India, July 26 -- We recently gathered at Studio Tamasha for a reading of Jyotiba Phule's 'Trutiya Ratna' (The Third Eye or The Third Jewel). This play penned 150 years ago has been translated into English by Rohini Mokashi-Punekar and published by Orient BlackSwan. The reading, directed by Sharmishta Saha, celebrated the work (and words) of Phule, the 19th-century social reformer from Pune.

To read 'Trutiya Ratna' today, more than 150 years after it was penned, is to realise the play's dialectics about education resonate with the student protests in the capital and across the country this week. The argument remains the same: whose education is it anyway? It's not just about the arguments over what constitutes a "valid" curriculum or who...