From being in the confines of an apparently cushy household with too many children to take care of, a husband to serve, and an entire family to look after to the powerful positions in political fields, the highly challenging professional roles, and the most sought-after recognitions in the field of academics, the journey of Indian women is nothing short of an incredible documentary. Although the early Vedic era in India has seen several female scholars, like Gargi, Apala, Maitreyi, and Vishwamvara, the degeneration of the position of women in the field of academics started since the later Vedic age and continued till the Indian Renaissance. Over the centuries, Indian women have slowly nurtured their voice of protest and ignited their war cry for liberation with the help of pioneers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who relentlessly fought to promote women’s education in India. Emerging from the shadows, many Indian women took up the baton to exemplify their success for the later generations of Indian women so that they could follow their dream of getting educated and pursuing intellectual accomplishments.
India had experienced an era of darkness when gender roles were reinforced in all the households, limiting education to only some privileged families who were of royal or scholarly origin, while depriving the underrepresented and underprivileged groups from getting educated. It is during these times that some of the pioneers of Indian women’s education became beacons of hope:
Anandibai Joshi
It was like an ingrained nature of Indian society to scorn every woman who even dared to take one toe outside their line of vigilance, and that is exactly what Anandibai Joshi did when she became the first Indian woman to have pursued a career in medicine and earned a medical degree in western medicine, that too from the United States. Women’s education in India and Being a Hindu Brahmin girl, it was unthinkable for someone like her to break the stereotypes and tread the path that was carefully avoided by the Indian women or merely whispered about in the darkness as some unnamed soliloquies unheard by anyone. During those days, when the role of the women was to merely produce heirs to their husbands, Anandibai Joshi was wholeheartedly supported by her husband, Gopal Rao Joshi, who enrolled her in a missionary school and taught her to speak English and Sanskrit. It was his obsession with the idea of educating his wife and seeing her carve her own name and identity in the world that drove him to send Anandibai to the United States to pursue a career in medicine instead of just cooking and taking care of his household.
Savitribai Phule
Speaking about the success of women’s education in India is incomplete without the discussion of the champion of women’s education in the country, that is Jyoti Rao Phule, who was responsible for establishing the first girl’s school in the year 1848. However, he could not have accomplished his mission of uplifting the Dalit women of India had it not been for his wife, Savitribai Phule. She was the perfect role model and guide for the girls and women from the ostracised sections of Indian society. Hailing from the Maharashtrian village of Satara as a victim of child marriage at the age of 9, Savitribai Phule started off as an illiterate girl who went on to become the first female teacher and headmistress of India. This journey of Savitribai Phule was further monumentalised by the numerous schools she opened with her husband for Dalit women. Her scholarly pursuits were further explored in her literary works like ‘Go, Get Education,’ which was a poem to appeal to the women from the oppressed section of society to get themselves educated.
Sarojini Naidu
Back in the 19th century, when women’s education in India was not much heard of, Sarojini Naidu secured the highest rank in her matriculation examination and qualified to study at university, even visiting abroad with a scholarship to pursue her higher studies. Soon enough, her eloquent oratory won her a lot of followers, and she decided to dedicate her life as an activist fighting for educational facilities for women, especially widows. The subject in itself was extremely controversial to the Hindu society, and even the elite sections of the society preferred to stay away from this kind of controversy. Soon enough, Sarojini Naidu earned the laurels as the ‘Nightingale of India’ as a poet and decided to advocate more for women’s empowerment, especially in the field of education. Although she had become one of the most sought-after names as a poet and a political activist, it was when she became the first woman president of the Indian National Congress that she turned into a true nation-builder by actively partaking in the establishment of the Women’s Indian Association to work for the upliftment of Indian women.
Conclusion
With the onset of the 20th and 21st centuries, hundreds of Indian women decided to follow in the footsteps of these female scholars, and with the support of women’s education in India and help provided by the Indian government with initiatives like Beti Bachao and Beti Padhao, India has currently been witnessing an unexpected drive in the number of educated women. Not only are they celebrating their success in the field of academics, but also in the corporate sector and politics at the same time. Right now, India is not just a land replete with culture, colours, and traditions, but also a country where hundreds of women scholars have dedicated their achievements to the Motherland, making her proud and happy and also putting India out in the global fabric as a name to reckon.
