Correct answer: (c) Anti-caste Movement
Explanation
- A
Civil Disobedience Movement
(a) Civil Disobedience Movement. This option claims Jyotiba Phule participated in the mass nationalist campaigns led by Gandhi in the twentieth century. However, Phule passed away in 1890, long before the Civil Disobedience Movement began.
- B
Trade Union Movement
(b) Trade Union Movement. This option links Jyotiba Phule to the early organized labor struggles in industrial centers like Bombay. While he championed the rights of the exploited working class, his primary historical crusade was fundamentally social rather than strictly trade unionist.
- C
Anti-caste Movement
(c) Anti-caste Movement. This option states that Jyotiba Phule was a pioneer of the anti-caste movement in nineteenth-century Maharashtra. He founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873 to liberate Shudras and Atishudras, fought relentlessly against Brahminical dominance, and championed social equality, making this the correct and most comprehensive description of his lifelong mission.
- D
Peasant Movement
(d) Peasant Movement. This option suggests Phule's primary association was with agrarian uprisings or peasant unions. Although his seminal work 'Shetkarayacha Asud' (The Whipcord of the Cultivators) deeply analyzed the economic exploitation of Maharashtrian farmers, his overarching identity remains rooted in the broader anti-caste social revolution.
Summary. Official key is (c) Anti-caste Movement. Jyotiba Phule dedicated his entire life to eradicating untouchability and fighting caste oppression in Maharashtra. Options (a), (b), and (d) incorrectly link him to movements either of a later era or of a narrower economic focus. His establishment of the Satyashodhak Samaj solidified his legacy as a foremost social reformer against caste discrimination. Therefore, only option (c) accurately captures the core essence of his historical association.