Our Pride
Jyotirao Govindrao Phule
(11 April 1827 – 28 November 1890) was an
Indian social activist, a thinker, anti-caste social reformer and
a writer from Maharashtra.
His
work extended to many fields including eradication of untouchability and
the caste system,
women's emancipation and the reform of Hindu family life. On 24 September 1873,
Phule, along with his followers, formed the Satyashodhak Samaj (Society of Seekers of Truth) to
attain equal rights for people from lower castes. Phule is regarded as an
important figure of the social reform movement in Maharashtra. He and his wife, Savitribai Phule, were pioneers of women's
education in India. He is most known for his efforts to educate women and lower
caste people. The couple were among the first native Indians to open a school
for girls in India in August 1848.
Early life
Jyothirao Govindrao Phule was born in 1827 into a family
that belonged to the Mali caste, traditionally occupied as gardeners and
considered to be of the kshatriya varna in
the ritual ranking system of Hinduism.[2] The original surname of the family had been Gorhe and
had its origins in the village of Katgun,
in present day Satara District, Maharashtra. Phule's
great-grandfather worked as a chaugula, a lowly type of
village servant, in that village but had to move to Khanwadi in Poona
district after murdering a Brahmin with
whom he had a dispute. He prospered there but his only son, Shetiba, who was of
poor intelligence, subsequently squandered what had been gained. Shetiba moved
himself and his family, including three boys, to Poona in search of
some form of income. The boys were taken under the wing of a florist, who
taught them his trade. Their proficiency in growing and arranging became well
known and they adopted the name of Phule (flower-man) in place
of Gorhe.[3] Their fulfilment of commissions from the Peshwa, Baji Rao II,
for flower mattresses and other goods for the rituals and ceremonies of the
royal court so impressed him that he granted them 35 acres (14 ha) of land
on the basis of the inam system, whereby no tax would
be payable upon it.[2] The oldest brother machinated to take sole control of
the property, leaving the younger two siblings, including Jyotirao Phule's
father, Govindrao, to continue farming and flower-selling.[3]
Govindrao married Chimnabai and had two sons, of whom
Jyotirao was the younger. Chimnabai died before he was aged one.[3] The Mali community did not set much store by
education, and after attending primary school to learn the basics of reading,
writing and arithmetic, Jyotirao was withdrawn 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.[4][b] Phule completed his English schooling in 1847. As was
customary, he was married young, at the age of 13, to a girl of his own
community, chosen by his father.[citation needed]
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 lower 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 activism
In
1848, aged 23, Phule visited the first 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 realised that lower castes and women were at a
disadvantage in Indian society, and also that education of these sections was
vital to their emancipation.[6]
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. Ostracised for this by their family and community, their
friend Usman Sheikh and his sister Fatima Sheikh provided them their
home to stay. They also helped to start the school in their premises.[7] Later, the Phules
started schools for children from the Mahar and Mang castes, which were both
considered to be untouchable.[citation
needed] In 1852, there were
three Phule schools in operation but by 1858 they had all ended. Eleanor Zelliot blames the closure on
private European donations drying up due to the Mutiny of 1857, withdrawal of
government support, and Jyotirao resigning from the school management committee
because of disagreement regarding the curriculum.[8] He championed widow remarriage and started a home for
pregnant Brahmin widows to give birth in a safe and secure place in 1863.[9] His orphanage was
established in an attempt to reduce the rate of infanticide.[10] Phule tried to
eliminate the stigma of social untouchability surrounding the lower castes by
opening his house and the use of his water-well to the members of the lower
castes.
Views on religion and caste
Phule
recast the prevailing 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 those previous invaders.[11][c] In his book, Gulamgiri, he thanked Christian
missionaries and the British colonists for making the lower castes realise that
they are worthy of all human rights.[13] 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.[14]
Phule
saw Rama,
the hero of the Indian epic Ramayana, as a symbol of oppression
stemming from the Aryan conquest.[15][page needed] His critique of the
caste system began with an attack on the Vedas,
the most fundamental texts of upper-caste Hindus.[16] He considered them to
be a form of false consciousness.[17]
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.[18]
At
an education commission hearing in 1884, Phule called for help in providing
education for lower 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 classes.[9] Through this he opposed idolatry and denounced the caste
system. Satyashodhak Samaj campaigned for the spread of rational thinking and
rejected the need for priests. Savitribai became the head of the women's
section, which included ninety female members.[citation
needed] After Phule's death in
1890 his followers continued the Samaj campaign in the remote parts of
Maharashtra
Published works
Phule's akhandas were organically linked
to the abhangs of Marathi Varkari
saint Tukaram.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
·
Satsar Ank 1, June 1885
·
Satsar Ank 2, October 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
·
Asprashyanchi Kaifiyat
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