Education In 1848, aged 21, Phule visited a girls' school in
Ahmednagar run by Christian missionary
Cynthia Farrar. It was also in 1848 that he read
Thomas Paine's book
Rights of Man and developed a keen sense of social justice. He realised that exploited castes and women were at a disadvantage in Indian society, and also that education of these sections was vital to their emancipation. To this end and in the same year, Phule first taught reading and writing to his wife, Savitribai, and then the couple started the first indigenously run school for girls in Pune. He also taught his sister Sagunabai Kshirsagar (his maternal aunt's daughter) to write Marathi with Savitribai. Later, the Phules started schools for children from the then untouchable castes such as
Mahar and
Mang. In 1852, there were three Phule schools in operation 273 girls were pursuing education in these school but by 1858 they had all closed.
Eleanor Zelliot blames the closure on private European donations drying up due to the
Rebellion of 1857, withdrawal of government support, and Jyotirao resigning from the school management committee because of disagreement regarding the curriculum.
Women's welfare He saw young widows shaving their heads, refraining from any sort of joy in their life. He made the decision to educate women by witnessing all these social evils that encouraged inequality. He began with his wife, every afternoon, Jyotirao sat with his wife Savitribai Phule and educated her when she went to the farms where he worked, to bring him his meal. He sent his wife to get trained at a school. The husband and wife set up India's first girls' school in
Vishrambag Wada, Pune, in 1848. He championed
widow remarriage and started a home for dominant caste pregnant widows to give birth in a safe and secure place in 1863. His orphanage was established in an attempt to reduce the rate of
infanticide. In 1863, Pune witnessed a horrific incident. A
Brahmin widow named Kashibai got pregnant and her attempts at abortion didn't succeed. She killed the baby after giving it birth and threw it in a well, but her act came to light. She had to face punishment and was sentenced to jail. This incident greatly upset Phule and hence, along with his longtime friend Sadashiv Ballal Govande and Savitribai, he started an infanticide prevention centre. Pamphlets were stuck around Pune advertising the centre in the following words: "Widows, come here and deliver your baby safely and secretly. It is up to your discretion whether you want to keep the baby in the centre or take it with you. This orphanage will take care of the children [left behind]." The Phule couple ran the infanticide prevention centre until the mid-1880s. Phule tried to eliminate the stigma of social untouchability surrounding the exploited castes by opening his house and the use of his water well to the members of the exploited castes.
Views on religion and caste Phule appealed for reestablishment of the reign of mythical
Mahabali (King Bali) which predated "Aryans' treacherous coup d'etat". He proposed his own version of
Aryan invasion theory that the Aryan conquerors of India, whom the theory's proponents considered to be racially superior, were in fact barbaric suppressors of the indigenous people. He believed that they had instituted the caste system as a framework for subjugation and social division that ensured the pre-eminence of their Brahmin successors. He saw the subsequent
Muslim conquests of the Indian subcontinent as more of the same sort of thing, being a repressive alien regime, but took heart in the arrival of the British, whom he considered to be relatively enlightened and not supportive of the
varnashramadharma system instigated and then perpetuated by those previous invaders. In his book,
Gulamgiri, he thanked Christian missionaries and the British colonists for making the exploited castes realise that they are worthy of all human rights. The book, whose title transliterates as
slavery and which concerned women, caste and reform, was dedicated to the people in the US who were working to end slavery. Phule saw
Vishnu's avatars as a symbol of oppression stemming from the Aryan conquests and took
Mahabali (Bali Raja) as hero. His critique of the caste system began with an attack on the
Vedas, the most fundamental texts of Hindus. He considered them to be a form of false consciousness. He is credited with introducing the Marathi word
Dalit (broken, crushed) as a descriptor for those people who were outside the traditional varna system. At an education commission hearing in 1882, Phule called for help in providing education for lower castes. To implement it, he advocated making primary education compulsory in villages. He also asked for special incentives to get more lower-caste people in high schools and colleges.
Satyashodhak Samaj On 24 September 1873, Phule formed
Satyashodhak Samaj to focus on rights of depressed groups such women, the
Shudra, and the
Dalit. Through this samaj, he opposed
idolatry and denounced the caste system. Satyashodhak Samaj campaigned for the spread of rational thinking and rejected the need for priests. Phule established Satyashodhak Samaj with the ideals of human well-being, happiness, unity, equality, and easy religious principles and rituals. The membership of the samaj included Muslims, Brahmins and government officials. Phule's own Mali caste provided the leading members and financial supporters for the organisation. ==Occupation==