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Incarnations: India in 50 Lives: Jyotirao Phule: The Open Well

Jyotirao Phule: The Open Well

11/06/2015

BBC Radio 4 - Incarnations: India in 50 Lives, Jyotirao Phule: The Open Well

The life of the lower-caste boy who rose to become a social reformer.

The life and times of the Indian social reformer whose commitment to educating women and members of the lower castes was seen as scandalous.

A portrait of the social reformer and anti-caste campaigner. Professor Sunil Khilnani, from the India Institute, King's College London, visits Pune where Jyotirao Phule set out to educate women and promote the cause of the lower-caste members of Indian society. Phule and his wife were castigated for challenging the caste system. In a defiantly symbolic act, he allowed all comers to drink from the well at his house, in an age when members of the lower castes were barred from drinking water used by the upper castes. Today there are many government funding schemes for schools which bear either Phule's or his wife's name but discrimination against the Dalits, then known as Untouchables, hasn't gone away. "Phule wanted to rock the system," says Professor Khilnani "not just to create tiny islands of equality".

Produced by Mark Savage
Researcher: Manu Pillai
Listeners can catch up with the series and see the list of remarkable Indians featured in the series on the Radio 4 website.

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