Death Anniversary of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule
𝐉𝐲𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐨 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐨 𝐏𝐡𝐮𝐥𝐞 (11 April 1827 – 28 November 1890) was an Indian social activist, thinker, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra. His work extended to many fields, including eradication of untouchability and the caste system, and educating women and oppressed caste people. He and his wife, Savitribai Phule, were pioneers of women’s education in India. Phule started his first school for girls in 1848 in Pune at Tatyasaheb Bhide’s residence or Bhidewada. He, along with his followers, formed the Satyashodhak Samaj (Society of Truth Seekers) to attain equal rights for people from lower castes. People from all religions and castes could become a part of this association which worked for the upliftment of the oppressed classes. Phule is regarded as an important figure in the social reform movement in Maharashtra. He was bestowed with honorific Mahātmā title by Maharashtrian social activist Vithalrao Krishnaji Vandekar in 1888
𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄
Jyotirao Govindrao Phule was born in Pune, in 1827 to a family that belonged to the Mali caste. The Malis traditionally worked as fruit and vegetable growers: in the four-fold varna system of caste hierarchy, they were placed within the Shudras, or the lowest-ranking group. Phule’s family, previously named Gorhe, had its origins in the village of Katgun, near the town of Satara.
Govindrao married Chimnabai and had two sons, of whom Jyotirao was the youngest. Chimnabai died before he was aged one. The Mali community did not make room for much by education, and after attending primary school to learn the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, Jyotirao dropped out from school. He joined the menfolk of his family at work, both in the shop and the farm. However, a Christian convert from the same Mali caste as Phule recognised his intelligence and persuaded Phule’s father to allow Phule to attend the local Scottish Mission High School. Phule completed his English schooling in 1847. As was customary, he was married at the age of 13, to a girl of his own community, chosen by his father.
The turning point in his life was in 1848, when he attended the wedding of a Brahmin friend. Phule participated in the customary marriage procession, but was later rebuked and insulted by his friend’s parents for doing that. They told him that he being from a Shudra caste should have had the sense to keep away from that ceremony. This incident profoundly affected Phule on the injustice of the caste system.
𝐒𝐎𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊
In 1848, aged 21, Phule visited a girls’ school in Ahmadnagar, run by Christian missionaries. It was also in 1848 that he read Thomas Paine’s book Rights of Man and developed a keen sense of social justice. He realized that exploited castes and women were at a disadvantage in Indian society, and also that education of these sections was vital to their emancipation. To this end and in the same year, Phule first taught reading and writing to his wife, Savitribai, and then the couple started the first indigenously-run school for girls in Pune. The conservative upper caste society of Pune didn’t approve of his work. But many Indians and Europeans helped him generously. Conservatives in Pune also forced his own family and community to ostracize them. During this period, their friend Usman Sheikh and his sister Fatima Sheikh provided them with a roof over their heads. They also helped to start the school on their premises. Later, the Phules started schools for children from the then untouchable castes such as Mahar and Mang. In 1852, there were three Phule schools in operation and around 273 girls were pursuing education in these school but by 1858 they had all closed. Eleanor Zelliot blames the closure on private European donations drying up due to the Indian Mutiny of 1857, withdrawal of government support, and Jyotirao resigning from the school management committee because of disagreement regarding the curriculum.
𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍’𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐅𝐀𝐑𝐄
Phule watched how untouchables were not permitted to pollute anyone with their shadows and that they had to attach a broom to their backs to wipe the path on which they had traveled. He saw young widows shaving their heads, refraining from any sort of joy in their life. He saw how untouchable women had been forced to dance naked. He made the decision to educate women after witnessing all these social evils that encouraged inequality. He began with his wife; every afternoon, Jyotirao sat with his wife Savitribai Phule and educated her when she went to the farms where he worked to earn a living. He sent his wife to get trained at a school. The husband and wife set up India’s first girls’ school in Vishrambag Wada, Pune, in 1848.
He championed widow remarriage and started a home for dominant caste pregnant widows to give birth in a safe and secure place in 1863. His orphanage was established in an attempt to reduce the rate of infanticide.
In 1863, Pune witnessed a horrific incident. A Brahmin widow named Kashibai got pregnant and her attempts at abortion didn’t succeed. She killed the baby after giving it birth and threw it in a well, but her act came to light. She had to face punishment and was sentenced to jail. This incident greatly upset Phule and hence, along with his longtime friend Sadashiv Ballal Govande and Savitribai, he started an infanticide prevention centre. Pamphlets were stuck around Pune advertising the centre in the following words: “Widows, come here and deliver your baby safely and secretly. It is up to your discretion whether you want to keep the baby in the centre or take it with you. This orphanage will take care of the children [left behind]”. The Phule couple ran the infanticide prevention centre till the mid-1880s.
Phule tried to eliminate the stigma of social untouchability surrounding the exploited castes by opening his house and the use of his water-well to the members of the exploited castes.
𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖𝐒 𝐎𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄
Phule recast Aryan invasion theory of history, proposing that the Aryan conquerors of India, whom the theory’s proponents considered to be racially superior, were in fact barbaric suppressors of the indigenous people. He believed that they had instituted the caste system as a framework for subjugation and social division that ensured the pre-eminence of their Brahmin successors. He saw the subsequent Muslim conquests of the Indian subcontinent as more of the same sort of thing, being a repressive alien regime, but took heart in the arrival of the British, whom he considered to be relatively enlightened and not supportive of the varnashramadharma system instigated and then perpetuated by previous invaders. In his book, Gulamgiri, he thanked Christian missionaries and the British colonists for making the exploited castes realise that they are worthy of all human rights. The book, whose title transliterates as slavery and which concerned women, caste and reform, was dedicated to the people in the US who were working to end slavery.
Phule saw Rama, the hero of the Indian epic Ramayana, as a symbol of oppression stemming from the Aryan conquest. His critique of the caste system began with an attack on the Vedas, the most fundamental texts of Hindus. He considered them to be a form of false consciousness.
He is credited with introducing the Marathi word dalit (broken, crushed) as a descriptor for those people who were outside the traditional varna system. The terminology was later popularised in the 1970s by the Dalit Panthers.
At an education commission hearing in 1882, Phule called for help in providing education for exploited castes. To implement it, he advocated making primary education compulsory in villages. He also asked for special incentives to get more lower-caste people in high schools and colleges.
𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐘𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐃𝐇𝐀𝐊 𝐒𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐉
On 24 September 1873, Phule formed Satyashodhak Samaj to focus on rights of depressed groups such women, the Shudra, and the Dalit. Through this initiative, he opposed idolatry and denounced the caste system. Satyashodhak Samaj campaigned for the spread of rational thinking and rejected the need for priests.
Phule established Satyashodhak Samaj with the ideals of human well-being, happiness, unity, equality, and easy religious principles and rituals. A Pune-based newspaper, Deenbandhu, provided the voice for the views of the Samaj.
The membership of the samaj included Muslims, Brahmins and government officials. Phule’s own Mali caste provided the leading members and financial supporters for the organization.
𝐎𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍
Apart from his role as a social activist, Phule was a businessman too. In 1882 he styled himself as a merchant, cultivator and municipal contractor. He owned 60 acres (24 ha) of farmland at Manjri, near Pune. For a short period of time, he worked as a contractor for the government and supplied building materials required for the construction of a dam on the Mula-Mutha river near Pune in the 1870s. He also received contracts to provide labour for the construction of the Katraj Tunnel and the Yerawda Jail near Pune. One of Phule’s businesses, established in 1863, was to supply metal-casting equipment.
Phule was appointed commissioner (municipal council member) to the then Poona municipality in 1876 and served in this unelected position until 1883.
𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒 𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃
Among his notable published works are:
Tritiya Ratna, 1855
Brahmananche Kasab, 1869
Powada : Chatrapati Shivajiraje Bhosle Yancha, [English: Life Of Shivaji, In Poetical Metre], June 1869
Powada: Vidyakhatyatil Brahman Pantoji, June 1869
Manav Mahammand (Muhammad) (Abhang)
Gulamgiri, 1873
Shetkarayacha Aasud (Cultivator’s Whipcord), July 1881
Satsar Ank 1, June 1885
Satsar Ank 2 June 1885
Ishara, October 1885
Gramjoshya sambhandi jahir kabhar, (1886)
Satyashodhak Samajokt Mangalashtakasah Sarva Puja-vidhi, 1887
Sarvajanik Satya Dharma Poostak, April 1889
Sarvajanic Satya Dharmapustak, 1891
Akhandadi Kavyarachana
Asprushyanchi Kaifiyat