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A short biography of Krishnarao Pandurang Bhalekar   

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The biography of Krishnarao Pandurang Bhalekar and the history of Satyashodhak Samaj go hand in hand. Bhalekar devoted all his life to Satyashodhak Samaj. The expanse of his work is quite broad, and we will take stock of a few important details here.  

Krishnarao belonged to the Phulmali (southern) caste. He was born in 1850 in the Bhamburde village near Pune. His father Pandurangrao worked in the district court as a government employee. After working as a clerk on contract (भत्ते कारकूनकी) for some time, he became a village registrar (गांवरजिस्ट्रार). Pandurangrao was a pious varkari (devotee of Viththal of Pandharpur).   

Krishnrao’s mother and father died when he was quite young. His father’s death in 1866 came at a time when Krishnarao was in the fourth grade and was studying at the Mission School in Pune’s Ravivar Peth. The untimely death of his father impeded Krishnarao’s education, but his elder brother Ramchandrarao managed to keep him in school for two more years. However, due to the poverty at home, Krishnarao had to take up a post in the English office of the Pune district court. As Krishnarao was intellectually sharp and had witnessed financial ruin at a young age, his attention turned to the Bahujan masses who were in a similar state of impoverishment. At that time, Satyashodhak Samaj had begun its activities in Pune. Krishnarao joined the Satyashodhak movement in 1874. Satyashodhak Samaj was not a way to earn one’s bread and butter nor could it end Krishnarao’s hardships. In 1875, Ramchandra Hari Shinde, Jotirao Phule, and Krishnarao formed the ‘Poona Commercial and Contracting Company and took up construction work on the Khadakwasala dam.   

Around this time, a few well-to-do and conscientious Telugu gentlemen from Mumbai raised a sum of about 1,800 rupees and sent printing press equipment to Pune for the use of Satyashodhak Samaj. They wished that the organisation would prosper and spread its principles among the marganalised classes. However, the equipment remained unused for two years as the leaders knew that starting a weekly propagating messages against the Brahmins in the Brahmin-dominated Pune would not be easy. Finally, a meeting was held at Virajangmayya’s house, where questions such as who and where the newspaper should be started were discussed. Krishnarao stepped forward and said that he would start the newspaper and that he should be given the printing press on rent. However, the same gentleman whose egoistic attitude was the reason for the press remaining idle for two years, opposed the proposition. He thought that if Krishnarao were to start the newspaper, his old age and gray hair would have to bear the mark of cowardice and that he would have to walk shamefaced among his peers. With such self-centered thoughts and by raising unnecessary doubts the gentleman made sure that Krishnarao didn’t get the press. Thus, the Pune Satyashodhak Samaj was forced to send the printing press back to Mumbai. Nevertheless, Krishnarao kept nursing his desire to start a newspaper. With the help of his elder brother and a noble gentleman from Mumbai, Muktaji Apaji, he bought a lithography press and started the weekly ‘Dinbandhu’ from Pune in January 1877. The newspaper was printed on the lithography press for six months. Later, the benevolent, big-hearted member of Satyashodhak Samaj from Mumbai, Jaya Karadi Lingu, helped a lot in buying a metal-type press, and since then ‘Dinbandhu’ started being published on the metal type. 

The internal details of ‘Dinbandhu’ are quite fascinating. Due to lack of space, we will mention only a few here.  

Dinbandhu was born amid the drought of 1877. Initially, it had eight subscribers from Pune and five from Mumbai. Only 13 subscribers in total! These 13 subscribers convinced and cajoled others and by the end of the year, the periodical managed to gather 82 subscribers. This number rose to 192 by the end of 1878, 260 by the end of 1879, and 380 by May 1880. Most of the subscribers were recommended by other subscribers and collecting subscription fees from them became a herculean task. Also, it would cost half an anna in postage fees for each issue. Despite such immense production issues, Krishnarao nurtured Dinbandhu for four years at a great personal cost. Considering these conditions, the gentlemen from Mumbai realised that the newspaper could not continue like this and hence decided to move it to Mumbai. These details have been published in the then editorial of 9th May 1880.  

From 1881 to 1883, Krishnarao worked on the Nira Canal as an overseer. His work on that project was greatly appreciated. Whenever Bahujan masses gathered around him, Krishnarao would feel the urge to talk and guide them, sometimes ending up preaching to the laborers for hours. The European officers would occasionally get angry about this, however, some of the noble European officers praised Krishnarao for his oratory — a sentiment captured in the certificate of appreciation issued to him.  

Krishnarao left his employment in 1884 and started an organisation called ‘Sushikshangrih’ in Kasaba Peth to facilitate the boarding and lodging of marginalised students. Students from distant villages joined the hostel. People like Vishram Ramji Ghole and Gangaram Bhau Mhaske would also oversee the students in the facility when they could. But even here, jealousy eventually led to the dismemberment of the organisation.  

In 1886, Krishnarao created a new card game along the lines of Dashavatar cards and even wrote a booklet about it. But it did not gain popularity. Later he found a job and worked for two years. After quitting his job, he started contributing articles to the monthly ‘Dinmitra’ founded by his nephew Ganapat Sakharam Patil and soon founded his own weekly ‘Shetakaryancha Kaivari’ from Mumbai. This too shut down in 1894. Krishnarao took up a job with the contractor Sitaram Laxman Seth again. After a few days, he left that job and moved near Manmad to work on the new railway line. After living in Moglai [British service?] till 1900, he moved to the village of Tarawadi to look after his farmland. In 1902, he left Tarawadi too, and went to Jabalpur to work on a forest contract. After leaving from there too, he organised two-three meetings of Satyashodhak Samaj in Varhad. He worked hard to set up a farmers’ trade organisation in the agriculturally prosperous region of Varhad and published his plan in the form of a booklet. But due to the cowardice of Varhad’s farmers, his plan didn’t come to fruition.  

Afterward, Krishnarao took to inventing a new technique to draw water from the well. In this, he received help from the Varhad president of Satyashodhak Samaj, Bhagawantrao Kandalkar, and Yashvantrao Khushalrao Deshmukh. Jabalpur’s waterworks inspector Dadaji Hiraji Kawale too helped a lot, but an invention requires a great amount of investment.     

Krishnarao returned to Tarawadi and in a few days, he went to Ahmednagar. After spending some time there, he took up the job of agent for Mumbai’s Homeless Assistance Committee, for which he again moved to Varhad. Following this, Krishnarao’s companions in Varhad promised him that they would launch a newspaper called ‘Satyaprakash’. Krishnarao resigned from his job to work for the periodical; however, his companions fell though on their promises, and he had to again return to Tarawadi. During this time, a new branch of Satyashodhak Samaj had been established at Somthane, a village 16 miles from Tarawadi. The young and earnest members of the Somthane branch invited Krishnarao to deliver lectures and promised him that they would start a newspaper. Around the same time, the Mali Shikshan Parishad had sprung up on the scene and Krishnarao strove to organise its first conference in Pune. He also bought the equipment for a printing press and brought it to Tarawadi. But the god had a different plan. Before he could launch his newspaper, Krishnarao left the world on 7 May 1910.   

Krishnarao embodied the qualities of dutifulness, stoicism, selflessness, and commitment towards Bahujan service. He served Satyashodhak Samaj with utmost sincerity and without caring for credit. In the first annual report of Pune Satyashodhak Samaj in 1876, Krishnarao has been lauded for his work on the first page itself.  

His articles and poems were published in newspapers like Dinbandhu, Dinmitra, Shetakaryancha Kaivari, and Raghavbhushan. He highlighted the plights of all marginalised in his writings. He also wrote many essays with pen names, which included Dharm (Religion), Dhong Parisphotan (Fraud Uncovered), Hindu Lokanchi Shithilata (The Laxity of the Hindus), and Hitopdesh (Good Counsel). He never ran after publicity. Since he was the very first journalist from the subaltern classes, it’s not a surprise that the learned among them hold a great reverence for him. 

(Translated from Marathi by Tejas Harad. Originally published in ‘Satyashodhak Dinmitrakar Mukundrao Patil Samagray Vangamay’, Maharashtra Rajya Sahitya ani Sanskriti Mandal, 1990, pp 9-11.)

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