New Delhi: Google today celebrates Fatima Shaikh, the educator and feminist icon widely regarded as India’s first Muslim female teacher with a doodle. Sheikh, along with fellow pioneers and social reformers Jyotirao and Savitribai Poole, founded the Indigenous Library in 1848, one of the first schools in India for girls.
Fatima Sheikh was born on this day in 1831 in Pune. He lived with his brother Usman, and the siblings opened their home to the Fools after the couple was evicted to educate the downtrodden. The Indigenous Library opened under the roof of the Sheikhs. Here, Savitribai Phule and Fatima Sheikh taught Dalit and Muslim women and children who were denied education on the basis of class, religion or gender.
As the lifelong champion of this movement for equality, Sheikh went from house to house to educate the downtrodden in his community in the native library and to escape the hardships of the Indian caste system. He faced great opposition from the ruling class who tried to humiliate those involved in the Satyagraha movement, but Sheikh and his allies continued.Fatima sheik social reformer.