On 9th January, Google Doodle commemorated the 191st birth anniversary of Fatima Sheikh – a name that few if any Indians know about. And yet, this is a name that should be deeply significant – particularly for Indian women. India is still an overwhelmingly patriarchal society, and would have been even more so, had it not been for the tireless efforts of women like Savitribai Phule and Fatima Sheikh.
A new Google Doodle was released on the birth anniversary of Fatima Sheikh on 9 January.
She is a historical figure we know little about – an educator and social reformer. She was a colleague of Savitribai Phule and Jyotirao Phule and is remembered as India's first Muslim teacher.
Sheikh is said to have met Savitribai Phule at a teacher training institution run by American Cynthia Farrar.
She was instrumental in setting up two schools for girls in Mumbai in 1851.
Savitribai along with her husband Jyotiba are still revered as among the first to raise their voices on behalf of India's oppressed communities.
Very importantly, Sheikh and Phule's struggle was to uplift the downtrodden. They worked to get an education to the most marginalised of communities, such as Dalits, who had been denied access to education for centuries.
Both women faced stiff opposition from a deeply conservation society that saw the education of women as threatening to order in the family, social structures and religious doctrine.
These women were ahead of their time in another important way – an early example of intersectional feminism. They were not just fighting for women of their community, but for all women. In our country India, even women who call themselves feminists will often refrain from raising their voices in solidarity with women from other communities. Theirs’s is a selective feminism, not intersectional feminism. For instance, many so-called Indian feminists were conspicuous in their silence when the horrific story of Bulli Bai/Sulli Deals broke. In a sense, Fatima Sheikh and Savitribai Phule were a symbol of intersectional feminism much before its time.
It was the goal of these women not only to educate girls but also to fight for a casteless society. Considering the fact that caste hierarchies still hold sway today in India, this would have been a herculean task at the time when these women lived.
When in the 1920s the authorities sought to amend the law to increase the age of marriage of girls to 12, there were widespread protests. That is how oppressive Indian society was, just a hundred years ago. Imagine the sort of odds that women like Fatima Sheikh and Savitribai Phule had to battle just for society to allow girls to study. Indian women today owe a debt of gratitude to these farsighted, courageous women from our history.
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