Radical Futures or Pristine Pasts? : The Afterlives of Anti-Casteism in Western India
Lower caste assertion in colonial India has been a topic of critical interest for several researchers in the recent past. The Satyashodhak Movement (Truth-Seeking movement) spearheaded by Jotirao Phule in 1873 is one such important movement. However, this movement has largely been studied in a teleological manner, from its birth as a social movement in 1873, to its culmination into a political party in 1920. In this presentation, I will argue that the ideological currents of the Satyashodhak variant of non-Brahmanism underwent seismic shifts after 1890.