Gopal Ganesh Agarkar

17th June 2011 -- Today is the Punya Thithi (The Death anniversary) of Gopal Ganesh Agarkar. Rings a bell in mind? Who is he? What did he do? No?? 

That's the sorry state of our country today. Most of us have read history more as another subject to pass rather than actually understand the people and its struggle or the great contributions of the children of this country. Ironic is it not. Many other countries, like US and Germany, make history of their country more fun for generations to remember and not another subject to score marks to improve over all percentage. :)

Don't worry even though i am writing this blog even i was not sure who he was and what contribution he did. All i remembered vaguely was he was also a freedom fighter in Maharashtra. That's all. So how did I stumble upon this date? I just was checking Marathi Kaal Nirnay calender and low behold on today's date it mentioned Gopal Ganesh Agarkar's Punya thithi. So thought of looking up some details off the net.

Gopal Ganesh Agarkar
 Below some details of this great personality

Name : Gopal Ganesh Agarkar
Father : Ganesh
Mother : Sarswati
Wife : Antubai
Date of Birth : 14 July 1856
Education : B.A. M.A. [History]
Death : 17 June 1895

His Social Work include the following

Any one know this building?
  1. 1880 : Establishment of New English School In Pune with the help of Lokmanya Tilak & Chipalunkar.
  2. 1881 : Start of "Kesari & Maratha" news paper.
  3. 1881 - 87 : Editor in The Kesari. 1887 Resignation from the post of Editor.
  4. 1884 : Take interest to establishment of Deccan Education Society, Pune.
  5. 1885 : Establishment of Ferguson college.
  6. 1888 : Started "The Sudhakar" weekly.
Just imagine how many of such great sons of India do we Indians remember? Just taking myself to history class again! :)

3 comments:

Abhijit said...

I don't think Gopal Ganesh Agarkar was so much of a "freedom fighter" but he was more a social reformer. He was one of the leading personalities in Maharashtra during late nineteenth century whose views about social reforms before political freedom were unfortunately largely got ignored. He was a close friend of Bal Gangadhar Tilak but also had very fundamental disagreements with Bal Gangadhar Tilak which lead to famous ideological clashes between the two.

Pol_MU said...

Shodh Bal Gopalancha is an interesting book by veteran historian and political scientist late Dr. Prof. Y. D. Phadke throwing light on the relationship between Sudharak karte Agarkar and Lokmanya Tilak.

Meghraj Gole said...

छान माहिती