A Forgotten Liberator - The life and struggle of Savitribai Phule

Book Review

A Forgotten Liberator - The life and struggle of Savitribai Phule

ISBN 978-81-906277-0-2,

pp 95, price Rs.200/-

by KM Venugopal

This tiny book on the life of Savitribai Phule contains remarkable accounts by six authors on unique aspects of the lives and thoughts of the Phules each highlighting a different aspect. Some of the essays also tell us about  other women and men without whose active support, their struggles might not have taken the course they did. The names of Jyotirao and Savitri Phule, the couple who were great fighters for the cause of human dignity and reason, are not unheard by people outside Maharashtra. But there seems to be very little access to the details of their personal-political lives. This volume helps in a big way to fill the gap.

In a piece captioned “Love Letters Unlike Any Other”  with an  introduction by Sunil Sardar, there is a translation of three letters penned by  Savitri to Jyotiba in Marathi in 1856, 1868 and 1877.  They offer a remarkable insight into the relationship between the couple. There is a section with some rare photographs and illustrations depicting  key events in Savitri Phule’s personal and public life.

In another essay, entitled ‘Pioneering Engaged Writing’, Sunil  Sardar and Victor Paul  present translations of Savitri’s five poems written in Marati. These poems show the fervor with which early reformers of modern era greeted the agenda of education, particularly  English education which  had a refreshing content entirely different  from  which constituted  the traditional idea of learning.

There is a brief chronology of Savitribai’s life, a bibliography of her writings and a suggested list of readings appended to the book. A wonderful essay authored by Muktabai, a eleven year old  dalit girl who studied at the  Pune school for girls set up by the Phules, also comprises part of this volume. The essay was first published in 1855 in Dnyanodaya, a contemporary journal, and has been translated from the original Marathi. Braj Ranjan Mani, one of the editors, has also written an introduction to this essay.

Savitribai Phule and Jotiba Phule

In his detailed Introduction to the book, Mani observes: “It is indeed a measure of the ruthlessness of elite-controlled knowledge- production that a figure as important as Savitribai Phule fails to find any mention in the history of modern India. This is not to deny the works by Marati authors….Her life and struggle, however, deserves to be appreciated by a wider spectrum, and made known to non-Marati people as well..”

Commenting  about the relevance of the Phule struggles, the editor rightly points out : “..Their distinct brand of socio-cultural radicalism was based on uniting all the oppressed, whom they would call stree-shudra-atishudra”.

Often, questions initiated by extraordinary visionaries, seem casual and even ridiculous as they are first asked, but much later, their significance dawns on us: that what has happened was nothing less than historic. We then  learn to ask similar questions ourselves, though with much less confidence and in a timid voice. But as time passes we forget that they would never have reached our thoughts had they not been asked earlier with much personal courage and strength of conviction by those whose lives are the markers of milestones in history.

The unrelenting day-to-day struggles by which Savitribai Phule and her beloved life partner Jyotirao Phule almost upset an entire system of institutionalized privileges and deprivations are amply highlighted in this compilation. The Brahmanical hierarchy was disproportionately more powerful and firmly rooted in its ideology of exclusivity in comparison to the modernist interventions by Satyashodhak Samaj.

Through educational  activism motivated by the great values of social inclusion and egalitarianism,  the Phules had to undergo some of the  toughest challenge in their personal livesbut could sustain the extremely precarious dynamic of these struggles.

In these days of ‘post modern’ thinking, we often fail to look back to the painful historical processes through which a major chunk of the population of this country, comprising sections of Sudhras, Atisudras and women  could successfully voice  their  demands  for inclusion as dignified human beings.

Pamela Sardar in one of the essays  gives a touching account of  how Jyotiba’s  cousin, Sagunabai Kshirsagar mentored the Phule couple. As Jyotiba’s mother died when he was very young, Sugunabai  who was a child widow played the part of both his mother and mentor. There is an account of how Sugunabai intervened positively to change the entire course of life of Jyotiba.

Thanks to the help of her employer, a missionary Mr. John, who enabled Jyoti’s admission to school; and Mr. Leggit, an English Officer and a Muslim scholar Gaffar Beg, she succeeded  in getting Jyotiba’s father Govindarao reverse his decision to take back Jyotiba to the family business of selling flowers even  before completing his schooling.

A brahmin clerk working in his shop had persuaded the father to withdraw him saying, “Your son would  be of no use for business, and more important, our Hindu Dharma does not allow a shudra to get education. An educated shudra and his whole clan suffer in hell for seven generations!” As a brahmin’s words could not be ignored by a shudra in those times the father had complied, but Sugunabai’s foresight and timely intervention enabled him to be readmitted to school.

In another essay, Gail Omvedt sets out an equally interesting and touching  touching account related to  Savitribai’s mission of educating girls of the lower castes is given. Savitribai suffered not just constant verbal abuses from the  Brahman women in the neighborhood, but also had to carry two sets of clothing as she went to teach in the school for girls in Pune (which was founded by the couple in 1851).  Brahmin women regularly threw dung at her and men occasionally stoned her as she walked up to her school.!

Similarly, Cynthia Stephen writes in her piece entitled “The Stuff Legends are made of” : “The young couple faced severe opposition from almost all sections. Savitribai was subject to intense harassment everyday as she walked to the school. Stones, mud and dirt were flung at her as she passed”.

Cynthia goes further to describe how the perseverance of the Phules succeeded in spite of all these malicious deeds by representatives of the Brahmanical mainstream. By gaining the goodwill of people from different walks of life including a distinguished Muslim gentleman, few scholars, officials and educationists the schools run by the Phules got firmly established in a short period of time. By  1852 November, the educational department of the government even organized a public felicitation of the Phule couple.

There is another interesting narration of an attempt on the life of Phule by two dalit men hired by local Brahmans. They broke into his home with swords to assassinate him one hight, and how they were left terribly impressed by the great personality. Following a brief dialogue with these misguided persons, these men ended up joining the revolutionary  in his plank of social reform.

The bold strides made by Savithribai and her husband through the Satyasodhak Samaj, in providing the most needed social space for widows, children of unwed mothers subjected to ostracism by the Hindu culture, remarrying of young Hindu widows sans ceremonial service of Brahman priests, educating women and the underprivileged etc., would perhaps be unthinkable even for the present day reformers in spite of being equipped by the unique constitutional mechanism of Independent India.

Victor Paul  in the essay titled ‘A Relentless Truth seeker’ lashes out at the Brahmanical nationalists while  juxtaposing their typical attitude with that of the  Phule couple’s preceding agenda of social reforms in the pre independent India: “(Nationalism in India….)While depicting the British period as a shameful and forgettable episode in an otherwise glorious historical and cultural saga of their nation, the nationalists conveniently overlook the fact that they themselves were the great beneficiaries of the plunder of the colonial era.

Not surprisingly, almost  all nationalist intellectual exercises of the period, appear to be an attempt to hoodwink the masses by blaming the British for all uncomfortable and nefarious internal issues..”

Many of the vital aspects of reforms taken up by Jyotiba and Savitribai  remain to be fulfilled these days, despite the heightened awareness on caste and Hinduism thanks to the teachings of Babasaheb Ambedkar and by many others  later. Unfortunately for many of us, this state of affairs is much likely to continue as long as the failure of the agenda of social reforms does not get acknowledged at a wider level.  This book arrives at precisely this juncture to remind us of this fact, both in first person accounts and otherwise.

It would be worthwhile to quote Gopal Guru : “..Dalits are expected to take the initiative in giving moral lead to doing theory in the country. This orientation would thus remove the  cultural hierarchies that tend to divide social science practice into theoretical brahmins and empirical shudras. Ultimately social science in India would fulfill the fondest hopes by expanding the social base of its conceptual landscape…” (How Egalitarian Are Social Sciences In India?- EPW, 2001)