Jotirao Phule
Gulamgiri (Slavery) (1873)
Reform / Response
Chapter III
The Brahmin has been the curse of India. For thousands of years, these cunning men have used religion as a tool to maintain their supremacy over the Shudras and Ati-Shudras. They invented the caste system to keep the masses in subjection.
✦ Commentary
Phule adopts the missionary anti-Brahmin framework wholesale: Brahmins are "cunning," caste is their "invention," religion is their "tool." Compare with Ward's nearly identical language. But Phule redirects the argument — not toward Christian conversion, but toward some kind of "social revolution". The missionary diagnosis survives; only the prescription changes. A case-study of how a propagandic missionary critique was interenalized and this missioanry propoganda was propogateda as "social reform".
Themes
Brahminism as a SystemBrahmins as Inventors of Caste OrderBrahmin as Social OppressionCaste as Hinduism
Source Type
Published Book
↯ Tracing the Causal Chain
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Missionaryadopted
William Ward, A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos
“The Brahmins have, from the earliest ages, claimed the highest rank among men. They have taught that they proceeded from the mouth of God, while the inferior castes sprang from His lower members. By t...”
Phule adopts Ward's framework nearly verbatim: Brahmins are "cunning," religion is their "tool," caste is their "invention." The missionary diagnosis survives unchanged; only the prescription changes — Phule argues for social revolution rather than Christian conversion.