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On 24 September 1873, Rashtrapita Jotirao Govindrao formed the 'Satya Shodhak Samaj' (Society of Seekers of Truth) with himself as its first president and treasurer. The main objectives of the organisation were to liberate the Shudras and Ati Shudras and to prevent their exploitation by the Arya Brahmins. Through this SatyaShodhak Samaj, Jotirao refused to regard the Vedas as sacrosanct. He opposed idolatry and denounced the chaturvarnya system.
According to SatyaShodhak Samaj, existence of God was replaced by Nirmik, the creator. SatyaShodhak Samaj propounded the spread of rational thinking and rejected the need for a Brahman priestly class as educational and religious leaders. Phule, in an attempt to explain caste oppression, turned the Aryan theory of race upside down. According to this inverted theory, the Aryans were indeed of European origin, but were far from superior compared to the race they conquered. "They were cruel and violent invaders who had overturned an originally prosperous and egalitarian society." Brahman rule, supported by state power and religious hegemony, was seen as the root cause of oppression for the lower-caste indigenous masses.
When Phule established the SatyaShodhak Samaj, Savitribai became the head of the women's section which included ninety female members. Moreover, she worked tirelessly as a school teacher for lower-caste girls. On her death bed Phule is rumored to have turned to his wife and said "You must carry on our work with the same determination and spirit."
Deenbandhu, the mouthpiece of the Satya Shodhak Samaj, played an important role in SatyaShodhak Samaj’s movement. After Jotiba's death in 1890 his spirited followers went on spreading the movement to the remotest parts of Maharashtra. Soon Shahu Maharaj, the ruler of Kolhapur princely state, gave a lot of financial and moral support and Satya Shodhak Samaj in its new incarnation as non-brahmin party carried on the work of superstition removal vigorously. Two instances from the lives of two devoted leaders of Satya Shodhak Samaj in this period can be cited at the outset. The first of these relates to the life of Bhaskarrao Jadhav, the veteran non-brahmin leader. When Shahu Maharaj, who was humiliated in the Vedokta controversy, had set up Kshatra Jagatguru, Bhaskarrao opposed the move. On top of it, when all leaders including Shahu Maharaj saluted kshatra Jagatguru, Bhaskarrao boldly declared that being a Satya Shodhak he could not bow his head before any religious leaders. Ideas of Satya Shodhak Samaj defy not just brahmin heads of religion, but also the whole institution of priesthood and the caste system based on inequality by birth. This is because at the root of the caste system is the superstition that sponsors the feelings of superiority of higher castes and the feelings of inferiority of lower castes. If superiority of brahmin is replaced by superiority of the kshatriyas or even if brahmins and kshatriyas are on par with each other, it would not remove this superstition.
The second instance relates to a strong and successful worker of Satya Shodhak Samaj, Once Shahu Maharaj had called Baburao Yadav for some work but he was very late in turning up. Naturally Maharaj asked him about the delay. Baburao took Maharaj to the balcony and from that balcony he pointed the bullock-carts resting at a distance. Maharaj could not understand the point. Soon, however Maharaj saw that Baburao Yadav's bullock cart was full of red coloured stones of different sizes. Maharaj further asked Yadav to explain how his late coming was related to those stones. Then Yadav explained, " Sir I was delayed in reaching your palace because on the way I collected all these stones anointed with red sindhur, as these so called gods sitting on the boundaries of the village farms were responsible for converting villagers into stones! I collected all of them in my cart. That is why I was delayed in reaching here." These two instances reveal how Satya Shodhak Samaj had created the psyche against blind faith from top to bottom of the movement. Jotiba firmly believed that if you want to create a new social system based on freedom, equality, brotherhood, human dignity, economic justice and value devoid of exploitation, you will have to overthrow the old, unequal and exploitative social system and the values on which it is based. Knowing this well, Jotiba attacked blind faith and faith in what is given in religious books and the so-called god's words. He tore to pieces the misleading myths that were ruling over the minds of women, shudras and ati-shudras. Yielding to god or fate, astrology and other such rubbish rituals, sacredness, god-men, etc. was deemed irrational and absurd. This was explained by giving innumerable examples. He also led campaigns to remove the economic and social handicaps that breed blind faith among women, shudras and ati-shudras. Jotiba subjected religious texts and religious behavior to the tests of rationalism. He characterised this faith as outwardly religious but in essence politically motivated movements. He accused them of upholding the teachings of religion and refusing to rationally analyse religious teachings. He maintained that at the root of all calamities was the blind faith that religious books were created or inspired by god. Therefore, Phule wanted to abolish this blind faith in the first instance. All established religious and priestly classes find this blind faith useful for their purposes and they try their best to defend it. He questions " if there is only one God, who created the whole mankind, why did he write the Vedas only in Sanskrit language despite his anxiety for the welfare of the whole mankind? What about the welfare of those who do not understand this language?" Phule concludes that it is untenable to say that religious texts were God-created. To believe so is only ignorance and prejudice. All religions and their religious texts are man-made and they represent the selfish interest of the classes, which are trying to pursue and protect their selfish ends by constructing such books. Phule was the only sociologist and humanist in his time that could put forth such bold ideas. In his view, every religious book is a product of its time and the truths it contains have no permanent and universal validity. Again these texts can never be free from the prejudices and the selfishness of the authors of such books. This devastating criticism is all the more valid in the Hindu religion, because here clever brahmins had loaded farmer's backs with selfish interests, under the garb of religion. Out of their 'hatred for shudras, the brahmins prevented resurgence of shudras by creating religion based hierarchical caste system and imposed sacredness, out of the fear that some day shudras would rise again to challenge the brahmin supremacy, they banned teaching to shudras altogether. The ban on the education of the lower castes resulted in the illiterate women and the shudras losing their reasoning faculty and acquiring faith in worthless stories in Harivijay, etc., and following pilgrimage, worshipping Satyanarayan and chanting Gods` name million times a day. Women and shudras do not realise 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 behavior. There is no sin and no other world and no cycle of births after this life. Man had to use his rational faculty to go through life. He attacked astrology and Vastushastra.
Phule believed in overthrowing the social system in which man has been deliberately made dependent on others, illiterate, ignorant and poor, with a view to exploiting him. To him blind faith eradication formed part of a broad socioeconomic transformation. This was his strategy for ending exploitation of human beings. Mere advice, education and alternative ways of living are not enough, unless the economic framework of exploitation comes to an end.
After Jotiba's death in 1890, there was a period of lull, when the flame lit by Jotiba waned. The SatyaShodhak Samaj movement was totally a social movement and nothing to do with the politics, but the members of SatyaShodhak Samaj dissolved SatyaShodhak Samaj and merged it with Congress party in 1930.
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