ABSTRACT
Jotirao Phule's enduring and exceptional significance is that he always insisted on addressing the issue of India's cultural motif of religious non-freedom and the lack of universal education within the total cultural system. Nepal's National Inter-Religious Network – Nepal (NIRN) initiative and Sangroula's framing offer a most helpful expression for considering society as a culture tree and, specifically, for discussing the intersections and relationships between spirituality and development, and their implications for India's social system. Each cultural tree produces its own worldvenue fruits, its mazeway practices, and its social behaviors. The worldview lens by which those of India "generally view men and things" are "Brahmin spectacles". The character of those "spectacles" Phule delineated in detail. The current concern of Nepal and others throughout South Asia over "social maladies stemming from religious origin" illustrates the long historical trajectory of the power of allegiances and the impact of ideas on social problems.
