Reading Phule - Now No More Silences!

Reading Phule - Now No More Silences!
subhash gatade
“Lack of education lead to lack of wisdom,
Which leads to lack of morals,
Which leads to lack of progress,
Which leads to lack of money,
Which leads to the oppression of the lower classes,
See what state of the society one lack of education can cause!”

Jyotiba Phule

..Most people do not realize that society can practise tyranny and oppression against an individual in a far greater degree than a Government can. The means and scope that are open to society for oppression are more extensive than those that are open to Government; also they are far more effective. What punishment in the penal code is comparable in its magnitude and its severity to excommunication? Who has greater courage—the Social Reformer who challenges society and invites upon himself excommunication or the political prisoner who challenges Government and incurs sentence of a few months or a few years imprisonment?..

(Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah, Address delivered by Dr Ambedkar on the 101 st birthday celebration of M G Ranade, 18 th January, 1943)

Introduction
Understanding or rereading a historical figure - whose life and times have impacted generations of scholars and activists - who has been subjected to praise as well scrutiny by best brains of our times becomes a challenging task. One gets a feeling that whatever has to be said has already been said and perhaps there is not much novelty left. An added challenge becomes when you are face to face with scholars/activists who could be considered experts on the issue having done more detailed and through work on the subject.
Today when I begin my presentation I find myself in a similar quandary.
Would it be repetition of what the earlier scholar just spoke or a glimpse of what the coming activist is going to present? And to avoid the possible monotony of any such ensuing discussion - where all of us would be doing 'kadam tal' (a lexicon used in NCC parades) around similar arguments and similar insights and would be lamenting in similar voices, I have decided to flag of few queries which have been bothering my mind since quite some time. It is possible that it would be considered rather blasphemous to raise such questions or they are so mundane that participants can just exchange smiles about their content. Anyway, whatever might be the outcome I would like to raise them with a sincere hope that they would possibly generate a conversation?
1.
1848 happens to be a year of historic importance for the exploited and oppressed of the world, as it was the year when Karl Marx and Frederick Engels - young German revolutionaries - published 'The Communist Manifesto’. Its’ call to 'Workers of the World' to Unite as they had 'nothing but chains to loose but a 'World to Win' still reverberates around the world.
For all those radicals, revolutionaries - individuals, formations, organisations - who yearn for a fundamental social transformation in this part of the earth, 1848 has an added significance. It was this year when another young man -Jyotiba Phule along with his wife Savitribai and a family friend/fellow traveller Fatima Sheikh - opened the first school for the socially discriminated and historically despised 'untouchable' community's girls in Pune. And things were never the same for the Shudras-Atishudras and Women.
Today when we look back at the more than four decade journey of this young man, who was given the honorific 'Mahatma' in the presence of thousands of people, a few years before he breathed his last, (1890) we are amazed to learn the expanse of his vision and the tremendous innovativeness and creativity which was exhibited in his actions. Miles ahead of his own contemporaries - who had the courage to raise his finger at the pressing problems of his time and had no qualms in attacking internal asymmetries of our society and no illusion about the 'great traditions' - one finds that there was no hiatus between what he spoke and he practised in personal as well as social-political life.
Apart from teaching his wife Savitribai - who later became a close comrade of the work he had initiated and later metamorphosed into a writer as well as an independent activist - which was rarity in those days or opening doors of his own house for those considered lowly among the low or coming to the defence of the scholar-activist Pandita Rambai, when she embraced Christianity, about her right to convert when she had to face conservative onslaught rather singlehandedly, one comes across many instances in his life, which are worth emulating in today's times as well.
And in fact when moments came, he had the courage to question, challenge wrong understanding of his own colleagues which was exhibited in his devastating critique of another comrade Bhalerao (when he attacked the important monograph by Tarabai Shinde - a product of the Satyashodhak movement herself- titled 'Stree-Pusush Tulana' as it raised questions of gender equality and patriarchal oppression in her own style) or the manner in which he went ahead with the publication of 'Cultivators Chord' independently when his colleague in the movement another legendary figure Lokhande -who was a pioneer in building the first union of workers in Bombay named 'Bombay Millhands Association - and others found it too radical to be given space in the organisation's organ after two installments.
Modern India, cannot be imagined without the 'path breaking contributions' of Phule and other social reformers/ revolutionaries who came after him, who fought against heavy odds to convince the people around about challenging existing social practices and questioning old mode of thinking and exposing millennial old oppressions which had religious sanctions as well and encouraging them to look beyond.
In his introduction to ‘Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule’ G.P Deshpande tells us
‘Phule’s canvas was broad, his sweep majestic. He identified and theorised the most important questions of his time – religion, Varna System, ritualism, language, literature, British rule, mythology, gender question, conditions of production in agriculture, the lot of peasantry etc….Was Phule then a social reformer ? The answer will be ‘no’. A social reformer is a liberal humanist.Phule was more of a revolutionary. He had a complete system of ideas, and was amongst the early thinkers to have identified, in a manner of speaking, classes in Indian society. He analysed the dvaivarnik structure of Indian society, and identified the shudratishudras as the leading agency of a social revolution.’ (Page 20, Leftword)
2.
It has been exactly 125 years that Mahatma Jyotiba Phule died. (28 th November 1890).
If one goes by the mainstream media one learns that barring some stray programmes not many celebrations/programmes were held to commemorate his memory. Was it unintentional or inadvertent or part of fatigue being experienced by people active with transformatory movements?
And on part of the state should it be interpreted as rather a crude manifestation of identity politics when great leaders - especially belonging to the oppressed communities - have also been 'reduced' to the status of 'Heroes' of their respective castes/communities. And in such an 'identity loaded ambience' perhaps Phule - who was born into numerically not very strong Mali (gardner) caste, did not have much chance to be 'remembered' by the wider populace. Or should it be considered part of deliberate silencing of all such voices whose agenda is found to be inconvenient or subversive by the ruling classes ?
Anyway, the apparent amnesia around his name does not reduce the importance of the path breaking work he did. It was an interesting coincidence that it was around the same time that the august parliament of the country was holding a special two day session focussing on 'Constitution day' and acknowledging the seminal role played by Dr Ambedkar in its making. History bears witness to the fact that Dr Ambedkar had called Phule the 'Greatest Shudra' and openly admitted that Buddha, Kabir and Phule was the triumvirate which was source of his inspiration. People who are always in search of silver lining can also say that thus the august parliament was indirectly appreciating the historic contribution made by Jyotiba Phule as well.
Silence around Phule and yearlong celebrations around Ambedkar can be considered part of the same coin, a tactics which the ruling elite use with ease.
Whether you celebrate Ambedkar or maintain a silence about Phule, one thing can be easily discerned that the ruling classes are neither bothered about the real concerns of Phule, Ambedkar or other social revolutionaries. Perhaps they do not want people to remember that both Phule and Ambedkar had raised destabilising questions about nation, nationalism, culture and challenged 'tremendous fascination among the elite of their times about our great civilisation'. One of their key posers which still rings true which focuses on our caste ridden society - based on privileges for a few and disabilities for the broader masses - and the near impossibility of the emergence of 'a nation' from amongst its midst.
The ruling elite is more keen to carve out a 'suitable' Ambedkar or a 'convenient' Phule to further its agenda. Especially the present ruling dispensation at the centre led by the BJP - part of the broader Hindutva family - seems to be too eager to lay claim over his legacy and they want people to forget the fact that when Ambedkar was alive they had been in the forefront to oppose him on every count. 1
Any student of politics of the oppressed would vouch that it is rather a bane of most of the leaders of the exploited and oppressed who can no more be ignored by the dominant forces. In fact, we have been witness to a similar process which unfolded itself in USA where a very sanitised image of Martin Luther King, has been made popular. Instead of King who opposed Vietnam War, looked at capitalism as source of all evils, who equally struggled for workers’ rights, we have before us an image of King which seems more amenable to the ruling classes there.
There is an interesting commonality how ruling classes try to coopt/appropriate images of leaders of the oppressed. It is a three step process: First, they try to ignore them ; second, when this tactics fails they grudgingly acknowledge them ; third, they try to carve out a 'suitable' revolutionary for their own 'use'. They are adept at what a scholar describes as a deliberate process of ‘mythologising the (great) wo/men and marginalising their meanings.’
3.
It is really easy to blame the cunning of the ruling classes for this state of affairs - which in fact can create lot of heat but does not throw any light on the matter and which is always true - most difficult part of the whole exercise is one, how we - who claim to be the radical inheritors of their legacy - let it happen and secondly, whether there are any elements in the world view of these greats themselves which have made their 'appropriation easier'.
It is possible that few amongst us would 'appreciate' the fact that the powers that be talk about these greats, organise celebrations around them, are keen to publish their collected works or even ready to make them part of curriculum. It may also give them satisfaction that they claim to be walking in their footsteps or fulfilling their dreams but one should be wary of all such claims and also look at the hiatus between what they claim and what is the actual situation on the ground.
Should not this question really bother us that the official incorporation of these greats could be easily done or today these revolutionaries of a different kind who could be part of our arsenal in our fight against inequality and discriminations, hierarchies of various kinds today seem to be 'sitting cosily' with our adversaries.
Coming back to the original focus, question remains why and how the radical agenda of Phule which had a very broad canvas could not be taken further, with the same vigour, zeal and focus and how it metamorphosed first into non-Brahmin movement and later was submerged easily into 'nationalist' movement.
Dr Ambedkar offers an explanation while discussing Justice M G Ranade - who was a contemporary of Phule.
The decline of Social Reform was quite natural. The odium of Social Reform was too great. The appeal of political power too alluring. The result was that social reform found fewer and fewer adherents. In course of time the platform of the Social Reform Conference was deserted, and men flocked to the Indian National Congress. The politicians triumphed over the Social Reformers. I am sure that nobody will now allow that their triumph was a matter for pride. It is certainly a matter of sorrow. Ranade may not have been altogether on the winning side, but he was not on the wrong side and certainly never on the side of the wrong as some of his opponents were. (Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah, Address delivered on the 101 st birthday celebration of M G Ranade, 18 th January, 1943, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/ pritchett/00ambedkar/ txt_ambedkar_ranade.html)
While it seems apt in case of Justice Ranade, one definitely needs to go further deep to understand the later metamorphosis of the Phulevian movement.
4.
History bears witness to the fact that Jawalkar, (1902-1932) a leading champion of the non-Brahmin movement - who was no less a radical - had called Gandhi a 'Satyashodhak' when the non-Brahmin movement decided to 'merge' itself with the national movement.
Was it just part of political expediency or did he really believe that Gandhi who called himself a sanatani (orthodox) Hindu and firmly believed in Varnashram Dharma was really taking forward Phule's mission.And this despite the fact that by the time this stream had joined the Congress it was very much clear that it was careful enough to sideline all those issues pertaining to the internal asymmetries of Indian society, scuttle all such attempts which challenge them, - which were the 'key concerns of Satyashodhak movement under the grand slogan of fighting Britishers.2 In fact, Phule had rather prophesised this state of affairs when he had raised very important questions about the nature of Congress which was founded in 1885.
There cannot be a 'nation' worth the name until and unless all the people of the land of King Bali - such as Shudras and Ati-shudras, Bhils (tribals) and fishermen etc, become truly educated, and are able to think independently for themselves and are uniformly unified and emotionally integrated. If a tiny section of the population like the upstart Aryan Brahmins alone were to found the 'National Congress' who will take any notice of it ? (Phule, Collected Works, ed. Patil, vol II : 29)
A critical look at Gandhi is important because it was this period only when mixing of religion with politics gained a new legitimacy, despite his avowed respect for all religions. Under his leadership only task of reforming Hinduism was brushed aside and Ambedkar, a consistent modernist and a relentless critic of Hinduism, was pushed to the wall.
Looking back it becomes clear the side-lining of voices of internal reform in Indian society had started during Phule's time itself.
In its early stirrings, Lokmanya Tilak, who happened to be a key leader of the Congress movement then, had vehemently led the Conservative reaction against all those concerns for which Phule stood for. It is widely known how it was because of Tilak's insistence ( or we should say threat that the Pandal holding Social Conference would be burnt down) the tradition of holding Social Conference after Congress Conference- which was initiated by the likes of Ranade etc. was discontinued. His opposition to the Sharda Act is also known where he opposed any British intervention in deciding the age at which girl can be married.
To say the least, it is rather baffling that the other face of Tilak's work - where he firmly opposed spread of education among girls, where he opposed moves by social reformers/revolutionaries which challenged age old traditions/customs of Indian society or where he exhibited clearcut Brahminical bias has not received the attention which it has deserved.
In a voluminous work titled 'Foundations of Tilak's Nationalism' ( Parimala Rao, Orient Blackswan, 2010) the author - who has based her work mainly on 'The Mahratta' the newspaper brought out by Tilak - raises many important questions, which exhibit a great hiatus between his image and reality. Two of the questions which she raises in the Introductory chapter 'Encountering the Myth' are worth quoting here :
Why did Tilak's 25 year long anti-peasant struggle fail to enter the pages of history while his token no-tax campaign in ryotwari areas has been extolled ? Why is his 40 yearlong effort to stop women and non-Brahmin from receiving education is pushed under the carpet ?'
In fact, Tilak's ideological opposition to Phule went to the extent that the newspapers which he brought out then - namely 'Kesari' and 'Mahratta' - did not even publish a news about his death. (1990). He even preferred to gloss over the fact that when young Tilak and Agarkar were jailed for the first time, it was Phule only who had organised a public felicitation programme for both of them when they were released (1881).
Ranging from the left on the one hand to the other end of the spectrum, Tilak's image as a 'militant' face of the nationalist movement as opposed to the 'moderates' has been glorified but neither his ideas and actions which clearly present an anti-dalit, anti-women and anti-Muslim bias and a voice which is consistently against social reform has ever come under scanner. 3
5.
Coming back to the on-going debate a very valid question at this juncture could be why does one want to 'excavate' old history ? It can be said that let bygones be bygones.
The fact is that many questions regarding one of the most tumultuous period in India's history still linger on and we are yet to reach any definitive conclusion about them.
For example, one is always amazed by the pioneering work which broke new grounds on the road to emancipation for the broad masses of the country - done by the social revolutionaries - in this part of Western India, but always baffled by the simultaneous/ staggered emergence of reactionary/status quoist movements which also became a 'light house of a different kind' to the rightwingers elsewhere.
As an aside one may note that the leading ideologue of the Islamist Right Maududi also had his beginning in this region only whose influence extends to the wider Muslim world. Maulana Maududi, is reverred by a broad spectrum of Islamists for the world over, who founded Jamaat-e-Islami, was born in Aurangabad and had his initial forays into social-political life here only. As rightly said Abul Ala Maududi is to 'Political Islam' what Karl Marx was to Communism?
Perhaps this query regarding not so silent emergence of social revolutionary and social reactionary trends from the same part of Western India can be further probed if we revisit this period.
We need to revisit not only to scrutinise the image of Lokmanya and how skilfully the grand agenda of social transformation put forward by Phule was side-lined and to understand the resistance to social change encountered by Phule, but also need to revisit the period of nationalist movement post-Tilak also which could not make a radical rupture with the overwhelming Hindu discourse - despite the fact that two of its senior most leaders, Gandhi as well as Nehru were die hard seculars.
Revisiting Tilak is important to know the genesis of Hindutva Right today because under the name of opposing the Britishers he inadvertently or so helped strengthen status quoist forces in Indian society and helped further a very regressive social agenda. In fact his imaginary vis-a-vis Hindu Nation or his mobilising Hindu constituency through organisation of festivals or his extolling Manusmriti in 'Gita Rahsya' - his critique of Bhagwad Geetha which he penned down during his prison days - or section of Hindu Rights taking inspiration from him has largely remained unaddressed.
While the triumvirate of Savarkar, Hedgewar and Golwalkar is rightly pointed out for their 'leading role' in Hindutva politics we should not forget two things, one, 'pioneers' of Hindutva claimed Tilak's legacy as well. The likes of Dr Munje, who was one of the founders of RSS and a key leader of Hindu Mahasabha, was considered a staunch Tilakite and dissociated himself from the Congress after the death of Tilak as he was not convinced about the idea of Secularism in Gandhi and supposedly abhorred his politics of non-violence.
An added complexity about the unfolding situation is the wide acceptance of an illusion packaged as truth which veers around what people call 'Purogami Maharashtra'- Progressive Maharashtra.
You mention assassination of activists, scholars - who were working within the bounds of constitution, you mention ascendance of Hindutva rightwingers in all their ferocity today or their growing 'normalisation' in the society, you mention rise in Dalit atrocities or the growing legitimacy of caste councils and all such talk can bounce back upon you by calling them aberrations and the 'great tradition of Phule-Ambekdar' would be invoked to blunt your argument, (Perhaps it can be reminded here that Com Govind Pansare, who was assasinated by Sanatan Sanstha terrorists had rightly called upon people to come out of this illusion.)
6.
Looking back is important also to revisit the controversy which is often raked up to denigrate Phule's contribution which veers around his approach towards British rule. And disturbingly, traditional left which upholds Karl Marx's dialectical assessment of the British rule where he talks about its 'crimes' as well as its 'causing a social revolution', 4 also seems to follow the same track.
A representative sample of left's criticism of Phule can be had from G P Deshpande's introduction to 'Selected Works of Jotirao Phule' ( we should not forget how in the same Introduction GPD praises Phule in glowing terms, a glimpse of it can be seen in section 1) which is basically a masterly translation of Phule's selected writings in English. GPD writes

hule did not see imperialism dialectically. He did not see that the British ruling classes were not kind to the lower classes in Britain. The British legal system, in which he had invested his faith, was no less exploitative and unjust when it had to deal with the British peasantry and the working class. His enthusiasm for British rule made him skeptical of even the shudraatishudra uprisings against British rule in his own time, for instance the uprising led by Umaji Naik. It also prevented him from seeing the material basis of what he would brand as 'Brahman' nationalism....Phule did not see, for instance, the significance of Vasudev Phadke, a brahman, working with the ramoshis. The result was that Phule and his comrades and followers ended up taking softer and softer positions on British imperialism and ultimately lost ground to the nationalist movement.

(Ed. G.P. Deshpande, Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule, Leftword, 2002, Page 19)
Perhaps a more nuanced understanding of Phule's more than four decade old social-political journey - which should include his exposure of the British government's policies from time to time or his assessment of the Congress Party's then brand of nationalism or his envisioning an alternate conception of nationalism - is in order to put things in proper perspective.
And before coming to discuss Phule, it is also important to comprehend what Marx meant by 'social revolution' in India. Could it be limited merely to what he called '..rutal interference of the British tax-gatherer and the British soldier, as to the working of English steam and English free trade." (Karl Marx,, The British Rule in India, First published: in the New-York Daily Tribune, June 25, 1853, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/25.htm) or something deeper. Marx was definitely explicit regarding these changes:

"All the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines, strangely complex, rapid, and destructive as the successive action in Hindostan may appear, did not go deeper than its surface. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo, and separates Hindostan, ruled by Britain, from all its ancient traditions, and from the whole of its past history. .....
..We must not forget that these little communities were contaminated by distinctions of caste and by slavery, that they subjugated man to external circumstances instead of elevating man the sovereign of circumstances, that they transformed a self-developing social state into never changing natural destiny, and thus brought about a brutalizing worship of nature, exhibiting its degradation in the fact that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his knees in adoration of Kanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow."

The impact of the British rule on the Indian society could be better understood if one takes a look at the then existing society. In his speech 'Ranade,, Gandhi and Jinnah' Dr Ambekdar has described the situation present then when Ranade - a contemporary of Phule - came on the scene.
"Is there any society in the world which has unapproachable,, unshadowables, and unseeables? Is there any society which has got a population of Criminal Tribes? Is there a society in which there exist today primitive people, who live in jungles, who do not know even to clothe themselves? How many do they count in numbers? Is it a matter of hundreds, is it a matter of thousands? I wish they numbered a paltry few. The tragedy is that they have to be counted in millions, millions of Untouchables, millions of Criminal Tribes, millions of Primitive Tribes!! One wonders whether the Hindu civilization is civilization, or infamy.5
The rule by the Peshawas which essentially practised Manusmriti was more vicious especially for all those who did not belong to the Chitpavan Brahman caste ( the caste to which Peshawa belonged). Forget right to education or right to wear clothes according to one's own choice, it even prohibited rest from using the greeting 'Namaskar'. The lowly of the low then - namely 'untouchables' - had to carry an earthen pot in their neck so that their spit does not spoil the street, their entry to the city was limited to few hours only as it was feared that their shadow may fall on the Brahmins and it can 'pollute' them.
In such a background colonialism was not simply change from one set of rulers to others, it involved a move from one kind of society to a qualitatively different one. Colonial rule definitely meant strengthening mechanisms of colonial exploitation but it did try to superimpose minimum capitalist relations on the old order. The prevalent social norms subordinated individual to the institution of caste. The daily life of the Hindus was regulated by the religious texts. Colonialism prepared the ground to 'break asunder' these relations. It was under this regime that India encountered Modernity for the first time albeit attempts were on to curb/limit its spread in very many ways.
The differential experience of the change in rule vis-a-vis Brahmins and the rest could be easily understood. And it was not for nothing that Phule 'welcomed' the defeat of the Peshawas in the war of 1857 (variously described as 'war of independence' or 'sepoy mutiny' etc) and said that if Britishers would have lost 'Peshawa rule would have returned'. The issue of millenia old social-cultural oppression and denial of basic civic rights to a large section of people had finally truimphed over the issue of gaining of political rights by 'outsiders'. For the lowly among the low what was the difference in material as well as social life if you were oppressed under an 'insider' called Peshawa which denied them every sort of human right and an 'outsider' called the British, which for its own reasons granted limited civil rights to them.
As an aside one may note how for the Brahmin elite viewed end of Peshawa rule (1 st January,1818) in the final battle with Britishers at Koregaon and ushered us it into colonial regime, but how the same event was interpreted entirely differently by the Atishudras. Battle of Koregaon has a deep significance to Mahars and other Dalits in India, who remember it every January 1 as a mark of their triumph against the dehumanising rule of the Peshwas and as the first step in their on-going struggle against caste-based oppression. When Dr Ambedkar was alive he use to visit Koregaon (very near to Pune) yearly on 1 st January to remember the heroic role played by dalit soldiers. It is said that on New Year's Day in 1818, about 500 soldiers of the East India Company's Bombay Native Infantry regiment led by Colonel FF Staunton waded across the Bhima river and, at Bhima Koregaon, routed a superior force of 25,000 well-equipped soldiers of the Peshwa.(http://scroll.in/article/801298/why-lakhs-of-people-celebrate-the-british-victory-over-the-maratha-peshwas-every-new-year)
Another important point which normally gets missed is how Phule 'looked' at nation and nationalism or how he thought about transfer of power.
If in the worldview of the traditional elite, which was the fulcrum around which nascent emergence of 'nationalism' could be traced, it basically meant 'transfer of power' in their hands, for Phule
.<'>nation was a democratic society. The birth of a nation required the growth of a civil society, the celebration of citizenship, and the beginning of the process of empowerment of the marginalised.'
(Debrahmanising History, Braj Ranjan Mani, P 289, Manohar, Delhi)
Phule was wary of the basic postulates of these nascent nationalists which talked of reviving ancient glory or merits of the classical caste system and envisaged a future which would replicate similar social system where everybody will faithfully adhere to their respective caste duty.
In 'Shetkaryacha Asusd' (Cultivators Whipchord) he writes :

..If the Brahmans really wish to unite the people of this country and take the nation ahead, then first they must drown their cruel religion, which is customary amongst both the victors ( Brahmans) and the vanquished ( shudras), and they publicly and clearly, must cease using any artifice in their relationship with the shudras, who have been demeaned by that religion, and trample on inequality and the Vedanta opinion, and till a true unity is established, there will be no progress in this country.

(Selected Writings of Phule, Leftword, 2002, P 178)
His forthrightness in criticising the Congress and emphasising his radical social agenda was no exception. When Justice Ranade invited him for the plenary session of the Conference of Marathi authors in 1885, he not only expressed his inability but also underlined that he sees no point in participating in such Conferences as they would not benefit downtrodden masses. (Selected Writings of Phule, Leftword, 2002, P 200-1)
7.

All great revolutionaries of yesteryears are judged on the anvil of time.
It is part of the on-going evaluation, summation of work of earlier revolutionaries, movements .
Buddha - the great social revolutionary - and Anand, his very close comrade, popularly known as his disiple, present perhaps one of the earliest examples in written history, when Buddha's exclusion of women from Viharas became a talking point. It was only because of Anand's insistence that they were included and we were saved from critical references about position of women in Buddha's thinking.
Kabir, the radical Saint, who with his uncompromising attack on religious hypocrisies of his times, still inspires young generations, but it does not overshadow his negative opinion about women.
We very well know how the Jacobins - which formed part of