Updated Dec 31, 2020 | 20:53 IST
Savitribai Phule did not just preach the importance of education and equality. She lived it. The Phules nearly died at the hands of attackers who despised their pioneering work. But they soldiered on. Savitribai and Jyotiba Phule
Savitribai Phule, the spouse and partner in every campaign of Jyotiba Phule, was born 190 years ago. Yet, Savitribai is naturally relevant to mankind today.
Born on 3 January 1831 in Naigaon taluka of Satara district, this woman leader from rural Maharashtra who fought against huge odds for the rights of the oppressed and women’s empowerment remains an icon.
Wearing many hats of a social reformer, a pioneer in education, and poet - Savitribai lived the revolution she preached. She was the first woman teacher of the first women’s school in India and a pioneer in modern Marathi poetry.
How Prabodhankar Thackeray contributed to the rise of Hindutva in 20th-century Maharashtra
He presented a version of Hindutva based on an intense aversion for the socio-cultural dominance of Brahmins. Keshav Sitaram Prabodhankar Thackeray.
Keshav Sitaram Thackeray, the father of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, was among the prominent figures in the Samyukta Maharashtra movement in the 195
s that pushed for the formation of the state of Maharashtra. But he had already emerged as an influential public figure three decades before, especially after he started a periodical called
Prabodhan (Awakening) in 1921.
This year marks the centenary year of this magazine, which played a crucial role in shaping the world of non-Brahmin Marathi writing between the two world wars. In the 19th-century, public discouse in Marathi was dominated by Brahmins. Early in the next century, the emergence of Thackeray and a few other non-Brahmin voices helped reshape the idea of the “public�