Mahatma Jyotiba Phule was born on 11 April 1827 in Katgun village near Satara, Maharashtra, and left the world on 28 November 1890 in Pune at the age of 63. But in those 63 years, he transformed the moral imagination of an entire nation. His was not just a life lived; it was a life fought, a life offered wholly to the cause of justice, equality, and human dignity. Every moment of Phule’s journey was devoted to the upliftment and liberation of the oppressed. He stood fearlessly with those whom society pushed to the margins: with communities crushed by caste, with women whose lives were restricted by patriarchy, and with poor farmers bound by exploitation. Jyotiba Phule keenly observed the brutal everyday realities faced by those deemed “untouchable”: people forbidden from walking freely on public streets, denied water from common wells, humiliated at temple gates, and excluded entirely from the social and moral life of the nation. These injustices did not make him silent, bitter, or resigned. Instead, they ignited within him an unshakeable fire, a fire that shaped his entire existence. Jyotiba Phule transformed anger into action, empathy into revolution, and moral courage into a lifelong struggle for a society where every human being could stand with dignity and equality.
The great partnership of Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule
In 1840, Jyotiba Phule married Savitribai Phule, a union that would later become a beacon of social transformation in India, defying rigid age-old customs and societal norms. Their journey of revolution began on 1 January 1848, when they courageously opened the country’s first school for girls at Bhide Wada in Pune. What started as a single school quickly became a movement. Between 1848 and 1852, the Phules established eighteen schools, educating over four hundred children. Every day, Savitribai walked to school facing mobs that hurled stones, mud, thorns, and cow dung at her. But their courage was unwavering.
Their partnership transcended the ordinary bounds of marriage. It was emotional, political, moral, and revolutionary. Together, they formed a bond rooted in profound love, mutual respect, and unwavering equality. They were not merely husband and wife; they were comrades, co-pilots in a shared mission to uplift the oppressed and challenge entrenched hierarchies. In one another, they found strength, inspiration, and a purpose greater than themselves. Their love was not confined to the walls of their home; it radiated outward, embracing every marginalized soul they served.
Their home became a sanctuary. Rooms were always kept ready with food and water for those in need, and their courtyard well, the first private well in India to be opened to oppressed communities, symbolised their commitment to equality. In 1854, the Phules established the first home for widows and orphaned children, offering safety, dignity, and love to countless women who had been abandoned or ostracised by society and by their families. They rescued widows exiled by their families, even adopting a child named Yashwant, raising him with affection. Yashwant would grow up to become a doctor, a living testament to the Phules’ unwavering belief in human dignity and equality.
Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule exemplified the transformative power of true partnership. They showed the world that love is not merely an emotion but a steadfast commitment: to stand together for justice, to hold each other’s hand through every storm, and to build a society where every human being can live with dignity. Their life together remains one of the most inspiring examples of what a couple can achieve when affection, respect, and shared purpose guide both life and work.
Satyashodhak Samaj – A revolutionary path towards equality and self-respect
On 24 September 1873, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule laid the foundation of the Satyashodhak Samaj (Society of Truth-Seekers) in Pune. This was not just an organisation; it was the first collective movement in India that openly challenged the dominance of privileged castes and welcomed people from all communities as equals. At a time when society was deeply soaked in rituals, hierarchy, and discrimination, Phule offered an alternative rooted in dignity and justice. Guided by the motto “Seek truth, spread truth, live by truth,” the Samaj rejected the hegemony of conservative traditions, extravagant rituals, dowry practices, and all forms of blind faith that kept the poor indebted and powerless.
Instead, it introduced a new way of living, simple, rational, humane. One of the greatest contributions of the Samaj was the creation of Satyashodhak marriage, a ceremony based solely on vows of love, mutual respect, and equality, no priest, no scripture, no fees, no unnecessary expenditure. The first such marriage was performed on 25 December 1873 between two individuals. This powerful act broke centuries of ritual control. Within years, thousands of families across Maharashtra embraced this model and freed themselves from debt, fear, and ritual exploitation.
The influence of the Samaj extended far beyond marriage. It organised ceremonies, community gatherings, and other rituals without the involvement of priests, placing spiritual and social agency back into the hands of the oppressed. Savitribai Phule, the soul of the movement, became the leader of the women’s wing. She travelled tirelessly from village to village, conducting meetings, starting night schools for working women, teaching them to read and write, and inspiring them to speak boldly in public. Under her leadership, the Samaj became a powerful platform for women’s awakening, centuries before the language of “feminism” came.
The Satyashodhak Samaj also created an alternative cultural world for the oppressed: songs, plays, stories, each rooted in self-respect and emancipation. For the first time, communities that were pushed to the margins found a cultural space where they did not need the “approval” of privileged castes to celebrate life or assert dignity.
The legacy of Satyashodhak Samaj continues even today. In many parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka, families still choose Satyashodhak marriage rites, proudly affirming the principles of equality and rationality laid down by Phule and Savitribai more than 150 years ago. Satyashodhak Samaj was not merely a reform movement; it was a revolution of thought, culture, and social relations. It offered India a new imagination of justice, and its echo continues to shape movements for equality even today.
Savitribai Phule carried the torch of revolution with extraordinary courage and compassion. When Mahatma Jyotiba Phule passed away on 28 November 1890 at the age of 63, Savitribai Phule stepped forward with unwavering determination and took full responsibility for the movement they had built together. She became the President of the Satyashodhak Samaj, guiding it with the spirit of equality, justice, and truth. Savitribai Phule continued to inspire thousands through her speeches, writings, and fearless work for the oppressed.
Her compassion shone brightest during the devastating plague of 1897, when she opened a hospital to serve the suffering. Day and night, she cared for patients, offering not only medical help but hope and dignity. In her final act of service, carrying a sick child to the hospital, she contracted the disease herself and passed away on 10 March 1897. Savitribai’s life ended in sacrifice, but her legacy remains eternal, a symbol of love, courage, and unwavering commitment to social justice.
Books and plays that shook the foundations of caste
Mahatma Jyotiba Phule wrote some of the most revolutionary books and plays of modern India. His writings were not mere texts; they were weapons against centuries of inequality. In his landmark work Gulamgiri (Slavery, 1873), Phule boldly declared that the caste system was nothing but a refined form of slavery. With remarkable clarity, he compared the sufferings of India’s oppressed communities with the struggles of enslaved African Americans, even dedicating the book to the abolitionists who fought to end slavery in the United States. This global imagination of equality was rare and courageous in 19th-century India.
Equally powerful was Shetkaryacha Asud (Cultivator’s Whipcord, 1883), a searing critique of the exploitation of farmers by the privileged castes and cunning moneylenders. In this book, Jyotiba Phule not only exposed the economic roots of caste oppression but also offered solutions, demanding land for those who actually tilled it and advocating for strong farmers’ cooperatives to break the cycle of debt and humiliation.
Phule’s pioneering spirit also extended to social drama. His play Trutiya Ratna (The Third Jewel, 1855) is considered one of the first modern Marathi plays aimed at awakening social consciousness. In it, he emphasised education as the “third jewel” essential to liberate oppressed communities from superstition, exploitation, and caste-based discrimination. The play embodies Phule’s enduring belief in knowledge as a tool of emancipation.
His Sarvajanik Satya Dharma Pustak (Book of True Religion for All, 1891), published posthumously, carried his lifelong vision to its highest point. Here, Jyotiba Phule proposed a universal religion based on truth, equality, compassion, and humanity. He rejected all rituals that divided people, offering instead a spiritual path where no human being would be considered superior or inferior.
Jyotiba Phule also wrote several plays, such as Akhandadi, which were performed in villages to bring awareness about caste injustice to ordinary people who could not read. These dramatic performances laid bare the cruelty of everyday caste practices and inspired audiences to question age-old customs. Together, these books, ballads, and plays did far more than educate; they shook the very foundation of caste society, awakened self-respect among the oppressed, and offered India a new moral vision built on equality, dignity, and truth.
The long silence of Indian academia
For decades after Independence, Indian academia maintained a troubling silence around the revolutionary voices of Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule, and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. School and college textbooks devoted generous pages to figures like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Gandhi, yet barely offered a few lines, if at all, to Jyotiba Phule, Baba Saheb Ambedkar, and almost nothing on Savitribai. Their fearless critique of Brahminical domination, their sharp attack on caste hierarchy, and their insistence on equality, women’s education, and the rights of the oppressed were seen as too unsettling for the privileged-caste academic establishment.
Many influential scholars deliberately kept their writings and struggles out of the mainstream syllabus, fearing that these truths would challenge long-standing privileges. Even today, their contributions are still not adequately acknowledged. Savitribai Phule, in particular, has never been given the due credit she deserves, the first woman teacher of India, who opened schools for girls and for oppressed communities, who fought patriarchy and caste simultaneously, who wrote poetry that ignited resistance, remains missing from the centre of academic and feminist discourse.
Savarna women, who dominate mainstream feminist spaces, often do not acknowledge the foundational contributions of Savitribai Phule. In their narratives of feminism, the ideas of Savitribai, Jyotiba Phule, and Babasaheb Ambedkar rarely appear, because acknowledging them would require confronting the deep entanglement of gender with caste. This absence is not accidental; it reflects a historical attempt to separate “women’s issues” from the oppressive structures of caste that the Phules and Dr. Ambedkar fought against. The prolonged academic and feminist erasure of these pioneers shows how deeply caste has shaped knowledge production in India.
Gail Omvedt and Eleanor Zelliot: Two voices who made Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule, and Dr. Ambedkar mainstream
For decades, Indian academia, shaped largely by privileged-caste scholars and Savarna frameworks, has pushed aside the revolutionary contributions of Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule, and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. Their intellectual fire, their ideas on equality, and their struggles for social transformation were often confined to the margins, treated as “regional reform,” “Dalit history,” or “social work,” never granted the philosophical and theoretical stature they deserved.
In this landscape of silence, invisibilisation, and erasure, two remarkable scholars, Gail Omvedt and Eleanor Zelliot, emerged as powerful, unwavering voices who insisted that these thinkers must stand at the centre of India’s intellectual, political, and historical imagination.
Gail Omvedt, with her sharp sociological lens and deep political commitment, redefined how the world understood caste, social movements, and anti-caste thought. She placed Jyotiba Phule not as a footnote to Indian reform but as one of the earliest architects of anti-caste ideology. Omvedt wrote about Phule and Savitribai as pioneering thinkers who challenged caste slavery, patriarchy, and religious hierarchy far before most Indian reformers even acknowledged these injustices. Through works like Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society, Seeking Begumpura, and Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India, she repositioned Jyotiba Phule and Baba Saheb Ambedkar as theorists of modernity, democracy, and equality, not merely leaders of oppressed communities. She insisted that Indian academia must recognise them as foundational thinkers who shaped alternative visions of India, visions rooted in justice, rationality, and human dignity.
Eleanor Zelliot, through decades of meticulous archival work, oral histories, and close engagement with Dalit communities, illuminated the inner world of Ambedkarite movements. She preserved stories that Indian academia had conveniently ignored: the cultural power of the Dalit Panthers, the spiritual depth of the neo-Buddhist movement, and the intellectual lineage that connected Phule’s Satyashodhak revolution to Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s call for annihilation of caste. Her work From Untouchable to Dalit became a major academic text. Zelliot’s writings restored dignity to the struggles of those who fought against caste oppression, and she insisted that Dr. Ambedkar was not merely a leader of a community but a global thinker of democracy and human liberation.
Together, Omvedt and Zelliot shattered the silence that privileged-caste academia had maintained for centuries. Their scholarship did not merely document history; it challenged structures of knowledge production itself. They forced Indian academia to confront its own caste biases, its exclusions, its silences, and its refusal to engage with anti-caste thought. Through their writings, activism, and solidarity, Gail Omvedt and Eleanor Zelliot helped bring Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule, and Baba Saheb Ambedkar into mainstream academic consciousness. They reminded the world that the fight for equality is not only fought on the streets; it is also fought in books, in research, in archives, and in the refusal to let truth be forgotten.
Jyotiba Phule’s caravan was not just a movement; it was a moral awakening. He called upon people to reject ignorance, oppose oppression, and embrace the transformative power of education, equality, and rational thinking. His revolutionary work in education, his unwavering fight for the rights of the oppressed, and his courageous challenge to entrenched social hierarchies continue to inspire all who dream of a fair and humane world.
Akhilesh Kumar is an Ambedkarite activist and a PhD scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, pursuing his research at the Centre for Dalit and Minority Studies.
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