A Phule biopic in Hindi has been a long time coming. For good reason. The earliest, staunchest and most articulate critic of Brahmanism, and the varna and caste system that holds it together, hasn’t been the most sought-after philosopher and revolutionary in the Hindi belt, the bastion of Brahmanism. Now, the proponents of Brahmanism, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its affiliates, through its political wing the Bharatiya Janata Party, are on a mission to ward off the possibility of any Phule-like influence on this bastion and in fact to revive nationwide the social system of intellectually and economically enslaving the majority for the benefit of a few at the top of the hierarchy. For this to happen, though, the deeply divided majority who are to be subservient need to be mobilized and the only way to do that is to invoke and demonize the ‘other’ – the minorities of other faiths, especially the Muslims.
‘Phule’ has been released coincidentally – at least as far as the filmmakers are concerned – against the backdrop of terrorists killing 26 people, most of them tourists, in Pahalgam, Kashmir. Some relatives and others who were spared claimed that the assailants confirmed the non-Muslim identity of the would-be victims before shooting them. Now, with anti-Muslim rhetoric gaining currency, ‘Phule’ provides the much-needed respite. Jotirao, a Kunbi, a Shudra (played by Pratik Gandhi), who is thrown out of the wedding procession of a Brahmin friend (not shown in the film but alluded to), has homeschooled his wife and read Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’, finds shelter in the home of his school friend Usman Sheikh (Jayesh More) and his sister Fatima (Akshaya Gurav) when he and wife come under attack from the conservative Brahmins for daring to educate girls of Pune. Jotirao and Savitribai (Patralekha) have no children of their own, and as is usually the case, she is blamed by her father-in-law Govindrao (Vinay Pathak) for failing to continue his lineage. Jotirao comes to her defence arguing that it is the woman who is most pained by the inability to have a child. We have read about this childless couple fighting against all odds to educate a generation of women, but to see its enactment is to get a real sense of the deeply painful moments that would have made up the struggle.
Even those who have read about Phule’s life in English or Hindi will be introduced to new facets of his relationship with Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad, the Shudra ruler of Baroda, who would later fund B.R. Ambedkar’s studies at Columbia University, New York. As the Phules opened a camp to provide succour to the large numbers of people affected by the famine of 1870s, Sayajirao sent supplies and helped them in their efforts. Later, towards the end of Phule’s life, it was Gaekwad who invited Phule to a function in Mumbai to confer on him the title of ‘Mahatma’.
Sometime after the 1857 Mutiny, the Brahmins, who had earlier opposed the Phules’ educational efforts to no end, seek Phules’ assistance in mobilizing people to fight the slavery under the British. The Phules’ response is that the British have been around for a hundred years, but the Shudras have been enslaved for thousands of years – are the Brahmins willing to bring this long-surviving slavery to an end and consider the Shudra as one of their own? Perhaps, the question most Indians, the Dalits, Adivasis and the Other Backward Classes, should be asking those in power today as they seek to turn the majority against the Muslim community.
For most of the film, the British government and their representatives are absent, reinforcing this overlooked reality of enslavement and deprivation within society under a scripturally sanctioned unjust system. Although the differences in the treatment of the Shudras and the Untouchables (in Phule’s terminology, the Atishudras) under this system have not been explicitly described, these differences have been depicted. An Untouchable is shown walking along the road, with a spittoon hung from his neck and a broom tied to his back. While Phule has been spared this inhuman treatment, his shadow should still not fall on the Brahmin. In any case, Phule sought to unite the Shudras and the Untouchables (hence his coining of the term Atishudra) in the struggle against Brahmanism. When the Untouchables are thrashed for daring to draw water from a public well, Savitribai has a well dug in their land and throws it open to all irrespective of caste and religion.
Much of Phule’s struggle was fuelled by his deep desire of restoring humanity and the inalienable rights that come with it to the oppressed Shudra-atishudras and the women in general. However, to fight a deeply held belief of inequality enshrined in the scriptures and passed down through generations through mythology, he had to launch a scathing attack on these myths and their purveyors. He had to provide a reinterpretation of history from the perspective of the oppressed classes. That is what he has done in his most important work ‘Gulamgiri’. In the film, the references to ‘Gulamgiri’ are limited to Savitribai urging Jotiba to write the book, Jotiba sitting down to write it, and then its launch. (Shortly after, the Satyashodhak Samaj is established.) But at this juncture in the present, even this primer on Phule will be a great service to a polarized Hindi belt.
‘Phule’ doesn’t use special effects or music to accentuate the greatness of Jotirao. It lets the story of his life speak for itself. A quibble may be that the sets used for the Phules’ and Shaikhs’ houses may be grander than they actually would have been. However, Pratik Gandhi and Patralekha do an admirable job of portraying the Phule couple. The background music and traditional troupe performances complement well the mood of the moment. Posterity will thank director Ananth Mahadevan, a Brahmin originally from south India, for bringing the Phules and their legacy into popular consciousness in the Hindi belt, especially at a time such as this.
(Edited by Amrish Herdenia)
