Savitribai Phule: The firebrand intellectual who powerfully used the term ‘Dalit in her poetry

It is commonplace in English scholarship and other writing to find references to Mahatma Jotirao Phule (1827-1890) as the first modern public intellectual in India to use the word Dalit in Marathi to name caste communities of Untouchables. In part this is because Jotirao Phule is widely regarded as one of the key voices inaugurating modern India’s political movements against oppression premised on caste, gender, and religious difference.

As I began a project involving the poetry of Jotirao Phule last year, I expected to find references to Dalits or uses of the word such as dīnadalit (deprived and broken), paddalit (downtrodden), dalitoddhār (Dalit upliftment) in his work. But I have not yet found any instances of the word or related phrases in Jotirao Phule’s available published literature. The references may be there; I just haven’t found them yet.

However, I have found these terms used in the publications of another Phule.

This is Savitribai Phule (1831-1897), Jotirao Phule’s wife and political partner. The two worked side by side to open educational institutions for women, Shudras, and Dalits in the latter half of the nineteenth century in Pune. When Savitribai Phule is mentioned in scholarly and public contexts, she is rightly praised as a pioneering educator. Indeed,…

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