MPSC 2023 Prelims Paper-I · Question 8 of 100

Correct — option (3), Balshastri Jambhekar. The four printed statements are a description with the name removed, and statement c is the one that closes the identification beyond argument: 'Shunyalabdhi' is Jambhekar's, the first book in Marathi on the mathematics of the calculus, written for students going on to higher study, and no other name in the options is attached to it. Statements a and b agree with the same man at every point. Bal Gangadhar Shastri Jambhekar (1812-1846) of Pombhurle in Ratnagiri district was the first Indian professor at the Elphinstone Institution, held the post of Native Secretary to the Board of Education, was made a Justice of the Peace and directed the Colaba observatory — a career spent almost entirely inside the machinery that was building modern education in the Bombay Presidency. He wrote the first Marathi textbooks across an extraordinary spread of subjects: history, geography, grammar, prosody, ethics and mathematics, including Hindusthanacha Itihas, England Deshachi Bakhar, Niti Katha and a compendium of English grammar. That is statement b exactly, and statement a follows from it. His fame outside the classroom rests on the press — Darpan, the first Marathi newspaper, which he began on 6 January 1832 and ran as a bilingual Marathi and English weekly, and Digdarshan, the first Marathi periodical, from 1840; 6 January is observed in Maharashtra as journalism day in his memory. Statement d names a biographer, and it is not the clue that decides the question: statements a, b and c fix the man on their own, and the sound method in a description question is to answer from the statement that only one candidate can satisfy.

• (1)Dadoba Pandurang Tarkhadkar — Dadoba Pandurang Tarkhadkar is the strongest wrong answer here, because he genuinely did prepare textbooks and genuinely did shape education in the Bombay Presidency. His Marathi grammar, first published in 1836, was the standard work for generations and earned him the name of the father of Marathi grammar; he served as a deputy collector and as an inspector of schools, and he founded the Manav Dharma Sabha at Surat in 1844 and the Paramahansa Sabha in Bombay in 1849. What he did not write is a Marathi book on the calculus. Statement c is the discriminator in this set, and a candidate who reads only statements a and b — both of which fit Dadoba comfortably — will stop one line too early.
• (2)Atmaram Pandurang Tarkhadkar — Atmaram Pandurang Tarkhadkar, the younger brother of Dadoba, belongs to medicine and to religious reform rather than to schoolbooks. He was among the earliest Indian physicians trained in the Bombay medical school and is remembered as the founder of the Prarthana Samaj in 1867, the Bombay body that Ranade and Bhandarkar later made the centre of moderate Hindu reform. He sat on the advisory board of Pandita Ramabai's Sharada Sadan as well. None of the four printed statements fits him: he wrote no textbooks, produced no Marathi work on mathematics, and his public reputation was not made in education. The shared surname with option (1) is the whole of this option's plausibility.
• (4)Gopal Hari Deshmukh — Gopal Hari Deshmukh, known by the pen-name Lokahitawadi, was a judge and one of the boldest reforming writers of nineteenth-century Maharashtra, but his medium was the newspaper essay and not the schoolbook. His Shatapatre, the hundred letters published in the weekly Prabhakar from 1848, attacked caste, priestly authority and the subjection of women, and they belong to the same reforming decade as Jambhekar's later work. He is placed in this option because he is a name of exactly the right period and standing, and because 'played an important role in the field of education' sounds like something a candidate might attach to any prominent reformer. The specific claim about a Marathi book on mathematics and science is what he cannot satisfy.

Balshastri Jambhekar is the figure in whom the two beginnings of modern Marathi public life — the printed newspaper and the printed textbook — meet in one person. Born at Pombhurle in Ratnagiri district in 1812 and dead at thirty-four in 1846, he was trained in Sanskrit learning at home and in English at Bombay, and he moved into every institution the new education was creating: the Elphinstone Institution, where he became the first Indian to hold a professorship, the Board of Education, where he served as Native Secretary, the Colaba observatory, which he directed, and the bench, where he sat as a Justice of the Peace. On 6 January 1832 he brought out Darpan, the first Marathi newspaper, printed in two columns of Marathi and English so that Indian opinion could be read by the government and English ideas by Indians; in 1840 he followed it with Digdarshan, the first Marathi periodical. The textbooks belong to the same project of making Marathi carry modern knowledge, and 'Shunyalabdhi', the first Marathi treatment of the calculus, is its most striking single instance, since it required inventing the vocabulary as well as writing the book. Maharashtra observes 6 January as journalism day in his memory.

The description question — a list of statements with the name withheld — is one of MPSC's standard formats, and it is decided by whichever statement is unique to one person. Statements that describe general merit, such as 'played an important role in the field of education', fit half the reformers of the century and carry no information; statements that name a specific book, newspaper, year or office fit exactly one. The discipline, therefore, is to scan the list for the sharpest statement first and to test the options against that alone, rather than reading downwards and accumulating impressions. This question also illustrates why nineteenth-century Maharashtra needs to be learnt as a set of distinct careers rather than as a general reforming mood: Jambhekar the educationist and journalist, Dadoba Pandurang the grammarian and founder of the Paramahansa Sabha, Atmaram Pandurang the physician and founder of the Prarthana Samaj, Lokahitawadi the essayist and judge. The Commission's option sets are built precisely on the overlap between such careers, and only the sharp detail separates them.

• Bal Gangadhar Shastri Jambhekar (1812-1846), born at Pombhurle in Ratnagiri district, wrote 'Shunyalabdhi', the first Marathi book on the mathematics of the calculus, for students proceeding to higher study.
• He wrote the first Marathi textbooks in history, geography, grammar, prosody, ethics and mathematics, among them Hindusthanacha Itihas, England Deshachi Bakhar and Niti Katha.
• He was the first Indian to hold a professorship at the Elphinstone Institution, served as Native Secretary to the Board of Education, directed the Colaba observatory and sat as a Justice of the Peace.
• He began Darpan, the first Marathi newspaper, on 6 January 1832, printed in parallel Marathi and English columns, and Digdarshan, the first Marathi periodical, in 1840; 6 January is observed in Maharashtra as journalism day.
• Dadoba Pandurang Tarkhadkar, the closest distractor, is remembered for his Marathi grammar of 1836 and for founding the Manav Dharma Sabha at Surat in 1844 and the Paramahansa Sabha at Bombay in 1849.

• Answering a description question from the vague statements at the top of the list instead of the specific one further down that only one person can satisfy
• Confusing the Tarkhadkar brothers with each other — Dadoba the grammarian and Paramahansa Sabha founder, Atmaram the physician and Prarthana Samaj founder
• Assuming that anyone who wrote textbooks in Marathi must be the answer, when the discriminating claim is a specific title on mathematics and science
• Staking the answer on the least checkable statement in a printed list rather than on the one that can be verified against a known work

MPSC asks about nineteenth-century Maharashtra's reformers in two dominant shapes: the direct question naming a person and asking for his work, and the description question used here, where a set of statements is printed and the person must be inferred. Both are answered from specifics — a book title, a newspaper and its first date, an office held, a society founded and its year. The Commission also likes to place two or three men from the same milieu, sometimes even from the same family, in a single option set, so the preparation that pays is a one-line card for each reformer carrying his single most distinctive achievement. Where a printed statement names a biographer or some other detail that cannot readily be checked, treat it as decoration: the question will always be answerable from the statements that name works and institutions.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Darpan, the first newspaper in the Marathi language, was started on 6 January 1832 by which of the following ?

  • (a)Gopal Hari Deshmukh
  • (b)Balshastri Jambhekar
  • (c)Dadoba Pandurang Tarkhadkar
  • (d)Bhau Mahajan

  Answer(b) Balshastri Jambhekar — Darpan was published from Bombay in parallel columns of Marathi and English, and the date of its first issue, 6 January, is observed in Maharashtra as journalism day in his memory. He followed it in 1840 with Digdarshan, the first Marathi periodical. Bhau Mahajan is associated with the later papers Prabhakar and Dhumketu, in which Lokahitawadi's Shatapatre appeared.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The founder of the Paramahansa Sabha in Bombay in 1849, who is also remembered as the author of an early Marathi grammar, was which of the following ?

  • (a)Atmaram Pandurang Tarkhadkar
  • (b)Balshastri Jambhekar
  • (c)Dadoba Pandurang Tarkhadkar
  • (d)Gopal Hari Deshmukh

  Answer(c) Dadoba Pandurang Tarkhadkar — his Marathi grammar, first published in 1836, made his reputation, and he founded the Manav Dharma Sabha at Surat in 1844 and the Paramahansa Sabha at Bombay in 1849. His younger brother Atmaram Pandurang was a physician and founded the Prarthana Samaj in 1867, which is the pairing MPSC most often tests.