Rashtrapita Jotiba Phule and Satya Shodhak Samaj

Rashtrapita Jotiba Phule during his social movement propagated his views through public meetings, spread the importance of education through leaflets and booklets and brought awareness among the lower castes.

He wanted that people of lower caste educated their children and freed themselves from the evil customs and wicked prejudices imposed on them in the name of God by the Brahmin priests. He inspired peasants and toiling masses. He wanted them to raise their voice against poverty, social injustice and unjust and inhuman practices of Hindu priests.

Jotiba organized his followers so that they adapted his rational ideas and brought them into effect. He knew that the Brahmins were unsympathetic and intolerant. Jotiba decided to set up an organization to preach his ideology. He organized a meeting of all his admirers and disciples. He made an opening speech and explained the necessity of a central institution for the guidance of the movement. He named this institution as `Satya Shodhak Samaj’, meaning Truth-Seeking Society.

A member at Satya Shodhak Samaj had to take an oath in the name of God. Membership of the Samaj was extended to all the castes including Mahars, Mangs, Jews and Muslims. The weekly meetings were held on Sundays. The subjects discussed were the necessity of compulsory education, encouragement of swadeshi goods, displacing the Brahmin priests from the position they held in the religious field, making arrangements for performing marriage at minimum expenses, freeing men from the beliefs in astrology, ghosts and demons, attacking the caste system and idol-worship.

The main objective of Satya Shodhak Samaj was to liberate the Shudras by preventing their exploitation by the upper caste like Brahmans. Through Satya Shodhak Samaj, Jotiba refused to regard the Vedas as holy. He opposed idolatry and criticized the caste system. Satya Shodhak Samaj propounded the spread of rational thinking and rejected the need for a priestly class as educational and religious leader. He strongly opposed worthless rituals and any intermediate between God and person. Satya Shodhak Samaj believed neither in the caste system nor in the basic four-fold division of society.

Satya Shodhak Samaj advocated the spread of rational thinking. Jotiba firmly believed that if we wanted to create a new social system based on freedom, equality, goodwill, human dignity and economic justice, people would have to overthrow the old, unequal and unfair social system.

Jotiba believed in overthrowing the social system in which man was deliberately made dependent on others because of widespread ignorance and poverty. For him getting rid of blind belief was an important part of broad social transformation. This was his approach for ending exploitation of human beings.