Explain 'Gulamgiri' in detailed.
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The main thrust of Mahatma Phule’s text is an inversion of the racial theory of caste. What is the racial theory of caste? According to this theory, a superior, foreign race invaded this land. They became what we know as Brahmins today. The lowly, indigenous people who were conquered became the shudras.
That Mahatma Phule gave credence to the racial theory of caste at all, is sometimes considered a limitation of the text. What must be noted however, as Gail Omvedt does in “Hinduism as Brahman Exploitation: Jotiba Phule”, Phule takes an already existing discourse, and he inverts its moral logic. He accepts the facticity of the theory. He says, yes Brahmins are a different race. Yes, they invaded and conquered us. But he upturns its moral logic and says the invaders were actually corrupt, cruel and depraved. Superior they were definitely not.
GULAMGIRI IS CREDITED WITH ANTICIPATING MODERN IDEAS SUCH AS THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF ECONOMIC & CULTURAL SUBORDINATION.
In order to make his point, Mahatma Phule takes it upon himself to destabilize certain Hindu myths. And he punctures them using logic. For instance, right at the beginning, he takes the story of the origin of the four castes from the Purushsukta hymn. According to this story, Brahmins were born from the head of Brahma, Kshatriyas from the arms, Vaishyas from the thighs and Shudras from the feet. Often peddled as a justification for the differential status enjoyed by different castes, this narrative is rendered absurd by Phule. He does this by posing a straightforward, but perhaps slightly provocative, question: Does this mean Brahma had four vaginas where he gave birth from?
What is even more extraordinary about the text is that it tries to wrest a legitimate cultural space for the practices and beliefs of shudras and atishudras. Phule does this by trying to situate these practices within narratives of a glorious historical and cultural legacy. One such example is the story he weaves around Bali Raja. As Omvedt explains, “The Puranic myth in which the Brahman boy Waman asks three boons of Bali and then steps on his chest to send him down to hell is taken by Phule as a story of deception and conquest by the invading Aryans.”
According to Mahatma Phule, you will only ever find those from the lower castes making a wish for Bali Raja on this day. Upper castes, he says, will in fact place a rice or dough statue of Bali on their doorstep, and they will kick it. Phule equates Bali with a Shudra king who was defeated by the “cruel” and “savage” Vaman. Omvedt also notes how this “had a strong resonance with popular culture, for in Maharashtra (as in other parts of South India…) Bali is indeed seen as a popular and ‘peasant’ king, and is remembered with the Marathi saying, ‘ida pida javo, Balica rajya yevo’ (let troubles and sorrows go and the kingdom of Bali come)”.
As Ambedkar was, Phule too is sometimes criticized for aligning his cause with the British, and not with the legitimized project of nation construction and the freedom struggle. Again, what must be remembered is that for someone like Phule, British advent and modern education was an event with emancipatory potential. (Dilip Chavan in Language Politics Under Colonialism: Caste, Class and Language).
That Mahatma Phule gave credence to the racial theory of caste at all, is sometimes considered a limitation of the text. What must be noted however, as Gail Omvedt does in “Hinduism as Brahman Exploitation: Jotiba Phule”, Phule takes an already existing discourse, and he inverts its moral logic. He accepts the facticity of the theory. He says, yes Brahmins are a different race. Yes, they invaded and conquered us. But he upturns its moral logic and says the invaders were actually corrupt, cruel and depraved. Superior they were definitely not.
GULAMGIRI IS CREDITED WITH ANTICIPATING MODERN IDEAS SUCH AS THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF ECONOMIC & CULTURAL SUBORDINATION.
In order to make his point, Mahatma Phule takes it upon himself to destabilize certain Hindu myths. And he punctures them using logic. For instance, right at the beginning, he takes the story of the origin of the four castes from the Purushsukta hymn. According to this story, Brahmins were born from the head of Brahma, Kshatriyas from the arms, Vaishyas from the thighs and Shudras from the feet. Often peddled as a justification for the differential status enjoyed by different castes, this narrative is rendered absurd by Phule. He does this by posing a straightforward, but perhaps slightly provocative, question: Does this mean Brahma had four vaginas where he gave birth from?
What is even more extraordinary about the text is that it tries to wrest a legitimate cultural space for the practices and beliefs of shudras and atishudras. Phule does this by trying to situate these practices within narratives of a glorious historical and cultural legacy. One such example is the story he weaves around Bali Raja. As Omvedt explains, “The Puranic myth in which the Brahman boy Waman asks three boons of Bali and then steps on his chest to send him down to hell is taken by Phule as a story of deception and conquest by the invading Aryans.”
According to Mahatma Phule, you will only ever find those from the lower castes making a wish for Bali Raja on this day. Upper castes, he says, will in fact place a rice or dough statue of Bali on their doorstep, and they will kick it. Phule equates Bali with a Shudra king who was defeated by the “cruel” and “savage” Vaman. Omvedt also notes how this “had a strong resonance with popular culture, for in Maharashtra (as in other parts of South India…) Bali is indeed seen as a popular and ‘peasant’ king, and is remembered with the Marathi saying, ‘ida pida javo, Balica rajya yevo’ (let troubles and sorrows go and the kingdom of Bali come)”.
As Ambedkar was, Phule too is sometimes criticized for aligning his cause with the British, and not with the legitimized project of nation construction and the freedom struggle. Again, what must be remembered is that for someone like Phule, British advent and modern education was an event with emancipatory potential. (Dilip Chavan in Language Politics Under Colonialism: Caste, Class and Language).
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