Phule’s Concept of Human Rights and Justice

 Mahatma Phule wanted to create a new social order in India based upon equality, justice, liberty and fraternity. He sacrificed his life for the upliftment of untouchables, peasants and women. In this way, he was the first person to emphasize human rights. He made powerful pleas to abolish untouchability and the entire caste system and revolted against the unjust caste-system under which millions of people had suffered for centuries. The Dalit at that time did not have any political, social, educational and economic rights. He condemned dual morality of the Brahman system. He said equal opportunity should get to all people. He said by birth all are free and equal. All human beings have natural rights. He was a militant advocate of human rights to the downtrodens (http://www.ncdhr.org.in/ndmj).

 Savitribai Phule is an inspiration of movement for the liberation of backward and weaker sections from oppressive social system. She successfully confronted against many evil social practices and worked for establishment of ideals based on rationality and human reason such as truth, equality and humanity. She promoted gender equality and considered women equally with men. She recognized self-respect of women and their basic rights. It was almost impossible to start schools for girls and lower castes in the place like Pune which was highly dominated by Brahmanical ideology in the mid nineteenth century. Mahatma Phule challenged this dominance and started educating girls and lower castes. His encouragement to Savitribai Phule, his wife instilled confidence in him to contribute to his struggle. Savitribai actively participated in the struggles waged by Mahatma Phule’s mission. She became the leader of the movement after Jotiba’s demise. In order to recognize the significance of contribution of Savitribai Phule it is essential to know social, cultural, religious and political conditions of Maharashtra, especially of Pune, in the 19th century.

 Women and Shudras do not realize that they have been deprived of human rights through a perfidious plot of the Brahmins. Phule also pointed out the dominance of men against women in the religious texts. However, despite his concept of ‘Nirmik’, he does not prescribe elaborate rituals and blind pursuits of gods’ images and temples. He vehemently opposed worthless rituals and any intermediary between god and person. No sacrifices to god are acceptable to him. He advocates gender equality, opposes hierarchical superiority and propagates honesty and conscientious behaviour. Education is significant for human progress. Without education, lower castes will always remain oppressed and deprived. Denial of education is responsible for degradation of society. Phule did not have a limited purpose to make people literate. They wanted to create informed citizens and leaders of social reform through education. Mahatma Phule expressed his views for women education, lower caste education, vocational education, restructuring curriculum, agricultural education, technical education, teachers’ training, etc. Unfortunately, his ideas on education did not get acknowledgement in India (Sirswal, 2015).

Mahatma Phule and Savitribai Phule always considered ‘education’ as best possible way to improve the life of socially oppressed. Education is significant technique of social awareness and social revolution. Thus, they always strived for providing education to these classes of the society. The Hindu social system denied right to education to women as well as lower castes on the grounds that they were not ‘competent’ enough to take education. The upper castes had this right as they were regarded as most competent. Education was a privilege only available to upper caste males. According to Phule, this deprivation of education was a strategy of upper castes/ dominant classes in the society to keep unprivileged classes vulnerable and marginalized. It resulted into the maintenance of their dominance in social structure and dependence of the ‘vulnerable’ class on them for survival. Hence, the denial of right to education to women and lower castes made them more ‘vulnerable’ and ‘marginalized’. This denial also led to the refutation of right to knowledge and spread of information. The upper castes’ monopoly over knowledge system and interpretation of religious texts led to the maintenance of their authority over Hindu social structure. Due to this the lower castes and women couldn’t recognize their oppression which also helped the maintenance of such oppressive system.