Is there a Mahatma Other than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Is there a Mahatma in India Other than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi?

The readymade answer to the question in the heading would be an unequivocal NO. There can be only one Mahatma in India.

Well, I read in an article on Bihar elections (whenever that be) that Jyotirao Phule won the race to be given the Honorific Mahatma in 1888 CE, decades before Mohandas KaramchandGandhi was honoured likewise.

I am not concerned about Mr. Phule being demoted, as just about everyone recalls only the other Mahatma when the honorific, always to be capitalized, is not followed by a proper noun. That is such a narrow view of what India is, don’t you think?

An India, with a population of about 300 million in the decades immediately prior to the nation gaining independence from the British (excluding the regions that became Pakistan at Independence), could celebrate only one “Great-soul” is an insult to the nation, I feel.

OK, Mr. Phule was a Maharashtrian, a very localized reformer, and his activities were confined to his linguistic land. He could never have been the Father of the Nation. So what?

His reform movement encompassed making humanity universal, no caste distinction, no regional appropriation (if you wanted to buy into his ideas and ideals, no one stopped you), no sex discrimination (women welfare, education, widow remarriage ...), infanticide prevention, the opening strains of eradication of caste system, opposed idolatory and so on; no mean list, for a shudra, the untouchable.

Just one more point before I sign-off.

My reference to much of the above is from the single mention “Mahatma (my emphasis) Phule” in an article about Bihar elections, to be conducted before the end of 2025. That is, though a “very local reformer”, his name seems to reverberate from Maharashtra all the way to Bihar, crossing Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, all densely populated states. 

That is, Jyotirao Phule might have geographically contained, but not so in the mental space. He does not need to carry candle for the other Mahatma.

Raghuram Ekambaram