Gulamgiri

Topic: Print Culture and the Modern World · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 5 "Print Culture and the Modern World"

Meaning

Gulamgiri ("Slavery") is a book by Jyotiba Phule, the Maratha pioneer of 'low caste' protest. In it he attacked the injustices of the caste system and compared the condition of low-caste people in India to the slavery of Black people in the United States [2]. NCERT dates it to 1871; Britannica gives 1873 [2].

It matters because it is one of the earliest printed attacks on caste written from below. It showed how print could carry the voice of the oppressed far beyond one village or town.

Explanation

Background: print reaches new readers

• Print had been in India for a long time before Phule wrote.
• Jesuit missionaries brought the first press to Goa in September 1556 [6].

• Type in Indian languages later made cheap local printing possible. In 1778, a press run by Andrews of Hooghly printed Halhed's A Grammar of the Bengal Language in Bengali type cut by Panchanan Karmakar [6].

• In the nineteenth century, print reached poorer people.

• In Madras towns, very cheap small books were sold at crossroads.

• Printed matter was no longer only for rich homes and temples.

• This gave reformers like Phule a way to argue with a wide public. They no longer needed only speeches.

What Phule argued in Gulamgiri

• Caste is a kind of slavery.
• Phule compared low-caste people in India with enslaved Black people in America [2].

• Both groups, he argued, were held down by birth, not by any fault of their own.

• Brahmans are not naturally superior. He rejected the claim that Brahmans were above others by nature [2].

• Caste is not god-given. He rejected the belief that dividing society into castes was a divine order [2].
• He spoke for those at the bottom:
• the Shudras (artisans and labourers), and

• the groups now called Scheduled Castes or Dalits [2].

• He is widely known to have dedicated the book to the people of the United States who fought to end slavery. This links the Indian anti-caste struggle with the worldwide fight against slavery.

Who Phule was

• A social reformer, writer and campaigner for equality [2].
• He worked for poor labourers and for women, and he sharply criticised the Hindu caste order [2].

Results: a tradition of caste critique in print

• Gulamgiri started a line of printed protest that grew stronger in the twentieth century.
• B.R. Ambedkar (Maharashtra) used newspapers:
• Mooknayak ("Leader of the Voiceless"), a Marathi paper, 1920 [3][4].

• Bahishkrit Bharat, started 3 April 1927 [4].

• E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, called Periyar (Madras), started the Tamil weekly Kudi Arasu ("Republic") on 2 May 1925 [5].

• Protest movements printed their own journals. These journals:
• criticised the ancient scriptures used to justify caste, and

• pictured a just future, a society where rank did not depend on birth.

• Later, worker-writers linked caste with class. Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal (1938).

Time, place and evidence

• When: Nineteenth century. 1871 according to NCERT; 1873 according to Britannica [2]. Use 1871 in the exam.
• Where: Western India, in the Maratha region (Maharashtra). Phule wrote in Marathi.
• Key person: Jyotiba (Jyotirao) Phule, social reformer and campaigner for low castes and women [2].
• Wider setting: A period of growing Indian-language print. By the 1860s, papers like Somprakash, Grambarta Prakashika and Amrita Bazar Patrika were writing about the problems of ordinary farmers and workers [6].
• How we know: From the printed book itself, from the NCERT Class 10 chapter "Print Culture and the Modern World", and from Britannica's biography of Phule [2].

Don't confuse with

• Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal — written by Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, in 1938. It links caste and class exploitation. Gulamgiri is by Phule, from the nineteenth century, and focuses on caste.
• Sacchi Kavitayan — collected poems (1935–55) of Sudarshan Chakr, another Kanpur millworker. It is poetry by a worker, not a reformer's book on caste.
• Mooknayak / Bahishkrit Bharat — these are Ambedkar's newspapers (1920, 1927) [4]. Gulamgiri is a book, not a newspaper, and it is by Phule.
• Kudi Arasu — Periyar's Tamil weekly from Madras (1925) [5]. Do not link Phule with Madras. Phule belongs to the Maratha region.

Prelims Hooks

• Gulamgiri — author: Jyotiba Phule; NCERT date: 1871 (Britannica: 1873 [2]).
• Phule is called the Maratha pioneer of 'low caste' protest in NCERT.
• Gulamgiri compares low-caste people in India to enslaved Black people in the United States [2].
• Pairs: Phule – Maharashtra, Ambedkar – Maharashtra, Periyar – Madras.
• Chronological order: Gulamgiri (1871) → Mooknayak (1920) → Kudi Arasu (1925) → Bahishkrit Bharat (1927) → Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal (1938).
• Trap: Gulamgiri is by Phule, not Ambedkar. Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal is by Kashibaba, not Phule.

Mains Points

• Print turned caste protest into an all-India argument.
• A spoken protest stays in one place. A printed book travels and lasts.

• Gulamgiri (1871) set the pattern that Ambedkar and Periyar later followed, and their work was read all over India.

• Phule put the Indian caste question in a world setting.

• By comparing caste with American slavery [2], he presented caste as a question of human rights, not a sacred order.

• This rejection of Brahman superiority and of a "god-given" caste order [2] became the core of later anti-caste thought.

• Access to the press decides whose voice is heard.

• Mainstream writing ignored low-caste concerns. So Phule wrote books, and later Ambedkar and Periyar started their own papers [4][5].
• Useful for GS-I answers on social reform movements and on how the modern media shaped Indian society.

Related concepts

• Mooknayak
• Periyar

Read more

• Print, the poor and caste-class critique