the goan I network
MARGAO
Noted historian Dr Jaisinghrao Pawar, who is also the biographer of Maharashtra based social reformer late Shahu Maharaj, summed up the very essence of the late social reformer’s life to be the reformation of the Bahujan Samaj.
Delivering the first lecture titled ‘The Works and Thoughts of Shahu Maharaj’ in chaste Marathi at the Meera Kossambi lecture series organised by Konkani Bhasha Mandal (KBM) at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao from March 6, Dr Pawar touched on four essentials highlighted by Shahu Maharaj for the reformation of the Bahujan Samaj as education, participation in administration, a solution to the caste system and freedom from religious bondage.
Terming Bahujan as those kept away from political power, self and education in those times, he pegged the percentage of such Bahujan Samaj during the bygone era at 97 percent, while claiming that the Bahujan Samaj wanted independence from the balance 3 percent at a time when India demanded independence from the British. “The 97 percent society was in political, mental, financial and social bondage of the 3 percent. Late Shahu Maharaj wanted independence for these 97 percent,” said Dr Pawar.
He said education was the key for the upliftment of the Bahujan Samaj while the concept of 50 percent reservations in the administration was to accord the non-Brahmins participation in administration.
Stating that caste discrimination and untouchability are two sides of the same coin, Dr Pawar said the “caste ladder” provides no opportunity for vertical movement, either upwards or downwards. “Late Shahu Maharaj and Babasaheb Ambdekar accomplished this work of breaking through these layers,” he remarked.
“Inter-caste marriage is one of the ways to destroy the caste discrimination,” he added.
Dr Pawar also referred to the late Shahu Maharaj as an action-oriented personality who did not just indulge in mere talk but action. Calling the late social reformer as a miracle of social history, Dr Pawar remarked that only Gautam Buddha had earlier emerged as one such miracle. “Shahu Maharaj considered history and personal experience as his gurus,” informed Dr Pawar.
