About Savitribai Phule Jayanti
Savitribai Phule Jayanti marks the birth of Savitribai Phule on 3 January 1831 at Naigaon in Satara district, the teacher and reformer who opened a school for girls in Pune in 1848 with her husband Jyotirao Phule. It falls on Sunday, 3 January 2027. Maharashtra marks the day in schools as Balika Din, and tributes come from across India, especially from teachers, women's groups and Ambedkarite and Satyashodhak organisations.
Savitribai Phule could not read when she married. She was nine, Jyotirao Phule was thirteen, and the year was 1840. He taught her at home, along with his aunt Sagunabai Kshirsagar, and she went on to train as a teacher at a missionary-run institution in Ahmednagar and at a Normal School in Pune. Within eight years she was teaching other girls.
That is the story people retell on 3 January: a girl from a Mali family in a Satara village who became, by most accounts, India's first trained woman teacher and headmistress, at a time when most Indian girls were never sent to school at all.
The schools
In January 1848 Savitribai and Jyotirao opened a school for girls in the house of Tatya Saheb Bhide, at Budhwar Peth in Pune. Some accounts put the opening on 1 January 1848, two days before her seventeenth birthday; others give only the month or the year. By the end of 1851 the couple were running three girls' schools in Pune with about 150 students, and they went on to open eighteen schools in all, including schools for children of castes then treated as untouchable.
Phule biographers describe Savitribai walking to school with a second sari in her bag, because people on the way threw dung and stones at her for teaching girls. The opposition was strong enough that Jyotirao's father asked the couple to leave his house, saying their work was a sin. They moved in with the family of Usman Sheikh, and in 1849 Savitribai and his sister Fatima Sheikh, whom many scholars describe as the first Muslim woman teacher in India, started a school there.
The Bhide Wada building had been in poor condition for years. After the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court cleared the way, the Pune Municipal Corporation took it down on 5 December 2023 so that a national memorial to the Phules could be built on the site.
More than a teacher
Schools were only part of the work. Savitribai and Jyotirao ran a shelter from 1863, the Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha, where pregnant widows, many of them Brahmin, could give birth safely instead of being driven to abandon or kill their infants. She founded the Mahila Seva Mandal in 1852 to talk to women about their rights, and she worked against child marriage and for widow remarriage.
When Jyotirao founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873, she led its women's wing, and she is credited with arranging the first Satyashodhak wedding, held without a priest and without dowry. She was also a poet. Her collection Kavya Phule came out in 1854, when she was 23, and Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar in 1892.
She died on 10 March 1897, after catching bubonic plague while caring for patients at a clinic she ran with her adopted son, Yashwant, on the edge of Pune. Many people mark that date too, as her smriti din.
- 1840Married to Jyotirao Phule at nine
She learns to read and write at home
- 1848Girls' school at Bhide Wada, Pune
With Jyotirao and Sagunabai
- 1849School at Usman Sheikh's house
With Fatima Sheikh
- 1852Mahila Seva Mandal
A forum on women's rights
- 1854Kavya Phule published
Her first book of poems
- 1863Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha
A shelter for pregnant widows
- 1873Satyashodhak Samaj
She leads its women's wing
- 1897Dies of plague in Pune
While nursing patients
How 3 January is marked
In Maharashtra, schools keep the day as Balika Din, a day for girls, with assemblies, speeches and essays on her life. Some schools and women's groups also call it Mahila Shikshan Din, women's education day. The Chief Minister and other leaders pay tribute at her portraits and statues, and on 3 January 2026 the state government laid the foundation stone for a memorial and a women's training centre at Naigaon, her birthplace.
Outside Maharashtra, the day is kept mostly by teachers' groups, universities and Ambedkarite and women's organisations. The University of Pune was renamed Savitribai Phule Pune University in 2014, India Post issued a stamp in her honour in 1998, and Google marked her 186th birth anniversary with a Doodle in 2017. It is not a public holiday.
The day falls three weeks before National Girl Child Day on 24 January, and many schools link the two. If you want a second date to thank a teacher, Teachers' Day on 5 September and World Teachers' Day on 5 October are the usual ones.
What to write
The tone is a tribute. In Marathi, people write "vinamra abhivadan" (humble salute) or "koti koti pranam", and they call her Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule. "Happy Savitribai Phule Jayanti" is common online and nobody will mind it, but a line about what her work means to the person you are writing to will be read twice.
On Savitribai Phule Jayanti, thank you for standing in front of a class every day, as she did in 1848 when it took real courage. Some of us are where we are because of teachers like you.
Today is Savitribai Phule's birthday. She taught girls to read when people threw stones at her for it. Your school bag carries some of her courage. Never let anyone tell you to stop learning.
Aai, you went back to studying when we were small, and you never stopped. On Savitribai Phule Jayanti, this one is for you.
Remembering Savitribai Phule, who opened a school for girls in Pune in 1848 and kept it open against every insult. A quiet salute to her today.
She learned to read after she was married, at nine, and became a teacher by seventeen. On Savitribai Phule Jayanti, read one page more than you planned to.
You are the first in your family with a degree, and Savitribai Phule would have been proud of you. Wishing you strength on her jayanti.
Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule yanna jayantinimitta vinamra abhivadan. (A humble salute to Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule on her birth anniversary.)
क्रांतिज्योती सावित्रीबाई फुले यांना जयंतीनिमित्त विनम्र अभिवादन.
How to wish someone on Savitribai Phule Jayanti
A good message is a tribute, not a party wish. In Marathi the standard line is "vinamra abhivadan", a humble salute. Name what she actually did, opening schools for girls and for Dalit children, teaching while people threw dung and stones at her, nursing plague patients until she died. Send it to the teachers, daughters and first-generation graduates in your life, and say what her work made possible for them. Keep it plain; "Krantijyoti" (the flame of revolution) is the title people use for her.
Write a few lines in your own words, pick a design and share it as one link on WhatsApp, Instagram or anywhere else. They open an animated card made just for them, with no app and no sign-up.
Language tip: English, Marathi + Hindi.
When is Savitribai Phule Jayanti in each year?
Savitribai Phule Jayanti is on 3 Jan every year. Only the weekday changes.
- 2026
- 2027
- 2028
Frequently asked questions
When is Savitribai Phule Jayanti in 2027?
Savitribai Phule Jayanti 2027 falls on Sunday, 3 January 2027.
Why is Savitribai Phule called India's first woman teacher?
She trained formally as a teacher in Ahmednagar and Pune in the 1840s and began teaching girls at the school she and Jyotirao Phule opened at Bhide Wada in Pune in 1848. Most historians count her as the first trained Indian woman teacher and headmistress, though Fatima Sheikh, who taught alongside her, is also honoured as a pioneer.
Why is 3 January called Balika Din in Maharashtra?
Maharashtra schools mark Savitribai Phule's birthday, 3 January, as Balika Din, a day for girls, because her life's work was getting girls into school. Assemblies, speeches and essay competitions on her life are held in many schools on the day.
What was Bhide Wada and what happened to it?
Bhide Wada was the house of Tatya Saheb Bhide in Budhwar Peth, Pune, where the Phules opened their girls' school in 1848. The decaying building was demolished by the Pune Municipal Corporation on 5 December 2023, after court rulings, so that a national memorial to the Phules could be built there.
How did Savitribai Phule die?
She died in Pune on 10 March 1897 of bubonic plague, which she caught while caring for patients at a clinic she ran with her adopted son Yashwant during the epidemic. 10 March is kept by many as her death anniversary.
What do you write on Savitribai Phule Jayanti in Marathi?
The usual line is "Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule yanna jayantinimitta vinamra abhivadan", which means a humble salute to Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule on her birth anniversary. "Koti koti pranam" is also used in Marathi and Hindi tributes.
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