The saddening suicide of Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad has brought the issue of caste-based discrimination at the centre of political and intellectual discourse. Upper castes are not willing to tolerate even a slight increase in the social, economic and educational condition of the Dalits and other lower castes. Everyday reports appear in newspapers about incidents of gross caste-based discrimination and we tend to increasingly become insensitive towards them and stop taking their notice.
Even in 2016, school children in Bihar boycott a woman cook because she belongs to a low caste. In Rajasthan, a Dalit groom cannot arrive at the house of his bride, who by the way happens to be a CISF constable, riding on a horse because that is supposed to be exclusive privilege of the upper castes.
Dalit political leaders are solely interested in the pursuit of power and money. There is no denying the fact that the rise of Mayawati as a formidable Dalit leader, who became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh thrice, has given the Dalits a renewed sense of confidence and self-esteem. However, instead of striving to raise the level of consciousness among the Dalits by propagating the ideas of Dalit thinkers, she indulged in mere tokenism by creating Ambedkar Parks, erecting statues of Ambedkar, Kanshiram and her own and naming several places after Dalit icons.
In 1997, she carved out a new district by merging three tehsils of Moradabad district – Amroha, Dhanora and Hasanpur – and named it Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Nagar. Most people in the State were not even familiar with the name of Jyotiba Phule and Mayawati made no effort to educate them about him or his ideas. In 2012, the Akhilesh Yadav government that swears by social justice changed the name of the new district to Amroha.
Jyotiba Phule (1827-1890), whom Maharashtrians call Jotiba or Jotirao Phule, was India’s first Dalit reformer who offered a systematic theory of caste and emerged as the most radical opponent of the caste system in the 19th Century. Instead of reforming the caste system, he pleaded for complete demolition of its oppressive structure. B.R. Ambedkar was in a sense his ideological successor. Little wonder that one of the seminal works of Ambedkar carries the title “Annihilation of Caste”. He had prepared it in 1935 as a speech and sent it to Jaat-Paat Todo Mandal which had invited him to preside over its conference in Lahore. However, his critique of Hindu scriptures was too much to swallow for the organisers and they withdrew the invitation. Gandhi, who had serious differences with Ambedkar, criticised the organisation for withdrawing the invitation.
Fortunately, Jotiba Phule’s writings that were originally in Marathi are now available in English as well as Hindi. In English, LeftWord Books brought out an excellent selection of his writings. The late G.P. Deshpande, who was equally famous as a Sinologist as he was as a front-ranking Marathi playwright, edited it with his own detailed annotations. Radhakrishna Prakashan published his collected works “Mahatma Jotiba Phule Rachanavali” in two volumes that were translated and edited by L.G. Meshram in “Vimalkirti”.
Sanjay Jothe has written a book “Jyotiba Phule: Jeevan aur Vichar” on Phule for Dakhal Prakashan. It combines his biography with a succinct discussion of his ideas.
It gives us some idea about how great a visionary Phule was when we come to know that as early as 1848, he opened the first-ever school for Dalit girls in Pune, a city whose social, cultural and educational life was dominated by conservative Maharashtrian Brahmin values. When he could not find a teacher for it, his wife Savitribai Phule took up the challenge. She too became a Dalit icon in due course on account of her dedicated work and progressive ideas.
“Ghulamgiri” (Slavery) and “Shetkaryacha Asud” (Cultivator’s Whipcord) are central to Jotiba Phule’s thought. He also extensively used the term Shudratishudra to denote what Nitish Kumar in Bihar would call Maha-Dalit. His thinking was carried forward by Ambedkar as is clear by the way Phule replied to Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade’s invitation to participate in the second plenary session of the Conference of Marathi Authors that was to be held on May 24, 1885.
In his letter to Ranade, Phule wrote, “We must ourselves think about our situation and how we should relate to these upper-caste people. If these leaders of men are genuinely interested in unifying all people they must address themselves to the discovery of the root of eternal love of all human being.” As pointed out by Deshpande, the last sentence of this letter – “Sadhe boke buddheka yeh pahla salaam lev” – is written in a dialect which the Muslims of Western Maharashtra use in their speech. Phule was from the Mali (gardener) caste and he clearly seemed to suggest that this “Musalmani” or “Bagwani” speech was as much Marathi as the Brahmanical speech.
Jotiba Phule died in 1890. Is it a coincidence that Ambedkar was born in 1891?
The writer is a senior literary critic
