Ramabai Deshmukh

A pioneering Indian feminist and educator who established India's first women's university and campaigned against child marriage in the late 19th century.

Ramabai Deshmukh (1848–1922) shattered caste and gender barriers as India's first female Sanskrit scholar. Orphaned young, she traveled India as a scholar, mastering languages and confronting social injustices. In 1883, she founded the Arya Mahila Samaj, advocating women's education and widow remarriage. Her landmark 1888 institution The Hindu Widows' Home and Native Female School in Mumbai became India's first women's university, teaching 500 students annually by 1900. Her 1887 book 《The High Caste Hindu Woman》 exposed gender oppression, influencing global feminist movements. Despite British Raj resistance, she secured funding from international feminists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Modern scholars at Tata Institute of Social Sciences credit her with laying India's feminist intellectual framework. Her Pune-based school still operates today as a leading girls' college.