Vidya Bharati Alumni pays homage to Mahatma Jyotirao Phule on His Birth Anniversary

Vidya Bharati Alumni pays homage to Mahatma Jyotirao Phule, India's one of the social reformers who is known as the champion of equal rights for poor peasants and women, on His Birth Anniversary.

Born on April 11, 1827, Phule is remembered for his efforts in educating women and lower caste people. He was also a writer who profusely wrote on the eradication of untouchability and the caste system, and women's emancipation.

He was born in a family of the Mali caste within the Shudra social class. His family cultivated and sold vegetables. Phule was a critic of the caste system as under this arrangement the place of the people was determined on the basis of the social group they were born in. He always raised his voice against the discrimination suffered by members of the lower castes.

He was married to Savitribai Phule, who is regarded as the first female teacher of India. It is said that he educated his wife at home. They both opened a school for lower-caste girls in Pune in 1848. Phule was against child marriage and a proponent of widow remarriage, which was not allowed at that time in majority of the castes. He was also the founder of a reform society named Satyashodhak Samaj whose purpose was to promote social equality and the uniting and uplifting of Shudras and “untouchables.”

In remembrance of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and as a support toward the nation, let us join the Vidya Bharati Alumni Network.