Fatima Sheikh was instrumental in co-founding India’s first school for girls along with Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule.
On January 9, 2022, Google honored teacher and social reformer Fatima Sheikh on her 191st birth anniversary with a doodle on her homepage.
Sheikh, who is considered “India’s first Muslim female teacher” according to a Google statement, was instrumental in co-founding the Swadeshi Library in 1848 along with Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule.
In Pune, Shaikh offered his home to Phule along with his brother Usman, who had been evicted for attempting to educate people from the lower castes. Sheikh’s house served as the place where the indigenous library—one of the first schools for girls in India—was born.
Google said, “Here, Savitribai Phule and Fatima Shaikh taught marginalized communities of Dalit and Muslim women and children who were denied education on the basis of class, religion or gender.”
Sheikh took an active role in Phule Satyashodhak Samaj (Truthseekers Society) movement, “to go door-to-door inviting the Dalits of their community to learn in the Swadeshi library and escape the rigors of the Indian caste system.” Google describes Sheikh as a man who persisted, despite facing great resistance and humiliation from members of the dominant caste.
Calling Sheikh’s story “historically undiscovered”, Google said the Indian government made efforts to highlight his achievement in 2014, “featuring his profile in Urdu textbooks with other leading Indian teachers.”
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