Phule framed Brahmin rule over Shudras as a form of slavery.

Evidence

Phule—who, among other things, campaigned for widow remarriage, girls’ education, and started a school for Untouchables—described how “the owners of slaves treated the slaves as beasts of burden, raining kicks and blows on them all the time and starving them”, and how they would “harness the slaves as bullocks and make them plough the fields in the blazing sun”. Phule believed that the Shudra and Ati-Shudra would understand slavery better than anyone else because “they have a direct experience of slavery as compared to the others who have never experienced it so; the Shudras were conquered and enslaved by the Brahmins”. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 226

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader project of caste-annihilation history: Phule’s anti-Brahmin framing is a foundational precursor to Ambedkar.