An Ephemeral Conceptualization of Phule’s Understanding of Socio-Cultural Structure: Brahman Supremacy, Caste & Tradition and Role of Education

Abstract

Jotirao Phule born in 1827 into a family of gardener (mali) caste in Maharashtra. A caste which eventually had a very distinct position in the Maharashtrian society that particularly in that point of time because of the fact that these members lived closely by cultivation and selling fruits and flowers and thus, was largely concerned with rural cultivation and also with a large market in the urban. Jotirao Phule’s selected writings tends to be very useful in understanding the cultural and social milieu of 19th century. The caste system continued to be a belief that human beings are organized in a hierarchy ordained by divine indulgence which is one of the more abandoned and challenging areas of India social history. Phule seems to endure as one of the few prevailing and significant voice that particularly transformed the history of Dalit discourses in India. Jotirao Phule’s writing precisely in Ghulamgiri (Slavery), Shetkaryacha Asud (Cultivator’s Whipcord), Jati (Caste) and Dharma (Religion) played a vital role in terms of intellectual and academic output that worked as a voice of marginalized people in the society during the 19th century. Phule’s writing is very much restricted to a kind of anti-Brahmanical in nature. His understanding of the social structure during the 19th century was a sort of anti-Brahmanical in nature and further suggesting how influential were Brahmans during that particular retro. This paper will precisely focus on looking into the social implications and the extrapolations focused by the Phule over the underprivileged sections and his replication on the problems of caste. At the same time also focuses on understanding how Phule treated class-based discernment and how education as suggested by Phule a key factor in permitting class-based discrimination during the 19th century.