Gopal Ganesh Agarkar

The Story

Agarkar grew up in nineteenth-century Maharashtra, in the ferment that produced Tilak, Gokhale and Phule — an age when a new education was producing young men who loved their tradition too much to leave it unquestioned. He became a teacher and then a writer, convinced that social reform and political freedom were two halves of the same project.

His platform was Sudharak, the Reformer, which he founded and edited. In its columns he pressed for widow remarriage, an end to child marriage, respect for women's education, and a social order based on merit rather than birth. He wrote plainly and pressed hard, and the orthodox establishment pressed back — with lawsuits, threats and boycotts.

He also helped establish research and educational institutions in Pune, believing that a reforming society needs scholars as well as activists. His own life was austere and often difficult; he had little money and worked constantly, and he died on 12 January 1895, aged thirty-nine.

The Agarkar Research Institute that bears his name in Pune still carries forward his devotion to inquiry. In a city that produced many loud reformers, he is remembered as one of the most consistent: never bitter, never bullying, always reasoning.