“I am undeterred by these intimidations as my inspiration is Savitri Bai Phule” — Amit Gautam

Uttar Pradesh— The formation of the BSP government in Uttar Pradesh enabled the propagation of the Bahujan ideology. Statues of Bahujan idols were installed at prime places like the Parivartan Chowk in Lucknow. The offshoot of Dalit assertion is that the Phule couple- Jyotiba and his wife Savitri bai Phule have been exalted to the National arena.

Even Google created a doodle for her on 3^rd January 2017 her 186^th birthday.

Phule continues to inspire people around the country

The zeal to educate the underprivileged overcoming obstacles motivated Amit Gautam of Sarwagauhan/Singhgarh village in Holagarh block of Prayagraj District to open a Free Coaching and library.

Amit says that “When I came to my village I saw that a girl who passed 5^th standard and was  going to 6^th standard was not able to spell her name, she was also not knowing Hindi alphabet. Later I came to know that all the children in the village were on the same page. Only my family was the one which is a bit educated and I managed to do my graduation and Post-Graduation from Allahabad University. During my stint as a Research Intern in the Ministry of Child and Women development, I came to know about the contribution of Savitri Bai Phule and I began to teach the children on similar lines. My aim was to augment the primary education that they were getting in the school. We worked on their maths, English, etc. We used to take informal classes in the open or at home. The girls are also taught about hygiene.”

Talking about the current premises he says “I approached the Gram Pradhan but his response was not positive so my father suggested that we should use the spare land that we have and being influenced by Savitri Bai Phule and her struggles and I realized that if she can do it at the age of 17 in 19^th century why can’t I do it in 21^st century”, he says, "So I started crowd funding via social media and managed to collect the money for the construction of the library. But later realised that the money was sufficient only for the material butnot for the labour. The problem was also resolved when the villagers, which included the parents of the children offered Shramdaan (Voluntary labour). Subsequently I approached the people for the books and people duly donated books and some funds also.”

Premises

In 2021 the building was complete but for the inauguration of the building we chose 3rd January 2022- The birth anniversary of Mata Savitri Bai Phule.

Today we have 2000 books containing stories, poems etc. Which are read by about 300 children and women. The library has 400 members out of which 300 are children and 100 are women of the village. We teach the children about the Bahujan Nayak Nayikas. We also provide them basic computer literacy with the help of volunteers.

Savitri Bai Phule inspires us to remain undaunted by the challenges

Because we believe in the ideals of Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar and Savitri Bai Phule. So the Jai Bhim and Vandana of Mata Savitri Bai Phule irked some people and they tried to traduce the coaching institute by provoking the people of our society that He (Amit) is  collecting funds from abroad and is fooling you but the villagers were not convinced. Then they also filed false case against me but the people were with me because they believed that I am doing a good work. But I am undeterred by these intimidations as my inspiration is Savitri Bai Phule who braved such things in the 19^th century.