Fatima Sheikh never existed, I created her: Mandal

MANDAL, KNOWN IN THE PAST FOR HIS SHARP CRITIQUES OF HINDUTVA POLITICS HAS CHANGED HIS TRACK IN RECENT MONTHS. IN AUGUST 2024, HE WAS APPOINTED MEDIA ADVISOR IN THE I&B MINISTRY

- Yogesh Joshi

PUNE: Dilip Mandal, author, activist, and media advisor in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, stoked a controversy on Thursday when he claimed that Fatima Sheikh, widely celebrated as India's first Muslim school teacher, and who was a colleague of Savitribai Phule, never existed.

In a series of tweets, Mandal claimed that Sheikh was a "fictional character" who had been propped up by him in the past. "Fatima Sheikh is more of a modern folklore or myth—a figure constructed without historical or textual evidence," he posted on X.

Fatima Sheikh, as described in various writings, was believed to be a close associate of Savitribai Phule. She was believed to have helped Jotiba and Savitribai establish India's first school for girls in Pune and was regarded as the first Muslim woman teacher in India. The school at Bhide wada in central Pune was set up by the Phule family on January 1, 1848, and later came to be regarded as a pioneering institution for the education of girls.

On January 9, 2022, Google honoured Sheikh's life with a doodle on her 191st birth anniversary which put her pioneering work in national spotlight. In his tweets Mandal however asserted that even the image attributed to Fatima Sheikh was fabricated.