Slavery (Gulamgiri)

Introduction

Phule published “Gulamgiri” (Slavery) in Marathi in Pune in 1873, the year he founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, with an English preface and a dedication to the good people of the United States for their devotion to the cause of ending Negro slavery. The book is a dialogue between Phule and a young man, Dhondiba. It retells Brahmanical myths of the avatars of Vishnu as a history of conquest: Aryan Brahmins had subdued the original inhabitants of India, among them the just king Bali, and secured their rule through scriptures and by denying learning to Shudras and Ati-Shudras. Phule compared their condition to slavery in America and called for education and for rejecting the authority of Brahmin priests. The book became a founding text of the non-Brahmin movement in western India, and B. R. Ambedkar took up its theme in “Who Were the Shudras?” (1946).