Context:

• The bicentenary of Mahatma Jotirao Phule (April 11, 1827–1890) offers an opportunity to revisit his contributions.
• While widely known as a social reformer and educationist, his work can be more deeply understood as a “constitutional project” aimed at restructuring society on equality, dignity, and justice.

Phule’s Constitutional Imagination:

• Mahatma Phule did not draft a formal Constitution but reimagined the foundations of social order.
• His thought emphasized natural rights and civil rights, redistribution of power, and institutional reform for social justice.
• His work anticipated core constitutional values later embedded in the Indian Constitution, for instance, equality (Article 14), social justice, and welfare orientation of the State.

Intellectual Influences and Ideological Foundations:

• Influence of western liberal thought: Mahatma Phule’s exposure to English education introduced him to modern political ideas. A key influence was Thomas Paine and his work Rights of Man.
• Key ideas absorbed were - natural rights inherent by birth, and Constitution as a structure ensuring “general happiness”.
• These ideas enabled Mahatma Phule to critique caste hierarchy in universal terms of justice and rights.

Institutional and Social Interventions:

• Education as empowerment:
  • He established schools for women, lower castes, and advocated for compulsory primary education up to age 12, inclusive higher education, and targeted scholarships for marginalised communities.
  • He also advocated to focus on state responsibility in education.
• Social reform measures: Opened public wells for “untouchables”, advocated widow remarriage and criticised child marriage. Thus, he promoted gender justice and social inclusion.

Global and Comparative Constitutional Vision:

• His seminal work: In Gulamgiri (Slavery), 1873, he linked caste oppression with global struggles against slavery, by referencing abolition of slavery in the United States.
• He positioned caste as a form of structural oppression requiring systemic redress.
• Thus, he was among the earliest Indian thinkers to adopt a comparative constitutional perspective.

Agrarian Question and Economic Justice:

• In Shetkaryacha Asud (Cultivator’s Whipcord, 1883), he exposed how caste domination operates within the agrarian economy.
• He wrote that the Shudra farmer is so burdened by exploitation and deprivation that even the possibility of sending his children to school is foreclosed. Thus, poverty and social hierarchy restrict access to education and mobility.
• At the same time, he directed sharp criticism at colonial administrators, observing that White officers had neither the time nor the inclination to inquire into the conditions of the cultivators.

Key Insight - Interlinkages of Oppression:

• Mahatma Phule identified a critical structural reality, highlighting that social hierarchy, economic exploitation, and state indifference leads to systemic injustice.
• This anticipates modern concepts like intersectionality, structural inequality, and inclusive governance.

Influence on Indian Constitutionalism:

• Mahatma Phule’s ideas significantly influenced B R Ambedkar.
• His vision found concrete expression in the Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSPs), and the affirmative action policies.
• He laid the intellectual groundwork for a transformative Constitution. 

Contemporary Challenges and Way Ahead:

• Persistence of caste-based discrimination, educational inequality, and agrarian distress.
  • Strengthen inclusive education policies (National Education Policy 2020 implementation with equity lens).
  • Promote social justice through legal and institutional reforms.
  • Revive Phule’s emphasis on grassroots empowerment and dignity.
• Gaps in implementation of welfare policies, access to quality education for marginalised groups, and continuing state apathy in addressing structural inequalities.
  • Expand targeted welfare schemes for marginalised communities.
  • Ensure accountability and responsiveness of governance.

Conclusion:

• Mahatma Jotirao Phule’s legacy extends far beyond social reform—he was a visionary architect of a just social order grounded in constitutional values.
• His ideas anticipated the moral and philosophical foundations of modern Indian democracy.
• As India marks his bicentenary, the enduring relevance of his thought lies in its call to continuously challenge inequality and reorient the State towards the most vulnerable, ensuring that justice is not merely promised, but realised.