As the nation marks the start of the year-long bicentenary celebrations of the birth of Mahatma Jotirao Phule, the BJP has launched high-decibel celebrations of the 19th-century social reformer. From memorials to televised tributes, the party appears keen to claim the 'father of the Indian social revolution' as a mascot for its social engineering. Yet a closer reading of Phule’s seminal works — Gulamgiri, Shetkaryacha Asud, and Sarvajanik Satya Dharma Pustak — suggests the Hindutva project is not merely different from Phule’s vision, but its philosophical opposite.

At the core of the BJP’s politics lies Hindutva, premised on a unified Hindu identity rooted in scripture. Phule’s final work, Sarvajanik Satya Dharma Pustak (1889), sharply rejected the authority of Vedic and Puranic traditions. He proposed the idea of Nirmik (the Creator), arguing that while the universe may be divinely created, religions and scriptures are human constructs serving priestly........

© National Herald