Google Doodle Honours Feminist Icon & 1st Indian Muslim Woman Teacher Fatima Sheikh

By: WE Staff | Monday, 10 January 2022

On the 191st year of her birth, Google honoured feminist pioneer Fatima Sheikh, who is regarded as India's first Muslim woman teacher, with a doodle.

Fatima Sheikh was an Indian educator and social reformer who played a pivotal role in women's education. She was born on January 9, 1831, in Pune.

Fatima Sheikh, together with Indian activist Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule, co-founded the Indigenous Library in 1984. It is one of India's first girls schools.

After the couple was expelled for attempting to teach individuals from lower castes, she and her brother Usman gave their house to the Phules.

She and Savitribai Phule educated communities of oppressed Dalit and Muslim children and women who were denied education due to class, religion, or gender discrimination under Sheikhs' roof.

Their collaborative endeavour to impart education grew into the Satyashodhak Samaj (Truthseekers' Society).

Sheikh went door-to-door in her community, seeking out the poor and assisting them in escaping the rigidity of the Indian caste system. Her efforts to educate were greeted with fierce opposition by the ruling classes, but she and her supporters persevered.

Google honoured her efforts to educate and empower the poor with a doodle and a tweeted, "it takes a woman and her unflinching will to bring about reform in the face of resistance."