The Prime Minister has paid tribute to the great social reformer, thinker, philosopher and writer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule on his birth anniversary.

Mahatma Phule

• Jotirao Govindrao Phule was an Indian social activist, thinker, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra.
• His work extended to many fields, including the eradication of untouchability and the caste system and for his efforts in educating women and exploited 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 exploited 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 an honorific Mahātmā title by Maharashtrian social activist Vithalrao Krishnaji Vandekar in 1888.

His social work

Phule’s social activism included many fields, including the eradication of untouchability and the caste system, education of women and the Dalits, and welfare of downtrodden women.

1. Education

• In 1848, aged 21, Phule visited a girls’ school in Ahmadnagar, run by Christian missionaries.
• 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
• 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.

2. 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 travelled.
• 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 by witnessing all these social evils that encouraged inequality.
• 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.
• Along with his longtime friend Sadashiv Ballal Govande and Savitribai, he started an infanticide prevention centre.
• 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.

3. Views on religion and caste

• Phule recast Aryan invasion theory, proposing that the Aryan conquerors of India, 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 he considered the British to be relatively enlightened and not supportive of the varnashrama dharma system instigated and then perpetuated by those 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.
• 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.
• 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 the rights of depressed groups such as women, the Shudra, and the Dalit.
• Through this the samaj 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.

Published works

• Tritiya Ratna, 1855
• Manav Mahammand (Muhammad) (Abhang)
• Gulamgiri, 1873
• Sarvajanik Satya Dharma Poostak, April 1889
• Sarvajanic Satya Dharmapustak, 1891

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