Remembering #JyotiraoPhule (1827-1890) on the anniversary of his birth.
In Maharashtra, Jyotirao Phule worked in partnership with his wife, Savitribai, as they championed education.
In Maharashtra, Jyotirao Phule worked in partnership with his wife, Savitribai, as they championed education.
Together, they founded a school for girls, with Savitribai as its first teacher, and continued to open more schools for Mulnivasi children. Notably, Phule conceived the name “Dalit” (broken) to describe the Ati-Shudras.
According to a biographical sketch, “Phule was firm in his belief that the emancipation of the women, Shudras, and Ati-Shudras could be achieved only through the total annihilation of the Brahmanical culture system.”
Insisting on the urgency and primacy of “the education of the masses,” Phule declares, “Let there be schools for the Shudras in every village; but away with all Brahman schoolmasters!” Moreover, he affirms the universal equality of all people, stating:
"All men and women are, by birth, independent and are entitled to enjoy all due human rights.... Our Creator has graciously bestowed all human rights on all men and women, without any distinction. No particular man or a group has any right to oppress any human being."
In his 1873 book, Slavery, he explained how the caste system brainwashes members of society by producing a colonial mentality wherein the degraded feel incapable of surviving without those who degrade them.
Describing the synergy between the oppressor and the oppressed, he writes, "How far the Brahmans have succeeded in their endeavors to enslave the minds of the Shudra and Ati-Shudra, those of them who have come to know the true state of matters know well....
.... The Brahman had, at last, so contrived to entwine himself round the Shudra in every large or small undertaking, in every domestic or public business, that the latter is by custom quite unable to transact any concern of moment without his aid....
.... The Shudra, on the other hand, is so far reconciled to the Brahman yoke that, like the American slave, he would resist any attempt that may be made for his deliverance and fight even against his benefactor."
According to Phule, Manusmriti was one of the foundations of the caste system; it was also a reason for the abject ignorance of the masses.
He famously states, “Without education, wisdom was lost; without wisdom, morals were lost; without morals, development was lost; without development, wealth was lost; without wealth, the Shudras were ruined; so much has happened through lack of education.”
In his 1881 book, The Whipcord of the Cultivators, he further elaborates, "When the original Arya Bhat-Brahman regime was started in this country, they forbade knowledge to the Shudras and so have been able to loot them at will for thousands of years....
.... Evidence for this will be found in such self-interested literature of theirs as the Manusmriti....
.... The Aryan Brahmans, in order to give them all kinds of harassment, made many selfish and tyrannous 'laws.' Among them some written points can be found in pitiless and partisan books such as Manu’s....
.... It was their cunning ancestors like Manu who established the fabrication of casteism in the filthy books of the Dharmashastras."
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