Jyotirao Phule: Education and Anti-Caste Reform

In 1848, Jyotirao Phule and his wife Savitribai opened a school for girls in Pune. Savitribai taught there.

Phule spent his life fighting caste and widening education. This lesson covers his schools, his books, the Satyashodhak Samaj and the exam traps.

1Who was Jyotirao Phule?

He was a reformer from a gardener family who turned against caste rules.

• He was born on 11 April 1827 at Satara, Maharashtra.
• His family belonged to the mali (gardener) community.
• The family’s older surname was Gorhe. “Phule” came from their flower work for the Peshwa court in Pune.
• He joined the Scottish Missionary High School in Pune in 1841.
• Caste pressure from some Brahmin neighbours made his father pull him out to work as a gardener and mason.
• A Muslim teacher and a Christian neighbour convinced his father to let him return to school.
• He finished his English education around 1847.
• Reading Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man shaped his belief in natural equality.
• He later applied that idea to caste and gender in India.
• He married Savitribai in 1840.

2What did the Phules build?

They built schools and a shelter for people the system ignored.

• In 1848 the couple opened a girls’ school in Pune.
• Savitribai taught there. She is seen as a pioneer of girls’ education.
• Fatima Sheikh is remembered as Savitribai’s co-teacher in these schools.
• In 1863 they set up the Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha, or Infanticide Prevention Home.
• It cared for pregnant widows. They could deliver safely and keep the pregnancy secret.
• The home ran into the mid-1880s.
• It first served Brahmin widows, the group Phule’s movement criticised most sharply.
• The couple had no children. They adopted Yashwantrao, the son of a Brahmin widow.
• Phule also opened his house and its well to people treated as untouchable.

3What was the Satyashodhak Samaj?

It was a movement for equality, led by the lower castes themselves.

• Phule founded it on 24 September 1873 in Pune.
• Its name means “Truth Seekers’ Society”.
• Its aim was social equality for Shudras and other lower castes.
• Its leaders came from backward-class groups such as malis, telis, kunbis and dhangars.
• It held weddings without Brahmin priests, using simple vows instead of Sanskrit rites.
• It urged non-Brahmins to stop hiring priests for household rituals.
• Later leaders such as Narayan Meghaji Lokhande worked with the Samaj.
• Lokhande also took over the newspaper Deenbandhu.
• For the wider story, see Caste Consciousness Movements, 19th Century.

4What did he write?

His books moved from caste to peasant poverty.

• Gulamgiri (“Slavery”) came out in 1873.
• He dedicated it to American abolitionists, who fought to end slavery.
• The book compared caste oppression in India with slavery.
• He rejected the idea that Aryans were naturally superior.
• He described them as outside conquerors who suppressed an earlier society.
• He pointed to the legendary King Bali as a symbol of a more equal order.
• Shetkaryacha Asud (“The Cultivator’s Whipcord”) is his major work on peasant poverty.
• It blamed Brahmin officials and the colonial bureaucracy for exploiting Shudra and Ati-Shudra farmers.
• It proposed practical reforms, such as compulsory primary education for farmers’ children.

5What was his legacy?

He combined public service with sharp criticism.

• He served as a nominated member of the Pune Municipal Council from 1876 to 1882.
• In 1882 he gave evidence to the Hunter Commission on education.
• He asked for free, compulsory primary schooling in every village.
• He also asked for special help to bring more lower-caste students into high schools and colleges.
• On 11 May 1888 he received the title “Mahatma” at a function in Bombay.
• That was decades before Gandhi became known by the same title.
• He suffered a stroke in 1888.
• He died on 28 November 1890 in Pune.
• B. R. Ambedkar counted Phule among his three main influences.
• Ambedkar dedicated Who Were the Shudras? to him.
• Savitribai died on 10 March 1897 of plague, caught while nursing a patient.

6What are the exam traps?

Exams love dates and the order of movements.

• The Samaj came in 1873. The Chipko Movement came in 1973. The Bardoli Satyagraha came in 1928.
• CDS II 2025 asked for this order. The answer was Satyashodhak, then Bardoli, then Chipko.
• NDA II 2016 asked which body Phule started in 1873. The answer was the Satyashodhak Samaj.
• Do not confuse it with the Prarthana Samaj, which dates from 1867.
• Do not confuse it with the Self-Respect Movement. Periyar began that in 1925.
• Remember who dedicated what. Phule dedicated Gulamgiri to American abolitionists. Ambedkar dedicated Who Were the Shudras? to Phule.
• UPSC Mains 2025 asked about his writings and efforts for all subaltern classes.