e ees navayana a Gardener in the land waste Wa) Dt Cha aaa _nnntnnanennnate™ hap: TEE TE nal PeaP80 —_—_——_— SLAVERY. (CN THS CIVILISED BRITISH COVERNMENY UNDER THE CLOAK OF BRAHHMANISM) BIPOSED BY JOTIRAO GOVINDRAW FULE — 20: Q (mrt yatsar wnzTz eit) O a TATA. S (gare {tam TTT.) ocht\ t omad yeaa aria wiaaa Her ait wa Rank He * ag 8G gar eA Re” Taearaia OTe. foam 12 Hm soe miigaianeta ¢ am THM faghis Revered J (ewe wet gafge gitar mere gout sane 7x4)A Gardener in the Wasteland: Jotiba Phule’s Fight for Liberty ‘Story: Srividya Natarajan Art: Aparajita Ninan © All materials, Navayana Publishing First published in December 201 ISBN 4781889059460 Typeset in Joti font, designed by Aparajita Ninan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording ot otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Navayana Publishing 155, Second Floor, Shahpur Jat, New Dethi 10049 wunusnavayana.org Printed and bound by Sanjlv Patliwal Distributed in South Asta by IPD Alternatives 35A/1, Shahpur Jat, New Dethi 0049 Buy all Navayana titles online: sub.couin and Flipkart.comaot A GARDENER IN THE WAS Jotiba Phule’s Fight for Liberty STORY: SRIVIDYA NATARAJAN ART: APARAJITA NINAN PRODUCTION: SANJIV PALLIWALSrividya Natara| for children. She is the aut a comic satire on ca: Aporaita Ninan worked a6 a design intern with Navayana in 2009-10 towards a graphic book on Phule's Slavery This is her first book. She lives in New Delhi, sia inf SRIVIDYA NATARAJAN jan trained as a Bharatanatyam dancer, and has illustrated books, — hor of the novel, No Onions Nor Garlic (2.006), ste, and Bhimayana (2.01I), the graphic biography of Dr BR. Ambedkar. Born in Chennaiy India, she now lives in London, Canada, where she teaches English and Creative Writing at King's University College. My thanks to the readers of the draft version of “4 Gardener” for insights, suggestions, encouragement: Joseph Mathai, Rhea John, Jerry Pinto, Sanjay Kak. (The shortcomings of the text, of course, are all my oun) And my thanks to Nigel and Richard for helping me find time to write. A massive thanks to Dad without whom the hands I dew would have looked like feet. S. Anand—a terror and@ half—I blame all future grey hairs and great works 0° you. Srividya—for being my lighthouse—quiding me from a distance. Alkazi Foundation, for letting me 2°The Wasteland of Caste The Weed-Bed of Myth The Roots of Tyranny The Seeds of Education Afterword 24 65 49 (24THE WASTELAND OF CASTErea BY cw vetn, | Fe8 201 Patience, Apu I've got the A research done, Vidya, I want to start doing the roughs for Gulamgiri this week. How far have you got with the script? ve submitted the ots ss, but [need t the rest done befiest* leave Navayana. Can you hurry the script up a bit?Would that change anything about oppression, e? How different are wel now from how we were, 24, in Jotiba Phule's time? DVAIVARNIK SYSTEMe* THE PESHWAS, BRAHMANS INITIALLY AppoiNtED BY SHV AND SHARING POWER HH #9 MARATHA SuccessoRs, MVE BROKEN AWAY 10 CREATE A OWN THEOCRACY, GOVE! BY ‘SCRIPTURAL’ LAWS:THE BRAHMANS ARE THE LITERATI, THE ONLY AUTHORIZED INTERPRETERS OF THE SF LAWS FAVOUR THE BRAHMANS AND LEAVE ALL THE OTHER CASTES AT A VANTAGE. BY TH HAVE TAKEN OVER. can get your land tax bil in half. Just throw me Peanterle toed Burrerr-p. ze, Ss AS se TWO-CASTE SYSTEM, WITH BRAHMANS AND FE SUDRA-ATISUDRAS AS THE TWO POLES. aK anFo Pack to the V kitchen here YOU belDeh o Deigh aD \Xwhen YO wrati-eaucated p> your bo If you don't stop your son and daughter in-law, Govindrao, ff blood uill be shed. (2 F Joti, Savitri, my children. This the final strau—our lives itherMy Friends aid say that educating you would prove @ A. ad idea It has given you ideas above your station. d e are cultivators of the earth. I should never have let you go back to school. Joti, I cannot permit this work to continue. respect you, we will have to rt ways. I'm sorry. SAVITRI NEVER GAVE UP, EVEN THOUG FACED THE SAME PROBLEMS WHEREVER THEY KR RRSavitribai is amazing! A woman ahead of her times. I can identify with her. Married at eight. Hungry for an education and eager to change her world. As a child, I read about Lakshmibai, I read about Sarojini Naidu... T never read about Savitribai Phule. We honour teachers on Radhakrishnan’s birthday, not on hers. I quess she has been erased, like other nonbrahman role models, from history. When Jotiba began writing Gulamgir4, Savitribai had worked at his side and shared his vision for some thirty years. She headed the women's wing of the Truthseekers’ Society, which promoted equality among human beings and rational thought, and rejected brahmanical ritual. FEMALE ACTIVIST AND THINKER. WIFEincluding the sudras and God gave freedom Yatisudras, to enjoy al the things to all people, created in this world. 7 to their great shame, did the same thing to the people they enslaved. Fi ‘They treated people as Ks beasts of burden, f/f essing them to plow Tike bullocks, whipping them, starving them, cruelly estranging them from their families,But several generous ple Fought against slavery, and in the end, the Americans freed their fF }} slaves from the clutches of their tormentorsa b P and husked and chopped and ay mowed, and can any ran do oo more pe that? nT H = re Zs, Tord, keep us safe one more day from the traps of the slave-catchers—tomorrow we will be in Canada, land of freedom. the story of aiecontion ey know what slavery is like...& = Eni ied [ae 34.ebas 9 sett ie 3ac 300 MANE ood oe yen en pay ge Te Wears anol Sse ene eile any tune Sort we \ oe eee oo ee EG i «HE fo! uyTHE WEED-BED OF MYTHlook, good old 4 On or Cara Katha comico. «J a i Tread them hidden inside my Chemi Ny remember how i lu mythology has a lot to answer for, no? You know, 7 Phule was one of the few people who the question: so ?Dhondiba, how many 4 spoons of sugar? (\ gay x pe Nal /_ Several European ym scholars said the Aryans came to India from outside. Most v \ brahman scholars agreed with them, because that made them kin rropeans. right ful inheritors of this land / and who were the interlopers? Va Listen to Jotiba argue his case with his 4 e friend Dhondiba. oy XS ] O45 gy ay fy ‘YWell, Di Manu has writte the origin of all four varnas--oe a —&. GB Bs Ei ee ee Sa EEE Cah a Sins SP ners leer a ONG) ae LErrThe third incarnation, born of a boar, says the Bhagawat: n, Dhondiba, what d jo when she far the brahmans ing up such tales!a I me oe Adria! a) jm Se Ny horn W I Ray TORN\ EIKO ES otee | ae ee m | Nees seeet) dT roe LCS y MACSSREES SS SS : ss odean) 7 WO? WO:reCo at ah oe Mh et\ ae | COTTim dia 12 March 2010 Gujarat riots: ‘SIT summons Narendra Modi The Supreme ial MP EI he Gulbarg Society of 28 February 2002.Parashuram, updated for the 2ist century, Hindutva-style. I love how deli Ly outrageous Phule is when he walks the borderland between mythology and history. He 6 one that history FSBTHE ROOTS OF TYRANNY9 BRAHMAN'S PERSPECTIVE Py mee KILLERS OF ABORIGINAL DASYUS XID N wl p 7 y | Gis ay A VEPer % INDIGENOUS Ff DARK-SKINNED MONSTE! z {PEOPLE WITH A FAR —]y i x <( 5 4B GREATER RIGHT 10 vow a \ MONS] 4 < CLAIM OWNERSHIP Pos) ny Le aM , {—< cane DESECRATORS OF BRAHMAN I RITES AND SACRIFICES Nf X =e) 4 a Diniz tas Mask <oS, = Ri SYMBOL OF FOREIGN tia a ( ee) INVASION BY SEA Py RIGHTEOUS RESTORER OF THE RULE OF BRAHMANSvalle 25) 7A) GENOCIDAL MAN! \ _ pe a PROTECTOR Of BRAHMAN INTERESTS OPPRESSIVE TO WOMEN AND NONBRAHMANS — iv ( z AS JA |RREDUCIBLY BRAHMANICAL 2 CF ey, =<}it a Ee PSS RN sy Wf 2: aa = Ses =) a oi aneThe An 1 India appear to have been a race imbued with very high notions of self; ‘ely cunning, arrogant and bigoted. 8,a Z e Ly Od Nee - FNS a7 BAS GOK Way OSR HOLD ON) THE PEOPLE THEY DEVISED THAT WEIRD SYSTEM OF MYTHOLOGY, THE ORDINA OF CASTE INHUMAN LAWS 10 WHICH WE CAN FI PARALLEL AMONGST OTHER NATION: THE HIGHEST RIGHTS, THE HIGHEST PRIVILEGES AND GIFTS, AND EVERYTHING | WOULD MAKE THE LIFE OF A BRAHMAN. + SMOOTH Al WERE DENIED THEM. THEIR TOUCH, NAY EVEN THEIR SHADON, IS DEEMED A POLLUTION.INN OF THE UNIVERSE.To enslave the minds of the people they conquered, the brahmans attributed the most immoral, inhurnan, unjus actions and deeds to that Being who Is our Creator. thus did the brahmans convince the poor ignorant people Prat their slavery was justified even in the eyes of god.fand having a fixpieiicbetlen re thee. huh, when you about what Phule was saying about the holier? than-thou brahman attitude? Deccan Herald 710 March ‘2010 Karnataka bans cow slaughter BENGALURU Assembly of Staudt Cattle Bill, 2010 on raking cow slaughter 2 Pe rm a ronbaitable offense il a cow, you can go to ven years and pay"The brahmans strictly prohibited the education of the sudras 50 as to keep them ignorant. This gave the brahmans the authority to make whatever changes they wanted in the so- ‘alld sacred books. = These changes kept with their own selfish Take your Bs, \ kids out of the school!In his youth, Jotiba too believed what these Hindu zealots believe: that we could use Hinduism as a basis for self-rule. He even trained in martial arts under Lahuji Buva Mang to equip himselé to be an anti-British revolutionary, But.after he attended the wedding of a brahman friend, he be to change his mind about the wisdom of driving the British out of India. it! 4 Up, You ‘ow-caste bastard!job to Fight against caste. society, Joti, each of us must accept his lot. ‘oudly pre im themselves Hin. Jotiba is the odd man outSo how do we strengthen Hindu unity, in a land where, it a sudra’s shadow falls on a brahman, of worse still, an atisudra’s, the caster of the shadow can be killed? Even the most liberal of Yr brahman friends, even those iho helped me when I'started the schools for atisudra children, started to disagree with me when I began to expose the cunning of thelr sacred books. Jotiba, I believe in your mission, but | think you go too far when you criticize our religion Jotirao’s writing is inelegantl mouthpiece for the British pe They were taken aback Wa, cio? | I suggested that atisudrd © ie should receive a real ch),What do you say to that, Savitri? makes people ask questions. Oh, mahars and mangs, you are poor and stk Only the medicine of knowledge will cure How come this How come the Hindu and heal you. Let ff religion to which we're sacred books say such that religion where sed to belong is ( nasty things about women? only one person is iel to people of privileged and the 2 rest deprived perish from the earth, and let it never enter our minds to be proud of such a religion.Jotiba and I were right to think that brahmanical Hinduism was the festering wound which bred the infections of caste prejudice, cruelty, and enslavement of women. This is why Jotiba's manifesto for us Truthseekers began with an exposé of religious myth. the ounce a 6 Jxsot he omen aecree SS Oe wives 2nd eT ath “he bok tte Ne ran T will not blacken the name of the Creator by allowing anyone to claim, rey that fow hurry ean and e name of reli of their fell bein inferior.ae ea sys oa ex ick Wd >) SS Yi al = a SS aes See ve 2 SON hay — ssTarabai was a member f the Satyashodak Samaj. T think 1’ buy Gail Omvedt's Seeking blurbTHE SEEDS OF CHANGEloo BIa | ad a -—— — eS Navayana—Avarna Fellowship This year, Navayana will sponsor five Dalit/Adivasi candidates at the National Book Trust's four- week Training Course in Book Publishing (in English) in New Delhi. The best professionals from the publishing industry will be teaching the course. Last date to apply: 10 June 2010.I'm sure some upper-Ca2'© cry-babies are already moaning that these fellowships are ‘only open to dalit candidates. You know, Appu, my political education began the Hs Commission increa: I’ve read that university campuses erupted in protest all over The same thing happened when I sphen’s in 2007. I guess this just shows how many students were Bad from brahman or other upper NN mcte backgrounds. Ban quotas for) backward castes or T'U set myself on firel Well, the poor brahman>- They've never gotten over the DY commode: -speaking historically BRA of education and pretty nearly it, government jobs weres f reserved for ‘them in PhleaS 32 23 r in tHBut we faced a practical problem: where c support and funds projects? We knocked on the government’ door. ifthe ine the vobmans wd British fe aw 4 We found some officials, like Major Candy, sympathetic They helped raise money for primary schools tor atisudra You lend me some of the power you acquired acquired through conquest and ‘administrative control.peasants. The sweat of the pea funds higher education, benefits oF The government must take s educated sons of wealthy m welfare of their fellow-bel kept their knowledge to themse! soiled by contact with the ignor vanwhile, education of the m suffers for want of grantsLZ ‘ po Jotiba was talking into the wind there- Mest of the people in the government ure 22 laty and self-interested 28 ‘the brahmans- And since Jotiba didn't\They wanted them to haventhe higher you the caste hierarchy. Don't forget that they foment quarrels against the Britisht How much worse it will be for and atisudeas They w d the other divided; So they ignit " the 5 ay Yes. When there is rebellion in the name of the we Maruti you can be sure the instigators are brahman, ike Tatya Tope, and the followers and supporter: sudras, as the Holkars and the Shindes were. al : fy Jotiba in fact seems Bea have anticipated that eT C7 movement would mobilise Po #! of the same MO" gs fo demolish the BabThey will never weed, plow or sow in the fields; they will never take baskets of manure to the orchard; they will never cut hay an heap it on the haystacks or draw water from the well for the fields. Dp 3 The Peshwas handed out dakshina to thousands of brahman' EI out of maney from public faxes. To recognize the Learning, parently, More than half the brakmans who pocketed their money and grew pot-bellied from feasting were shysters and idlers, ignorant as dit.Talking of disproportion between the work, of one group and another, take the example of a brahman Chief Executive officer in the Educetman gets paid Rs 600 a month-Rs 20 a The ate comfortable char all day. How many of my kind would it take to earn Rs 7200 a year? AA thousand, labouring incessantly. 4 whims an* he ae SECS— Hey, to get to my boss, | any at better grease this old Palm Do you want your Fle BA, proved foruard or rot? SHe writes up mort terrible conditions, itto write to the complaint, Eve case went bef It is my landy itis all T and my children havel Stop pestering us, you stupid peasant, Can't you see we're busy here doing sarkari work? So the villagers say: never leave your house without a lot of fir Hf you want to get your work done in a government of fice. scause the brahman middlemen are everywhere, and it is at their pleasur that your petition will go forward,If the government were to educat children of all castes, if it selected it: of ficers through examinations, then the government officers could make sure that the illiterate sudras were windled and set against each ot But Jotiba, why doesn’t education reach the sudras and atisudras despite the government's efforts? Because these efforts are not sufficiently radical or far-sighted. ‘Too much government money is devotes to higher education. Who benefits? Only the brahmans- We need more primary schools. ig it wsimary schools for yen prit Bat even uhen they opt jovernment rea gudea childrens “icopise their charges and aan ing polluted by them. are slothful br constantly worry You-bad boy! Stick your hand really reall far out so I can smack it without touching you.UCN a 3 . ) oN we \ It Mm ee < | Cates oe The subjects they teach do not comect with the lives of the cildren at all—for instance, the children are never taught anything about the basics If the European could be given a the schools, and salaries depend of sanitation. The schools you can be sure run almost unsupervised; ‘sudra children lea MB the teachers are not attle-qanig and ‘accountable to anyone. games to attend school iy6p Jotva, debating the nature of caste with you just makes dT want you to write an article for the newspapers, Henouncing the brahmans < received an article DY eindrao Phutes who Af a great scholar, hich io full hough polar recommends te article, we not consider the article fit for publication in OuF 9 sd journal. ae summarizing what we just discussed Dhondiba, and” sent it to sever: newspapers. i Miatae teat refused to publish it. There’. 2 paragraph inthe newspaper lying Tt could mak e por ie Err a offal thet strs and gathersYou've got a gotden chance t+ a pee na Bi So learn and break the chains of caste! ane QC Q3 FAD giends to la He Meads A ie of mone’ 1€ oppression ff ve Lower clas i 5. of i of edt isses. See 5 education can whee society!AfterwordTHE WRITINGS of Jotirao Phule (1827-1890) filled me with admiration, but if truth be told, it was Savitribai (1831-1897) who lured me in: Phule’s child-bride, enigmatic in the scanty accounts of their life, carrying her defiance like a quiet but steady flame. Phule’s unusual ability to see that caste oppression, gender inequality, class hierarchies, and racial injustice were deeply interconnected, and his even more radical willingness to make his own household a test case for his belief in human equality: surely some of this was Savitri's doing? So Savitri begins and frames this graphic book on Phule’s thought; if she is not a constant presence in these pages, if Dhondiba takes over the role of straight man in Phule's Socratic dialogues, it is because we know so little about her. This graphic book is a creative writer's and a graphic artist's take on Phule’s writings, not a scholarly history of his role in the Indian anticaste movement. Scripting the storyboard, I drew mainly on the Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule, edited by G-P. Deshpande. The central text is Slavery (Gulamgii), but passages from The Cultivator's Whipcord (Shetkaryacha Asud) are used to extend some of the ideas touched on in Slavery: Since Phule saw a democratized education system as one of the most important solutions to the problems of inequality and exploitation, Lalso drew on his “Memorial Addressed to the Education Commission”. While passages from different texts have sometimes been juxtaposed where they seemed to illuminate each other, and while occasionally the specific words Phule ' The Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule, ed. G.P. Deshpande (New Dethis LeftWord, 2002). Slavery (first published in 1873) is translated in this volume by Maya Pandit; The Cultivator’s: Whipcord (first published in 1883) by Aniket Jaaware,ity and narrative flow, the interests of brevi ly modified in uses have been stightl ‘exts, as captured in these ule’s te imager: jen the tone of Ph bn es Dhananjay Keer’s Mahatma Jotirao Phooley: nae ae Social Revolution provided most of the biographical details. oink vt on Savitribai, and for her poetry, A Forgotten Liberator: The Life oe es of Savitribai Phule edited by Braj Ranjan Mani and Pamela Sardar was a useful resource.> When we began working on this project, Aparajita wrote up a list of questions, the answers to which helped us work out a provisional, practical formula for translating Phule’s ideas into visual form. For instance: how were we going to blend the historical and the contemporary contexts in terms of the content of Phule’s texts and in terms of presentation? Since caste Oppression is by no means dead, however much the young urban yuppies wish to believe it is, we wanted to make the point that Phule is relevant today. But since we were inevitably revisiting and reworking both the original text and the context, we marked who we were, ‘ransparency. Aparajita’s cheeky postmode $ave me much delight as I read the proofs. without claiming n visual presentation of this “revisiting? “Dat Montane et 6and by itself, a good enough justification for retaining is critique: an anti-Hindutva tonic, if nothing else. Why would we want to Lose out on the tongue-in-cheek logic that leads Phule to the image of Brahma sulking in polluted seclusion, menstruating through multiple orifices all over his body? Or on the anger with the Peshwa regime—a regime that disquised power-mongering as piety—which leads Phule to dare that “bully,” that “audacious -.. barbarous villain'” Parashuram to return to earth and speak up for his brahman kin? Phule treats the membrane between history and myth, fantasy and reality, as permeable, to make a point that was crucial to his campaign The Indo-Aryan origin theories allowed a kind of symbiosis between brahmans and the British colonial overlords with whom they claimed kinship; but Logically speaking, Phule argues, if bratman nationalists were protesting against British rule because the British were interlopers, then, as descendants of the Aryans, they were no Less interlopers and invaders wh seized power from the indigenous people. Phule was all fora transfer of power from colonial governments to indigenous hands; he was also among the first to articulate the fear that if the indigenous hands were those of the comprador brahman middle-class, the transfer would merely consolidate and perhaps extend the forms of caste-based exploitation that already flourished under the British. His emphasis on the education ‘of sudra and atisudra children, both girls and boys, was partly a corollary to this perception: if there were young nonbrahmans educated enough to occupy public office or to contest elections, it would prevent the concentration of power, at all Levels, in brahman hands. Thus Phule offered the first edition of Slavery—reproduced here in the frontispieceto general readers“the poor and gudra-atisudras” at a price i but to y ee n the rationalist, anticaste, fiercely annas- to strengther — ae atyashodak Samaj (Society of Truthseekers); as itarian project of the Si é Satyashodaks even gave away free copies tistorian Rosalind O'Hanlon notesy of Slavery in villages around Pune in 1874-* Ina larger sense, Phule was interested in building a belief system that would be a viable foundation for a liberal, democratic, equitable society. The stranglehold of brahmanical Hinduism had to be loosened through the exposure of its fraudulent, self-serving logic, if such a project was ever to be launched, and if the ‘kingdom of Bali’—Phule’s trope for a just society, referencing a chain of ‘Balirajas’ from the mythic Bali himself to Gautama Buddha to Jesus—were to be manifested on earth. Hence the recurrent message—this from a poem by Savitri: “Throw away the brahman’s scriptures.” SRIVIDYA NATARAJAN 1! November 2011