Shraddha Kumbhojkar

Savitribai Phule University of Pune

“The Argumentative Maharashtrians: Chiplunkar’s Critique of Lokahitawadi”

Abstract

Vishnushastri Chiplunkar (1850-1882) was a staunch anti-colonial activist in Pune. A graduate of the Deccan College and a friend of Lokmanya Tilak, he is famous for his rambling but invective style of Marathi prose with liberal servings of orthodoxy and sarcasm targeted against two unfortunate groups – the English and their admirers. He was a government servant during the larger part of his writing career. Naturally, the barrage of his writings was targeted at the social reformers who would advocate changing the social fabric of the Indian Society as a first step towards self-government.

Lokahitawadi (1823-1892) and Mahatma Phule (1827-1890) were two social reformers against whom Chiplunkar vented out the choicest parts of his diatribe. Lokahitawadi was a Brahmin reformer-administrator famous for his Shatapatre -100 Essays published in the newspaper Prabhakar around 1850. Phule was an entrepreneur and an organic intellectual from the lower caste of gardeners who established the Truth Seekers’ Society – Satya Shodhak Samaj in 1873.

Both the reformers did not ever directly hit back at Chiplunkar, but Chiplunkar left no opportunity to aggressively – even humiliatingly engage in refuting their viewpoints. The paper will locate the points of engagement and argument in Chiplunkar’s writings. Attempt will be made to try and understand if Chiplunkar’s attacks were an end in itself, or whether they did have a critical place in the characteristic feature of Maharashtrian identity that has been described as argumentative – kalahasheel as early as the 8th century by the author Udyotana Soori.

Bio

Shraddha Kumbhojkar teaches Modern Indian History and Historiography at the Savitribai Phule Pune University. Her research interests include Maharashtra in the 19 th Century, Dalit Studies and Memory Studies. She has completed M. A. In History, M. A. In Sanskrit and a Ph. D. In History.