The revolutionary and the shudratishudras

Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule

Edited with annotation and an introduction by GP Deshpande

LettWord Books, New Delhi, 2002

Price: INR 450

Pages: x+247

This elegantly produced book captures, through the writings of Jotirao Phule, the problems and dilemmas of the dalit movement in contemporary India. Phule, who is regarded as the founding father of the movement, was one of the foremost anti-caste activists of the 19th century and carried out his crusade against upper caste domination and exploitation at a time when several other social reform and nationalist organisations had also just begun to emerge. Some of these were the Sarvajanik Sabha, the Arya Samaj and the Indian National Congress, which tried to initiate social reform and instil nationalism at the same time. These organisations voiced the need for Western education, the social empowerment of women and the need for electoral reforms so that Indians could exercise their democratic rights. This socialintellectual ferment was the broad context in which Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1871. The Samaj itself was a culmination of long years of work that focused on improving the conditions of shudratishudras, the most discriminated segment of society caste-wise.

A part of this effort was the founding of a school for dalit girls in 1848. This was followed by the founding of a school for girls of all castes in 1851. This act signified not only the revolutionary character of Phule's movement but also its uniqueness in being the first to introduce practical attempts to break caste oppression, an aspect that was ignored by the social reform movements of that period. Writings on Jotirao Phule have generally tended to describe his movement as an exclusively anti-caste campaign for the rights of the shudratishudras. In the process, most writers sympathetic to Phule have posited a dichotomy between him and other high caste leaders of his time who were considered brahminical and anti-shudra. This overemphasis on the caste question has blunted the revolutionary content of Phule's ideology. Many of the existing historical works have seen Phule merely in terms of his opposition to brahminical nationalism on the one hand and the crystallisation of a non-brahmin identity on the other. In all these writings Phule is seen as either a social reformer or a popular political organiser, but never as a revolutionary. Such a narrow interpretation of Phule is quite unsatisfactory, especially in the current phase of Indian politics. It is imperative that those mounting the challenge to globalisation and communalism in present-day South Asia remain united on questions of egalitarianism, secularism and the rights of the poor if they are to succeed in securing the future of a majority of the population in the region. This is only possible if those aspects of dalit ideology which create the scope for joint action are retrieved from the oblivion that they have been consigned to by contemporary politics.

Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule attempts to do precisely this. The book includes the unabridged translations of two of Phule's major works The Cultivators Whip Cord and Slavery, besides other important tracts on women's equality, education and religion. The introduction to the volume by the well-known Marathi critic and playright GP Deshpande brings out in stark detail the different strands of Phule's thought, particularly the revolutionary edge of his writings that is generally lost in the restricted discussion of his caste reformism. Placing his own interpretation in the context of the existing historiography, Deshpande examines the ideas that enabled Phule to have "a broad sweeping vision" and become a "systembuilding activist"(p 5). Deshpande's understanding of Phule not only revises the existing histories of the non-brahmin movement in India but also gives Phule's ideas a much wider scope and context.

The editor's introduction argues that Phule was first and foremost a revolutionary who viewed the society of his time in terms of a bipolar opposition between shudratishudras and brahmins. In this sense, Phule's construct was quite similar to the way in which a bipolar opposition was created by Marx between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in his analysis of modern society (p 8). The methodological similarity in the works of these two important thinkers of the 19th century from very different societies is striking. Phule's introduction to Slavery (1873) illustrates this point. He writes, "The institution of caste, which is the main object of their [the brahmins] laws, had no existence amongst them originally. That this was an after creation of their own cunning is evident from their own writings. The highest rights, the highest privileges and gifts, and everything that would make the life of a brahmin easy, smooth and happy – everything that would con serve or flatter their self pride – were especially inculcated and enjoyed, whereas the Sudras and Atisudras were regarded with supreme hatred and contempt and the commonest rights of humanity were denied to them". (p 29)

This dichotomy is further exemplified when Phule discusses this contradiction in Cultivator's Whipcord (1883), where he explicitly states that all labouring farmers belong to one caste, and that is the caste of the sudras. It is significant that Phule makes no distinction between pastoralists, peasants and gardeners who he considers a part of the larger shudra farmer caste (p 118). In this context, it would appear that the opposition that is posited between dalit and Marxist ideologies may not be as irreconcilable as is being made out today by some thinkers and activists. Another interesting and important aspect of Phule's writings is the manner in which he conceptualised caste. For him caste was dual in character, being both a category of the production process, and an ideology used by brahmins to dominate others. Most selections in this volume show this dual aspect of caste.

Phule highlights this dualism by retelling the stories of Hindu mythologies and answering questions about the nature of oppression that they embody. In Slavery, Phule recounts the famous myth of the brahmin hero, Parasuram, in a manner that ridicules brahminical theology. In an imaginary letter to the "immortal Brahmin" he challenges the latter's claim to chaste and moral stature and attempts to demystify the brahminical order. He does this by showing that the brahmin is cunning, a cheat and cowardly in character (p 70). There are several other instances where Phule exhibits his mastery in showing the varieties of political and cultural forms of brahminical manipulation. This is most evident in the Cultivator's Whipcord where he demonstrates how brahmins dupe sudras, take over their land and make them bonded labourers. Further, they also create rituals in order to deprive sudras of their meagre income and produce (pp 141-49).

The Book of True Faith (1891) is Phule's last seminal work and the epitome of his revolutionary thought. Here Phule set out to demolish the myths created by the brahmins and argued that true Hinduism is bereft of caste discrimination. In his arguments with his adopted son, Yashwant Phule, he advocated a world with one caste and one god. It is significant that he described Islam and the Islamic rulers of India as people who should have liberated society from the caste system, but instead they chose a life of luxury and its attendant corruptions. He saw the advent of British rule as another opportunity that could achieve the aim of a complete overhauling of Hinduism and the eradication of caste differentiation (pp 235-36). This is mainly because he considered Islam and Christianity as monotheistic religions which postulated the equality of all people.

Central contradictions

Phule's writings on women, education, literature and his defence of Pandita Ramabai's conversion to Christianity also reveal the radical content of his thought. In all these documents Phule describes the main social, economic and cultural conflicts of his times in terms of the central contradiction between brahmins and sudras. While the similarity between Phule's method and that of Marx is evident in these writings, there is one important difference between the two, namely in the understanding of imperialism and colonial government. As Deshpande points out, both Marx and Phule viewed British rule historically, in that they felt that it would shatter the traditional fabric of Indian society. But the important difference between the two was that Phule and his successors did not see imperialism dialectically (p 19). This means that their caste perspective often blunted their vision of the class contradictions that existed between the elites and the toiling masses, thus ignoring the dual character of imperialism. Hence they took softer and softer positions on British imperialism, and ended up believing that only the British and the missionaries would create conditions that would liberate the shudratishudras from their plight.

As Deshpande points out at the end of his introduction, despite the important contribution of Phule's revolutionary thought, the genesis of the dilemmas of the dalit movement today can also be found in Phule's thought. The tendency to overlook the sins of imperialism as the single most exploitative force in the past and the present has led to the absence of any discussion on the nature and the impact of globalisation and 20th century imperialism amongst the dalit intelligentsia of today. This is reflected in the Bhopal Document of January 2002, which charts out the transformatory agenda of a significant and influential section of dalit opinion in north India. A large segment of this intelligentsia in India has accepted globalisation as a solution to the problems of the community.

Deshpande argues that the tensions inherent in Phule's writings are present in the dalit movement in Maharashtra today in a more accentuated form than ever before. Instead of seeing Marxists and leftists as their allies, the current dalit leadership sees them, rather than rightwing chauvinism, as their prime enemy (p 20). He, therefore, pleads that Phule's revolutionary thought should not just be retrieved but also applied to contemporary circumstances. In other words, Phule's desire that the oppressed shudras (not necessarily a caste category in his terms) would lead a struggle against an oppressive system should provide a plank for the unity of the contemporary struggles against imperialism and caste oppression. In this sense, this volume provides a unique opportunity to initiate a dialogue between dalit and leftist thinkers.