Why ‘Phule’ is facing censorship – though previous biopics of the reformer did not

The release of Ananth Mahadevan’s film Phule about the 19th-century anti-caste activists Jyotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule was delayed this week as the filmmaker was asked to edit out overt references to caste – though these details are present in previous biopics of the reformers.

Nilesh Jalamkar’s Satyashodhak last year and PK Atre’s Mahatma Phule from 1954 depict the widely chronicled events that shaped Phule’s journey – the heckling he receives when he attends a Brahmin wedding, a Dalit boy being physically prevented from using a well, the support for Phule by progressive Brahmins, Phule’s adoption of a Brahmin orphan.

Both films contain references to specific caste groupings and other social and historical details that Mahadevan was reportedly asked to remove.

The difference, an academic said, may be in the language of the films. The other two films are in Marathi. Mahadevan’s Phule is in Hindi and is intended for a wider viewership.

“The attitude is, let Phule be only for the Maharashtrians,” the academic said. “He is not needed on a grand scale.”

Earlier this week, it was reported that the Central Board of Film Certification asked Mahadevan to edit out mentions of the Mang and Mahar groups (BR Ambedkar, who revered Phule, belonged to the Mahar community).

The Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry body also demanded the removal of references to Manu, the author of the Hindu treatise Manusmriti, and the Peshwa rule in Maharashtra that ended a few years before Phule’s birth in 1827, news reports said.

A line stating “3,000 saal puraani gulaami” (Slavery that is 3,000 years old) has been changed to “kai saal purani hai” (It is ancient). Ghulami is the title of Phule’s polemic from 1873.

The excisions were ordered after groups such as the Akhil Bhartiya Brahmin Samaj and the Parshuram Aarthik Vikas Mahamandal objected to the film’s trailer. Anand Dave, the president of the Brahmin Federation, told The New Indian Express that the Phule biopic is “one-sided” and “could stoke caste-based tensions”.

Ananth Mahadevan did not respond to Scroll’s request for an interview. In interviews to other publications, the Maharashtra State Film Award winner asserted that Phule is based on published research and does not pursue a political agenda. The film’s publicists confirmed to Scroll that the cuts have been carried out ahead of the film’s planned release on April 25.

However, the details that have been edited out are contained in the films about the firebrand reformer by both Atre and Jalamkar.

Phule’s mission to challenge deeply entrenched casteism, shake up ossified traditions and emphasise the value of education was also explored in an episode in Shyam Benegal’s television series Bharat Ek Khoj (1988-1989).

Nilesh Jalamkar told Scroll that the incidents shown in Satyashodhak, such as the concerted opposition to Phule by Brahmin community leaders and the cow dung and stones hurled at Savitribai, are based on credible sources, including research in books published by the Maharashtra state government.

Satyashodhak stars Sandeep Kulkarni as Phule and Rajshri Deshpande as Savitribai. Jalamkar, who previously made a biopic on former Maharashtra Chief Minister Vasantrao Naik, said that his film did not face any major problems, either at the censor board or during the theatrical release.

“There were some noises from Brahmin groups,” Jalamkar recalled. “But the state government supported the film and gave it tax-free status.” Present at the launch of Satyashodhak was Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who was in his first term in office and Vinod Tawde, who was minister of cultural affairs.

“I didn’t take any cinematic liberties,” Jalamkar said about Satyashodhak, which is available on Prime Video. “I didn’t need to, given how eventful Mahatma Phule’s life was and how remarkable his vision was.”

The one precaution Jalamkar took was to include only those anecdotes that had appeared in more than one book about Phule. “I used only the characters and storylines that were agreed upon by different writers and ignored incidents where there was no agreement,” Jalamkar said.

In Mahatma Phule and Satyashodhak, Phule’s crusade against Brahminical oppression of lower castes is articulated through rational and yet forceful arguments that are not couched in metaphors. Phule’s courageous resistance is shown to be verbal as well as physical – he was a skilled wrestler.

“Mahatma Phule spoke in a forthright, combative manner,” Jalamkar observed. “He never softened his blows.”

Playwright and scholar GP Deshpande writes in his introduction to Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule that Phule was “ferocious and unforgiving in his attack on brahmanism”.

Deshpande adds:

“Phule’s prose, his use of nineteenth-century colloquial speech, his system of argumentation, his ferocious polemics, his poetry (greatly influenced by the seventeenth-century Bhakti poet Tukaram), his assessment of various Bhakti poets which amounts to the beginning of Marathi socio-literary criticism, all these are aspects of his work which hardly, if ever, get discussed… Phule was trying to build a movement of the oppressed, and was trying through his writings to first and foremost reach out to those masses. It is then only expected that he speaks their language when he addresses them.”

Language itself could be the reason Mahadevan’s movie was singled out for censure and censorship, an academic who has extensively studied Phule told Scroll on condition of anonymity.

Atre’s Mahatma Phule and Jalamkar’s Satyashodhak in Marathi, so the audience is limited to speakers of that language. Mahadevan’s Hindi-language Phule targets a wider viewership, which is possibly why it has been attacked, the academic suggested.

By censoring specific identity markers, a situation is being created in which caste, oppression and marginalisation are being pushed into a smaller sphere. “Let there be no language of caste in the public realm,” the academic added. “Since film is one of the most popular art forms, this is what the censor is targeting.”

There is another factor at play that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for Hindi filmmakers to freely explore social injustice, unlike their counterparts in the language film industries, the academic explained.

The “localisation of revolutionary heroes” results in these figures being bracketed into designated, controllable spaces. “Phule can be managed at a local level for whatever purpose – as a vote bank or to placate a particular caste or community,” this person said.

Mahadevan’s Phule was initially slotted to be released on April 11, Phule’s 198th birth anniversary. On the day, the Maharashtra government issued newspaper advertisements hailing Phule as a “Krantisurya” – a glorious revolutionary.

“You want Mahatma Phule’s photos and statues, but what about his vision and ideas?” Jalamkar said. “The target isn’t the Brahmin community, but the ideology [of casteist supremacy] itself.”

The academic who has studied Phule said that the reformer’s thoughts have the same raw power today as they did back in the nineteenth century.

“There is propaganda cinema and then there is art with revolutionary potential,” he said. “A film with a protagonist like Phule has revolutionary potential. It is difficult to resist from the space where Phule’s thoughts organically evolved, but it is easier not to let his thoughts go beyond the box. We know who is guarding the box, who is formulating the dimensions of this box.”

With inputs from Divya Aslesha.