Mahadev Govind Ranade
Mahadev Govind Ranade was born in 1842 at Nashik district Maharashtra. He passed his law degree and then was appointed as a judge and then became a judge at Bombay HC. He was a distinguished Indian scholar, social reformer and author.
- He was one of the founding members of the Prarthana Samaj and propounded against prevalent social evils.
- He would also edit a Bombay Anglo-Marathi daily paper, the Induprakash, founded on his ideology of social and religious reform.
- He educated his wife Ramabai who later became a doctor and also was one of the founders of Seva Sadan which pioneered women’s rights movements.
- He was also a great educationist and found a number of schools.
- Ranade was a founder of the Social Conference movement, which he supported till his death, directing his social reform efforts against child marriage, the shaving of widows’ heads, the heavy cost of marriages and other social functions, and the caste restrictions on traveling abroad, and he strenuously advocated widow remarriage and female education.
- He was one of the founders of the Widow Marriage Association in 1861.
- He founded the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha which was a socio political body and later was one of the originators of the Indian National Congress.
- He published books on Indian economics and on Maratha history. He saw the need for heavy industry for economic progress and believed in Western education as a vital element to the foundation of an Indian nation.
- He inspired several Congress leaders the most prominent among them being Gokhale.