Ebook: Cultivator’s Whipcord

Cultivator's Whipcord (Shetkaryacha Asud) was written in 1883 but the publication of the entire text was delayed because, as Phule put it, ‘We the Shudras have amongst us cowardly publishers’. Nor was it written at one go. Phule did public readings of the various chapters of the book as they got written.

Aniket Jaavare, our translator, had proposed ‘whiplash’ as a translation for ‘Asud’. However, Phule himself preferred ‘Whipcord’, and that is what we have retained.

Asud and Gulamgiri, between them, sum up Phule's political and economic philosophy and define his historicist understanding of the varna system. Phule believed that Maharashtrian Hindu society was made of two groups, the Brahmins and the Shudratishudras. This two-fold division and the historical tension between the two is central to his thought. Here we see Phule analysing history, mythology, language, the social struggle at the core of Maharashtrian society, revolutionary change and its appropriation by the dominant class, in this case the Brahmins. Even if one were to read only these two books, one would get the essence of Phule's thought and system.