Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule were 19th-century firebrands who challenged the Brahminical order head-on. Their work—founding schools for Shudras and Ati-Shudras, advocating for widow remarriage, and dismantling caste hierarchies—threatened a society built on exclusion. Phule aims to honor their defiance, but the CBFC’s cuts blunt its power. Scenes depicting documented Peshwa-era practices, like a Shudra forced to sweep his own footprints to avoid “polluting” upper castes, have been replaced with vague imagery of boys throwing “things” at Savitribai. Dialogue naming “three-thousand-year caste slavery” has been watered down to “many years old,” obscuring the depth and duration of systemic oppression. A voiceover explaining the caste system? Gone, as if naming the hierarchy itself is too dangerous.
These edits, prompted by objections from Brahmin groups like the Brahmin Federation, expose a deeper agenda. Led by Anand Dave, the Federation claims Phule misrepresents their community and risks inflaming caste tensions by ignoring Brahmin reformers who supported the Phules’ schools or Satyashodhak Samaj. This demand for “inclusion” is a sleight of hand—it reframes a story of Dalit-Bahujan resistance into one where Brahmins remain central, even as allies. Jyotirao’s Gulamgiri explicitly called out Brahminical dominance; to insist his biopic highlight Brahmin contributions is to co-opt his narrative, diluting its focus on the oppressed’s agency. It’s a tactic as old as caste itself: centering the dominant group’s perspective to maintain narrative control.
The CBFC’s role here is no neutral arbiter. Historically, the Board has suppressed films challenging caste and religious orthodoxy, from Ambedkar (2000) to Udta Punjab (2016), often bending to pressure from powerful lobbies. Its demands on Phule fit this pattern, prioritizing Brahminical sensitivities over historical truth. By erasing terms like “Peshwai”—the Brahmin-led regime the Phules opposed—or “Manu’s system,” the CBFC doesn’t just soften history; it severs the link between past atrocities and their ideological roots. This erasure denies Dalit-Bahujan communities the right to see their ancestors’ struggles reflected authentically, reinforcing a cultural amnesia that benefits the caste elite.
Worse, this censorship sidelines the Phules’ own voice. Jyotirao never minced words about Brahminical oppression; Savitribai’s poetry raged against caste and patriarchy. To mute their language in a film about them is to strip away their agency, turning their rebellion into a palatable fable for a casteist society. It’s a double violence: first, the historical marginalization they fought, and now, the posthumous silencing of their truth. This mirrors global patterns—think of how colonial powers whitewash indigenous histories or how America’s slave past is softened in textbooks. India’s caste censorship is no outlier; it’s part of a universal playbook where dominant groups dictate the terms of memory.
Defenders of the edits might claim they’re preventing social unrest in a polarized India. But this argument crumbles under scrutiny. Silencing caste-specific truths doesn’t heal divisions—it festers them, alienating those whose histories are erased while emboldening those who benefit from silence. Director Ananth Mahadevan, a Brahmin himself, has defended Phule’s fidelity to facts, engaging community representatives to clarify its intent. Yet the pressure to sanitize persists, revealing who still wields power over India’s cultural narrative. If naming Brahminical oppression is deemed “divisive,” but caste-based discrimination remains a daily reality for millions, whose interests does this censorship serve?
The Phule controversy is a battle over more than a film—it’s a fight for historical memory. When caste realities are scrubbed from art, Dalit-Bahujan communities are robbed of their heroes’ defiance, while the descendants of caste’s architects—or those invested in their legacy—retain the privilege of shaping the past. This isn’t neutrality; it’s hegemony by another name. India’s reckoning with caste demands stories like the Phules’ be told unfiltered, in all their raw, uncomfortable truth. Anything less betrays their revolution and ensures the hierarchies they challenged endure, cloaked in silence.
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