Who among the following was known as 'Lokhitwadi'?

Q: What is the answer to CAPF 2023 Paper I Q57?

B. Correct — B, Gopal Hari Deshmukh. Lokhitawadi, the name he wrote under, is Marathi for one who works for the welfare of the people, and he took it as a pen name for the articles he began contributing to the weekly Prabhakar at the age of twenty-five. In two years he produced a hundred and eight of them, and they came into Marathi literature as the Shatapatre, the hundred letters. Their subject was social reform pressed hard from inside the community he was criticising: he attacked the caste system and religious orthodoxy though he was a Brahmin himself, opposed child marriage, dowry and polygamy, and argued for the education and emancipation of women. Later, serving as a judge at Ahmedabad, he set up a branch of the Prarthana Samaj there, and he was associated with the founding of the periodicals Gyan Prakash, Indu Prakash and Lokhitwadi.

(a)Keshub Chandra Sen
(b)Gopal Hari Deshmukh
(c)M. G. Ranade
(d)Gopal Ganesh Agarkar

Answer

Why

Correct — B, Gopal Hari Deshmukh. Lokhitawadi, the name he wrote under, is Marathi for one who works for the welfare of the people, and he took it as a pen name for the articles he began contributing to the weekly Prabhakar at the age of twenty-five. In two years he produced a hundred and eight of them, and they came into Marathi literature as the Shatapatre, the hundred letters. Their subject was social reform pressed hard from inside the community he was criticising: he attacked the caste system and religious orthodoxy though he was a Brahmin himself, opposed child marriage, dowry and polygamy, and argued for the education and emancipation of women. Later, serving as a judge at Ahmedabad, he set up a branch of the Prarthana Samaj there, and he was associated with the founding of the periodicals Gyan Prakash, Indu Prakash and Lokhitwadi.

Why the others are wrong

(a)Keshub Chandra Sen — A Brahmo Samaj leader in Bengal, associated with the Indian Reform Association and the Church of the New Dispensation. He worked in a different presidency and carried no such Marathi title.
(c)M. G. Ranade — Mahadev Govind Ranade belongs to the same Bombay Presidency reform circle and is a genuinely tempting answer, but his name is attached to the Prarthana Samaj, the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha and the Widow Marriage Association, not to the pen name Lokhitwadi.
(d)Gopal Ganesh Agarkar — The other Gopal in the list, and the reason this option exists. Agarkar was the first editor of Kesari and founded Sudharak after breaking with Tilak over whether social reform should wait for political freedom.

Concept

Nineteenth-century western India produced a line of reformers who used the new Marathi press as their instrument. Gopal Hari Deshmukh wrote as Lokhitawadi in Prabhakar, Jyotirao Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, Ranade helped build the Prarthana Samaj and the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, and Agarkar ran Sudharak. What separates them is less their programme than their emphasis, and the running argument was whether social reform should come before political agitation or wait behind it.

The examiner has put four reformers of roughly the same period in front of you and asked which one owns a title. Two of the four are named Gopal, and two of them belong to the Prarthana Samaj circle, so guessing by region or by cause will not narrow it. The title itself is the clue that carries the answer, because it is a Marathi word and it is the signature on a specific body of writing — the Shatapatre. Attaching a reformer to the paper he wrote in is generally the most reliable way to keep this group apart: Prabhakar for Deshmukh, Kesari and Sudharak for Agarkar.

Key facts

Lokhitawadi was the pen name of Gopal Hari Deshmukh, a Marathi reformer of the Bombay Presidency.
He began writing for the weekly Prabhakar at twenty-five and produced a hundred and eight articles on social reform in two years, known as the Shatapatre.
He wrote against the caste system and religious orthodoxy, and against child marriage, dowry and polygamy, and argued for the education and emancipation of women.
While serving as a judge at Ahmedabad he established a branch of the Prarthana Samaj there.
He was connected with the founding of the periodicals Gyan Prakash, Indu Prakash and Lokhitwadi.

Study next

The Prarthana Samaj, its founders and how it differed from the Brahmo Samaj of BengalJyotirao Phule and the Satyashodhak SamajThe widow remarriage campaign in Maharashtra and in Bengal, and the Act of 1856Tilak and Agarkar and the quarrel over social reform against political agitationThe Marathi press of the nineteenth century — Prabhakar, Kesari, Maratha and Sudharak

Common traps

Confusing the two Gopals, Deshmukh and Agarkar.
Assigning Lokhitwadi to Ranade because both belong to the Prarthana Samaj story.
Placing Keshub Chandra Sen in Maharashtra; his work was in Bengal.

The plain title-to-person form. The same reformers return in matching questions pairing each with his journal, his organisation or his best-known writing.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2016_GS1_Q692016Open & attempt →

Consider the following: 1. Calcutta Unitarian Committee 2. Tabernacle of New Dispensation 3. Indian Reform Association Keshab Chandra Sen is associated with the establishment of which of the above?

(a) 1 and 3 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3

Answer(b) 2 and 3 only

The distractor in this CAPF item, asked directly. Keshub Chandra Sen's bodies were Bengali and Brahmo, which places him a long way from a Marathi pen name in Prabhakar.

NDA_GAT_2018_I_Q1272018Open & attempt →

Who among the following social reformer started a society for the encouragement of widow remarriage in 1866 in Maharashtra ?

(a) Bal Gangadhar Tilak
(b) Jyotirao Phule
(c) Vishnushastri Pandit
(d) Pandita Ramabai

Answer(c) Vishnushastri Pandit

The same reform movement in the same province, one cause deeper. Widow remarriage was among the causes Deshmukh argued for in the Shatapatre, and Vishnushastri Pandit built the society that carried it forward.

CAPF_GAI_2020_Q1032020Open & attempt →

Which of the following statements is/are correct? 1. Parmahansa Mandali was founded in Bengal by Swami Vivekananda 2. Prarthana Samaj was started in Maharashtra with the aim of reforming Hindu religious thought and practice Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer(b) 2 only

The Maharashtra reform circle that both Deshmukh and Ranade belong to. Deshmukh went on to open a Prarthana Samaj branch at Ahmedabad while posted there as a judge.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The Shatapatre, a series of articles on social reform in the weekly Prabhakar, were written by
- (a)Bal Gangadhar Tilak
- (b)Gopal Hari Deshmukh
- (c)Gopal Ganesh Agarkar
- (d)Jyotirao Phule
Answer(b) Gopal Hari Deshmukh — a hundred and eight articles written under the pen name Lokhitawadi, which is how Marathi literature knows them.
practice — not a real PYQ
Gopal Ganesh Agarkar is best remembered as
- (a)the founder of the Satyashodhak Samaj
- (b)the first editor of Kesari and later the founder of Sudharak
- (c)the founder of the Prarthana Samaj
- (d)the first President of the Indian National Congress
Answer(b) the first editor of Kesari and later the founder of Sudharak — he left Kesari after disagreeing with Tilak over whether social reform should precede political agitation.