ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with words written by Mukta Salve, a 14-year-old, a girl student of the Mang caste in Jotiba and Savitribai Phule’s school, and Tarabai Shinde, a young Maratha woman trained in the Satyashodhak (Society of Truth Seekers) tradition. For these words of fire with which students talked back to the injustice of their times are embedded in writings and practices that addressed the complex relations between culture, knowledge and power and sought not only to include girl students and students from the exuntouchable castes but also to democratise the very processes of learning and teaching. Phule in the first modern Marathi play Trutiya Ratna draws complex linkages between religious-cultural and educational authority and reimagines education therefore as the Trutiya Ratna (third eye) that has the possibilities to enable the oppressed to understand and transforms the relation between power and knowledge.
