In a radio message in his last days in 1956, Babasaheb said, "Mahatma Phule was the first soldier of logic and human dignity. Without him our fight would have been incomplete."
New Delhi- On the occasion of the 198th birth anniversary of Mahatma Jyotirao Govindrao Phule on April 11, the country is once again preparing to remember his revolutionary contribution. On this occasion, the deep relationship between Phule and Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar—fondly called Babasaheb—is in the news. Both fought against the caste system and dreamed of uplifting the oppressed sections of society. Babasaheb considered Jyotiba Phule along with Gautam Buddha and Kabir as his three gurus. In his speech at Purandare Stadium in Mumbai on 28 October 1954, Baba Saheb had said, “I have three gurus. Everyone has a guru, so do I. I am not a sadhu or a recluse, but my first and greatest guru is Buddha … I believe that only Buddhism can do the welfare of the world. The second guru is Kabir..my father was a Kabirpanthi. So Kabir’s life and principles also had a great influence on me. According to my opinion, Kabira knew the real secret of Buddha’s philosophy … Mahar, Mang, Chabar taught and Phule taught the lesson of humanity. These are my three gurus. Their teachings have made my life.” Let us know what Babasaheb said about Jyotiba Phule and what is the similarity between these two great reformers. Jyotiba Phule was born in Satara, Maharashtra in 1827. He challenged the Brahminical system and changed the society by making education a weapon. In 1848, he opened the first school for girls with his wife Savitribai. In 1873, he started a campaign to break the shackles of caste and religion by forming Satyashodhak Samaj. His book Gulamgiri shook people. On the other hand, Babasaheb, born in 1891 in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh, took forward these ideas of Phule. By becoming the architect of the Constitution, he gave legal rights to the Dalits and the oppressed.
Both of them considered the Vedas and Puranas to be the weapons of the upper castes. Phule, in his public book Satya Dharma, talked about a religion that brought equality to all. Babasaheb also gave the same message by adopting Buddhism in 1956. In 1848, Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule opened India’s first women’s school in Pune, which was an important step in the field of education for women at that time. On the other hand, the slogan – “Educate, Awaken, Organize” – was the basic mantra of Babasaheb’s life. After signing the Poona Pact on 27 September 1932, Babasaheb said, “I pay tribute to Mahatma Phule, whose struggle against social injustice inspired us to this fight for justice.” The pact was a major step towards political rights for Dalits, and Babasaheb remembered Phule’s inspiration in it.
At a Satyashodhak Samaj event in Mumbai in 1940, Babasaheb said, “Jyotiba Phule was the first Indian to raise his voice against the slavery of Shudras and Ati-Shudras. His pen was a sword against injustice, and his life an example of courage.” He described Phule as the man who showed the path to awakening to the oppressed.
In the preface of his book Who were the Shudras? (1946), Babasaheb wrote, “Mahatma Phule’s slavery opened my eyes to the fact that the caste system is a historical fraud. He taught us that Shudras were not born to serve, but were enslaved by false myths.” This idea of Phule was very important for Babasaheb.
During the Mahad Satyagraha in 1927, when Dalits demanded the right to drink water from the Chavdar pond, Babasaheb said, “Mahatma Phule showed us the way to break the chains of caste. Today we are walking on that path.” In 1954, when he visited Phule’s house in Pune, he said, “It is here that the seed of our freedom was sown.” In a radio message in his last days in 1956, Babasaheb said, “Mahatma Phule was the first soldier of reason and human dignity. Without him our fight would have been incomplete.”
Babasaheb appreciated Jyotiba Phule’s questioning of the dominance of Brahmins and exploitation of Shudras in ‘Gulamgiri’, and later he also expressed similar ideas in ‘Riddles in Hinduism’ and ‘Who were the Shudras?’, in which Shudras were described as the first Kshatriyas.
Phule believed that Brahmins were descendants of outside Aryan invaders who oppressed the local people. Babasaheb took this further in Who Were the Shudras? and said that the Shudras were the first Kshatriyas who were pushed down by the Brahmins.
Phule’s Satyashodhak Samaj became the base of Babasaheb’s organisations. Both spoke in the language of the common people—Phule wrote Powada, Babasaheb wrote books and gave speeches in simple words. In 1868 Phule opened his well to the untouchables, and in 1927 Babasaheb took the right to water in Mahad—both had the same thinking.
The spark that Phule lit was turned into the torch of the Constitution by Babasaheb. Scholars say that Phule prepared the ground, and Babasaheb built a palace of rights on it
Babasaheb not only considered Phule his guru, but also lived his thinking at every step. As he said, “Without Phule our fight would have been in the dark.” On this birth anniversary, this relationship reminds us that the dream of equality is the gift of these two great souls, which shows us the way even today.
Courtesy: Geetha Sunil Pillai, Hindi News