Savitribai Phule: Agency, Authorship and Feminist Pedagogy

Savitribai Phule occupies a singular position in nineteenth-century Indian history as the first woman teacher and one of the earliest modern women poets in Marathi. This paper argues that Savitribai did not merely become a reformer through circumstance; rather, she consciously created herself as an authoritative educator and poet through a sustained practice of writing, teaching and public action. From her early poems in Kavya Phule (1854) to her letters, speeches and institutional labor, Savitribai crafted a voice that transformed her social marginality into moral and intellectual authority. Her authorship extended beyond printed texts to embodied acts: walking daily to school amid abuse, founding institutions for women and Dalits and documenting her work for posterity. By reading her poetry, epistolary writings, pedagogical practices and public interventions together, this study demonstrates how Savitribai constructed a coherent, authored subjectivity as witness, guide and agent of social change. Her deliberate self-authorship not only challenged caste and gender hierarchies but also produced a lasting model of agentive womanhood in colonial India.