When people think of “Mahatma,” Gandhi may be the first person that comes to mind. However, “Mahatma” is actually a honorific title, derived from the Sanskrit words for “great soul,” that is given to those who are revered above most others for courageous or revolutionary acts. The first Mahatma was a man called Jyotirao Phule, who is the subject of the new film Phule, directed by Ananth Narayan Mahadevan.
Phule and his wife Savitribai fought for the rights of those in India’s lower castes, particularly those of girls. They started a school for girls in western India in 1848. Even in the United States and Europe, only upper-class girls received education in this time period, so anyone opening a school for underprivileged girls was almost unheard of.
“The two of them are lethal, the husband and wife, because at a time when the girl child was being refused education and just pushed into marriage, Jyotirao chose to actually educate his little wife – she was just 11 at that time, he was 17 when they got married, because it was the time of child marriage,” Mahadevan told Variety.
The themes of the film are still relevant in today’s society, says Mahadevan. “We still haven’t sorted these issues out, whether it’s here [India] or the rest of the world. Gender discrimination and caste discrimination is prevalent everywhere today. The Phules emerge as icons for this fight that has been going on for generations.”
The Phules are played by Pratik Gandhi and Patralekhaa Paul. Phule is Mahadevan’s 24th film as a director; his film The Storyteller is also in the running to be India’s entry for the international feature category at the 2023-2024 Academy Awards.
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