Jyotiba Phule

           

           Mahatma Phule, as he was also known, was an Indian social reformer and an activist who worked towards equality regardless of caste.Jyotirao Govindrao Phule was a thinker and a writer. His work related mainly to eradication of untouchability and caste system, emancipation and empowerment of women, reform of Hindu family life.

            He coined the word “Dalit” for the downtrodden lower caste people of India. He also formed in 1873, the satyashodhak samaj for demanding equal rights for people from lower castes.Phule is considered as one of the most prominent personalities who brought social reforms in Maharashtra.

           Along with his wife, Savitribai Phule, he is regarded as pioneers of women’s education in India. They were the first native Indians to open a school for girls in India way back in August 1848.Jyotirao Govindrao Phule was born in 1827 in Satara district of Maharashtra.His family belonged to Gorhe caste, which was considered lowly. Due to their expertise in growing and selling flowers, they took up the surname Phule or flower-dealer.

They also delivered flowers to Peshva Baji Rao 2, who granted them 35 acces of land. His father Govindrao and mother Chimnabai also grew and sold flowers. Jyotirao was the youngest of two brothers.Jyotirao attended primary school and then left further schooling to do his family work of growing and selling flowers. He was married at the age of 13, to a girl of his community.

           He was persuaded to attend the local Scottish Mission High School, from where he completed his English schooling in 1847.In 1848, an incident occurred that changed his life. Phule had gone to attend the marriage ceremony of one of his Brahmin friend.He was insulted by his friend’s parents that as he belonged to the low caste, he should have stayed away.

           Phule visited the first girls’ school in Ahmadnagar which was run by Christian missionaries. He was also influenced by Thomas Paine’s book Rights of Man.He realized that lower castes and women were the most disadvantaged sections of society and only education can emancipate them.

He encouraged and helped his wife Savitribai to read and write. Then the couple started the first indigenously-run school for girls in Pune.Since they were ostracized by their community, they stayed in the home of their friend Usman Sheikh and his sister Fatima Sheikh, in whose premises the school was run.

He started schools for the Mahar and Mang castes, which were considered untouchables.Phule also worked for widow remarriage and in 1863, opened a home for pregnant Brahmin widows to give birth in a safe and secure place.He opened an orphanage to avoid infanticide.He also tried to eliminate untouchability and opened his house and use of his well to people from the lower castes.

          Phule considered the Aryans as a barbaric race who suppressed the indigenous people and instituted the caste system as a framework for subjugation and ensure the pre-eminence of the Brahmins. He had  similar views for the Muslim conquest of India.He considered the British as relatively enlightened and liberal. In his book, Gulamgiri, he thanked them to make the lower caste realize they were worthy of human rights. He dedicated his book to the people of America who were abolishing slavery. Phule saw Rama as a symbol of oppression stemming from the Aryan conquest. He also attacked the Vedas and considered them to be a form of false consciousness.