The book 'Vidhava Vapan Anachar' was written by __________.

Question

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Correct — option (1), Vyankatesh Rango Katti. The book's title itself carries the argument: 'vidhava vapan' is the tonsure — the forced shaving of a widow's head — that orthodox Hindu custom in 19th-century Maharashtra imposed on women after their husbands died, and 'anachar' means a corrupt or improper custom, one without real scriptural sanction. Katti's tract belongs to the wave of Marathi reform writing that took on the specific rituals of enforced widowhood — tonsure, the ban on ornaments and coloured clothing, exclusion from auspicious ceremonies — as a target distinct from, though related to, the wider campaign for widow remarriage. This is a narrow, precise attribution question: three plausible reformer names sit alongside the correct one, and only Katti is on record as the author of this particular tract on this particular practice.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Vishnushastri Pandit is a genuine, well-documented reformer on the adjoining issue — he founded the Widow Remarriage Association at Pune in 1866 and worked to give remarriage social and legal legitimacy — which is exactly why his name is a plausible-looking option here. But his recorded legacy is the remarriage campaign, not authorship of a tract specifically on the tonsure custom; the two causes travelled together in this period but were argued by different writers in different texts.  (c) Jambhekar belongs to an earlier generation of Maharashtra's reform and print history — he founded the Darpan, the first Marathi-language newspaper, in 1832, and died young in 1846. He is remembered as a pioneer of Marathi journalism and education, not as the author of a tract on widow tonsure; his death predates the period in which this specific reform debate was most actively argued in print.  (d) Agarkar, editor of the Sudharak and a co-founder with Tilak of the Deccan Education Society, was a committed rationalist who argued for women's education and against orthodox social restriction in general. His name is a natural distractor precisely because his reforming credentials are so broad, but the specific authorship of Vidhava Vapan Anachar is not among his recorded works.

Concept: Enforced widow tonsure was one of the specific ritual disabilities — alongside the ban on remarriage, plain dress and exclusion from festive occasions — that Maharashtra's 19th-century reformers treated as separable targets, each requiring its own argument from custom, scripture and reason. A tract titled Vidhava Vapan Anachar is doing exactly that narrower work: not arguing the general case for remarriage, but arguing that this one specific ritual — the tonsure — was an 'anachar', a corrupt practice without proper sanction, that could and should be given up on its own.

State PCS 2025 Q3 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q3 — History PYQ with Answer