Born: Jan18, 1842
Died: Jan. 16, 1901
Shri Mahadev Govind Ranade was an Indian scholar, social reformer, judge, and author. He was born on January 18, 1842, in Niphad, Poona (now Pune) and was one of India’s Citpavan Brahmans of Maharashtra who worked at the Bombay High Court, as a judge and as an active participant in social and economic reform movements. He did his schooling from a Marathi School in Kolhapur then shifted to an English medium school and obtained his B.A degree from Elphinstone College in 1862 and LLB after four years. He was among the founding members of the Indian National Congress party.
As a Judge, Ranade worked for social reform during his tenure of seven years in the areas of child marriage, widow remarriage, and women’s rights. The opportunity of getting appointed as an instructor of history at Elphinstone College, Bombay, sparked Ranadey’s interest in the history of the Marathas. Maratha was a militaristic Hindu ethnic group that established the independent kingdom of Maharashtra.
Ranade has been called the Father of Indian economics for urging the British government to initiate industrialization and state welfare programs. Earlier he was a member of the Prarthana Samaj, which sought to reform the social customs of orthodox Hinduism. In 1887, he founded Indian National Social Conference and regularly gave voice to views on social and economic reform at the annual sessions of the Indian National Social Conference. Many Indian social reformers, particularly the educator and legislator Gopal Krishna Gokhale, were inspired by Ranade. He also carried on reform work for Ranade after Ranade’s death.
Ranade edited a Bombay Anglo-Marathi daily newspaper, the Induprakash, founded on his ideology of social and religious reform, and contributed to the establishment of the Vaktruttvottejak Sabha, the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, Maharashtra Granthottejak Sabha, and the Prarthana Samaj.
He died on 16 January 1901 in Pune. Swami Vivekanand Subharti University remembers Ranade’s life and his tireless work in economic and social reform. Ranade was given the title of “Rao Bahadur”. A television series on Zee Marathi was broadcast in March 2012, was based on the book ‘Amachyaa Aayushyaatil Kaahi Aathavani’. It shows Ramabai’s and Mahadevrao’s life and their development as ‘women’s rights’ activists.
