Narhar Vishnu Gadgil Birth Anniversary

Narhar Vishnu Gadgil, born on 10 January 1896, was an Indian freedom fighter and politician from Maharashtra, India.  He was also a writer.

Gadgil was also active in the Indian Independence struggle. A freedom fighter and lawyer, he was deeply inspired by the leadership of political leaders such as Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and Sardar Vallabhai Patel. 

Gadgil was a pioneer in social reform movements in Maharashtra in the 1930s. His most significant contribution is considered to be the inclusion of Maharashtra’s rural masses into the political mainstream of India. Gadgil developed a friendship with Keshavrao Jedhe, an idealistic Maratha freedom fighter, and the two became close political allies. It was this powerful Gadgil-Jedhe alliance that brought the non-Brahmins of Maharashtra into the civil disobedience movement of the 1930s on a mass scale.

As a scholar of Sanskrit and Marathi classic literature, Gadgil was also a prominent writer in Marathi and English. He authored several books and wrote articles on politics, economics, law, and history. He was elected president of the Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in 1962 held in Satara. His most lucid book on basic economics is addressed to ‘Gyanba’, the rural common man. Some of his popular works include Raja Shastra Vichar, Raja Vivhar Vichar, Shubha Shastra, Waktrutwa Shastra, Sabha Shaster, Shikhancha Itihaas (History of Sikhs), Prabodhini (Introduction to the Constitution), and Pathik, his autobiography, all in Marathi; Studies in Death Duties; Indian Budget; and miscellaneous essays.