State your opinion: Mahatma Jotirao Phule was the first social reformer of Maharashtra.

Answer: I agree with this statement.

• Some reformers before him wrote about social evils, but Jotirao Phule was the first to act directly and fight caste and gender inequality at the grassroots.
• With Savitribai Phule he started a school for girls at Pune in 1848 and schools for the untouchables.
• He opened a home to prevent infanticide for widows and opened his own water tank to untouchables.
• He founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (1873) and wrote Gulamgiri and Shetkaryacha Asud about the exploitation of shudras and farmers.

For this pioneering work he was called ‘Mahatma’ and is regarded as the father of social reform in Maharashtra.