Fatima Sheikh's 191st Birthday: Google celebrates through doodle

Google will honour feminist hero Fatima Sheikh's 191st birthday with a unique doodle on Sunday, January 9, 2022. Fatima Sheikh is largely regarded as India's first Muslim female teacher, having been born in Pune in 1831.

In 1848, she co-founded the Indigenous Library with Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule, which is regarded to be one of India's first schools for females.

The Indigenous Library, which opened under the Sheikhs' roof, provided a forum for her and Savitribai Phule to teach communities of oppressed Dalit and Muslim women and children who had been denied education due to class, religion, or gender.

The Satyashodhak Samaj (Truthseekers' Society) movement sprang out of the Phules' efforts to provide educational opportunities to individuals born into India's lowest castes. Sheikh walked door-to-door in her neighbourhood, inviting the poor to learn at the Indigenous Library and escape the rigidity of the Indian caste system, as a lifetime champion of this campaign for equality.

Fatima Sheikh's contributions were further highlighted by the Centre in 2014, when her profile was included in Urdu textbooks among other trailblazing Indian educators.