In April 2025, a biopic on two of India's foremost anti-caste icons became the latest casualty in the country's battle over who gets to tell history. Phule, directed by Ananth Mahadevan, promised to bring alive the inspiring legacy of Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule. It was supposed to be released on April 11, ahead of Ambedkar Jayanti on April 14.
However, it faced relentless demands for ‘offensive’ scenes to be cut, an abrupt postponement of its release, and the muzzle by extra-legal threats. Why? Because the film dared to show a raw truth — that dominant caste groups, historically, wielded social and economic power through humiliation and exclusion of Dalits.
Phule was acutely aware of what Harold A Gould would write a century later in The Hindu Caste System: "The Brahmins sacralised the occupational order and occupationalised the sacred order."
This call for censorship is reminiscent of the daily humiliation heaped upon the Phule couple by Brahmins. It is symptomatic of how caste privilege continues to shape cultural narratives, often behind the scenes, subverting the very constitutional guarantees of free speech and expression.
While dominant castes are avowedly ‘casteless’ and constitutionally legitimised by reservation for Economically Weaker Sections, their castes have been reduced to their ‘culture’ and private lives.
The film, based on prodigious research and documented facts, has been censored due to 'hurt sentiments' as Neeti Nair offers historical context to illuminate how claims of hurt religious sentiments have been weaponised for censorship. If Phule – a film portraying the fight against caste oppression – can be censored in the shadows, then India's claim to being a vibrant, democratic space for debate stands on shaky ground.
Jyotirao (1827–1890) and Savitribai Phule (1831–1897) were among the earliest Indians to mount a direct challenge to caste based injustice. In 1848, the couple established a girls' school in Pune — an unheard of step, given the social taboo against educating women. Later, they founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (Truth seekers' Society) in 1873 to unite those oppressed by the Brahminical hierarchy.
Savitribai's work extended to running shelters for widows and survivors of caste violence, while Jyotirao authored polemics such as Gulamgiri (Slavery), which exposed the moral hollowness of untouchability. Phule's polemic compared the situation of Indian lowered castes to the slavery that was religiously sanctioned even after its constitutional abolishment in America. The caste system predates slavery.
Sunil Khilnani notes in Incarnations: India in 50 Lives: "Phule set up first a chain of schools for outcastes (today's Dalits) and girls, and then a home for widows and orphans. His effort soon became a full-out polemical war against the Brahmins. Phule's nineteenth-century experiments in schooling the unprivileged helped show what a more democratic access to education might look like, and his systemic analysis of the psychological politics of being poor, as well as his attention to the consequences of exploitation for individual lives, have a cutting timeliness in contemporary India."
The social movements started by Phule regarding democratisation of education, especially of women and Dalits, had an indelible impact on the framing of the Constitution. Dr BR Ambedkar carried his legacy by clinically trenchant critique of caste system and ideation of democracy undergirded by equality of status and opportunity.
It is a moral confrontation with the caste system that requires understanding history. Phule, the film, set out to dramatise precisely that confrontation — brazen acts of social discrimination, the couple's radical pedagogy, and their fearless advocacy, even under the British Raj.
When Phule's trailer dropped in March this year, it contained several scenes that rattled dominant caste groups.
Among these was the depiction of a Dalit boy, on his way to attend Savitribai's school, being pelted with cow dung by a Brahmin youth — an act historically documented as a tactic to demean lowered castes. This scene was specifically flagged by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), which asked filmmakers to replace "a man carrying a broom" with "boys throwing cow dung balls at Savitribai" — a puzzling request that seems to sanitise one form of casteist humiliation while allowing another.
Another scene showed Dalits, including Phule's own acquaintances, barred from entering temples, with Savitribai attempting to negotiate with the priests, only to be dismissed as ‘untouchable’.
The script also used historically accurate terms like Mahar, Mang, and Sudra as slurs — illustrating how casual verbal abuse was part of structural oppression. According to recent reports in The Hindu, the CBFC specifically demanded the removal of these terms, despite their historical accuracy.
The CBFC also requested that the phrase "3,000 saal purani gulami" (3,000-year-old slavery) be modified to "kai saal purani" (many years old) — a change that minimises the historical duration and entrenchment of caste oppression in Indian society. Hindutva proponents like J Sai Deepak have called caste a Western construct, a British ‘invention’. This historical amnesia is writ large on CBFC’s calling out the duration of the caste system.
Groups such as the Akhil Bhartiya Brahmin Samaj and Maharashtra-based Hindu Mahasangh branded these depictions as defamatory, demanding that the CBFC remove them. Anand Dave, president of Hindu Mahasangh, expressed his displeasure, stating it was unfair to "only highlight the not-so-good things" about the Brahmin community, asking, "If they want to earn money by showing casteism, then it's not right. People across India and globally will not think of Brahmins in a good way."
Although Phule had already received a "U" certificate from the CBFC on April 7 – indicating it was deemed suitable for universal viewing – exhibitors soon reported phone calls warning them of consequences if they screened the film in its original form. Under mounting pressure, the April 11 release was shifted to April 25, with the director himself acknowledging that the postponement was to "clear the controversy" and allow time to "calm down" protesting groups. This capitulation to pressure, despite having official certification, demonstrates exactly how extra-legal intimidation works to censor uncomfortable histories.
Under the Cinematograph Act, 1952, only two sets of authorities can suspend or block a certified film — the Union government, via Section 5B (on grounds of public interest), and state governments, via Section 13(1) (on grounds of potential law-and-order issues). Both provisions require a formal, gazetted notification stating reasons, and each is open to judicial review.
Moreover, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that extra-legal intimidation for shadow ban – by politicians, caste lobbies, or even the police – cannot override a film's certified status. The law requires a written order with reasons, subject to judicial review. Repeatedly, the Supreme Court has affirmed that informal dictates, be they from police, local pressure groups, or political actors, are wholly unconstitutional once the CBFC has cleared a film.
In Prakash Jha Productions v. Union of India (2011) (Aarakshan) the court reminded that "law and order" cannot justify banning a certified film; rather, it's the state's duty to protect free expression and maintain public order. In Viacom 18 Media Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India (2018) (Padmavat), an injunction barred certain states from preventing Padmavat's screening, emphasising that once a movie is certified, states have no carte blanche to overrule.
In Indibility Creative Pvt. Ltd. v. West Bengal (2019), the court penalised the Kolkata Police for utterly unlawful obstruction awarding compensation and reiterating that extra-legal threats undermine the rule of law. Authored by Justice DY Chandrachud, it gave the moral and philosophical foundation of freedom of speech and expression.
Justice Chandrachud wrote, “Commitment to free speech involves protecting speech that is palatable as well as speech that we do not want to hear. A declaration attributed to Voltaire encapsulates the essence of the protection of free speech: "I despise what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it".
“Protection of the freedom of speech is founded on the belief that speech is worth defending even when certain individuals may not agree with or even despise what is being spoken. This principle is at the heart of democracy, a basic human right, and its protection is a mark of a civilised and tolerant society. The reasons to defend free speech are both moral and instrumental.”
In Phule's predicament, we see precisely what Indibility Creative condemned — exhibitors caving to intimidation by higher authorities with no formal government orders or legal justifications to back it. This shielded heckler's veto from public scrutiny, making it extremely difficult to challenge in court.
The immediate question is why dominant caste lobbies would fight so strenuously against a film about the Phules. The deeper answer lies in what Antonio Gramsci called cultural hegemony — the ability of a dominant group to dictate societal norms and control narratives.
A film highlighting Brahmin atrocities, shocking as they may seem to modern sensibilities, challenges a sanitised self-image. By labelling such portrayals divisive, gatekeepers deflect accountability for historical exploitation. Collective memory shapes how societies interpret their past and envision change. Sanitising the Phules' experiences ensures that younger generations learn a bowdlerised version of 19th century Maharashtra, one that omits the full extent of dominant caste complicity.
What makes this case particularly complex is that the film's director, Ananth Mahadevan, is himself a Brahmin. As he told The Hindu, "I'm a Brahmin myself, and I would not malign my community. I want everyone to calm down and understand that we've made a film that is supposed to inspire and change." That even a filmmaker from the dominant community faces such resistance when attempting to portray documented historical inequities reveals how deeply entrenched the resistance to confronting caste history remains.
The censorship of Phule exposes a society still unwilling to face the caste question head on, prioritising an outward appearance of harmony over uncomfortable but necessary truth telling. Brushing away these depictions is not just an artistic matter. It affects policy, education, and social fabric when caste is reduced to a faint historical footnote against the structural reality that the majority of Indians still navigate daily.
The story of Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule is not a relic, it is a living testament to the struggle for dignity against centuries of casteist oppression. That fight resonates with India's constitutional ethos, which promises equality and freedom of expression to all citizens.
Censoring a biopic on these trailblazers not only dishonours their memory but also reveals just how far we are from achieving their vision. As Justice Chandrachud emphasised in a landmark 2019 free speech ruling, "Freedoms are not subject to power. Public power is assigned by the people to the government. Ours is a controlled Constitution … answerable to the people."
In other words, the state exists to safeguard freedoms, not curtail them at the behest of powerful interests.
Art, and cinema in particular, serves a dual purpose — to entertain and to provoke. It holds up a mirror to society, reflecting our triumphs and our deepest failings.
The Phule controversy crystallises a choice: Either we accept a status quo in which extra-legal intimidation trumps constitutionally protected speech, or we demand an India that confronts its caste legacies head on.
Let the film run as intended, warts and all. Let viewers grapple with the Phules' moral challenge to the social order. Only by engaging with those uneasy truths can we lay the foundations for a society in which one's birth does not predetermine one's destiny, and in which freedom of expression remains not just a written ideal but a lived reality.
The fight over Phule is not just about one film. It is about whether India's cultural gatekeepers will continue to sanitise power or finally relinquish their stranglehold on public memory. It is about whether we, as a society, can summon the courage to confront our past in all its brutality, and, in doing so, chart a more just and inclusive future.
If we allow Phule's truth to be censored, we risk consigning caste to a historical relic only in name, even as its structures continue to shape life and social hierarchies. True redemption demands that we watch unflinching, and listen undeterred, because only by facing our collective discomfort can we hope to dismantle the taboos that bind us.
Surendra Kumar is Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law and Philosophy at Ramaiah College of Law.
Views expressed are the author's own.