her reformist practices. She opened India’s first school for girls in Vishrambag Wada, Pune, Maharashtra in 1848 along with her husband Jyotirao Phule. Her school was open to all castes. 

Savitribai Phule not only promoted education for girls but also stood in opposition to existing social evils like untouchability and prohibition on widow remarriage. But her efforts were met with fierce resistance from society. On her way to school, she was often pelted with stones and cow dung and obscenities were also hurled at her – primarily because she was educating girls, especially those from lower castes. However, this did not deter her. 

Fatima Sheikh and Pandita Ramabai

Another notable figure, Fatima Sheikh, widely celebrated as India’s first Muslim woman educator, was an associate of Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule in Pune. Unfortunately, not a lot is known about her as there is a paucity of historical material. This also indicates how women have often been marginalised in historical narratives. However, given the socio-cultural context of the time, one can argue that it must not have been easy to be a Muslim woman educator in pre-independent India. 

Pandita Ramabai, from Mangalore (then Madras presidency but now part of Karnataka), was another social reformer who challenged the caste system by marrying a man from the lower caste. She was also a staunch advocate for women’s education and actively spoke out against the plight of widows, especially child widows, and child marriage. Ramabai founded the Arya Mahila Samaj in 1882 to promote women’s education, which was seen as instrumental in eradicating child marriage. 

Chandraprabha Saikiani

Some other even lesser-known women educators in pre-independent India have been regionally very impactful. Chandraprabha Saikiani, a social reformer and active proponent of women’s education from Assam, is one such name. 

A notable incident highlighting her commitment to women’s rights occurred at the Assam Sahitya Sabha session in 1925, where she talked about the importance of women’s education and their right to have the same opportunities as men. At the event, a barrier separated men from women, with women sitting behind the men. Saikiani urged the women to remove the barrier and sit alongside the men – a symbolic defiance showcasing her commitment to women’s rights and gender equality. 

Saikiani received her early education at a boys’ school in her village Daisingari, where she attended classes with her sister. As such, she wanted other girls to have access to education as well. She demonstrated her commitment to the cause by starting a school for girls at the young age of 13, where she imparted whatever knowledge she had to other girls. 

Her activism extended beyond education. At a large public gathering, she called for a ban on opium – an unusual act for a woman in that era when women speaking in public gatherings was unconventional. In 1926, Saikiani founded the Assam Pradeshik Mahila Samiti and dedicatedly worked for women’s education.

Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and Sarala Ray

The contributions of other figures like Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and Sarala Ray to women’s education also deserve recognition. Begum Rokeya, born in Pairaband, Rangpur, Bengal (part of Bangladesh now), advocated for Muslim women’s education through her visionary women-centric writings. 

Her most famous short story, Sultana’s Dream, imagines a gender-reversed society where women run the world and men are confined indoors. Having never been allowed to earn a formal education, she started schools for Muslim girls in Bhagalpur (1909) and Kolkata (1911). 

Sarala Ray, an educator from Bengal, founded the Gokhale Memorial Girls’ School in 1920 in Kolkata, where all girls were encouraged to learn three languages – Hindi, Bengali and English – as part of the school’s innovative curriculum. Later, she extended her efforts towards women’s higher education and established the Gokhale Memorial Girls’ College in 1938. 

Legacy of female revolutionaries

While the above-mentioned women played a pioneering role in women’s education, their journeys were fraught with numerous challenges. For instance, enrollment and retention of girls in schools was one of the primary challenges, which was often exacerbated by the absence of proper sanitation facilities.

In many regions, menstruation is seen as a state of impurity and requires girls to be absent from public spaces during their menstrual cycle. Due to such reasons, parents were often hesitant to send their daughters to school. Additionally, prepubertal marriages were also prevalent and because of this many girls were withdrawn from school before reaching puberty. 

Another barrier was the purdah system, which restricted the mobility of Muslim and upper-caste women and contributed to their exclusion from educational opportunities. Women like Savitribai Phule and Begum Rokeya also faced caste- and religion-based opposition to educating marginalised communities. Moreover, parents were often reluctant to send their daughters to the co-educational schools established by the British government. 

Nonetheless, the female revolutionaries demonstrated immense courage and resilience in their fight for women’s education. They broke social barriers and paved the way for women’s access to education in India. Their effort laid the foundation for women’s empowerment and inspired generations of women to pursue education. 

But despite the strides made in women’s education, women continue to be discriminated against in educational institutions evident in their lower enrollment and retention rates. Women also face violence and harassment in both primary and higher educational institutions. In this context, the legacy of these revolutionary women remains relevant. 

Post Read Questions

What were the key challenges faced by pioneering women in their efforts to promote women’s education in India?

How did societal norms like purdah, prepubertal marriages, and the perception of menstruation hinder girls’ access to education?

In what ways did female revolutionaries like Savitribai Phule and Begum Rokeya challenge caste- and religion-based discrimination in education?

How can the legacy of female revolutionaries inspire action to address the gender gap in education today?

What measures can be taken to improve women’s enrollment and retention rates in schools and higher educational institutions?

(Rituparna Patgiri is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati.)

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