Dhondo Keshav Karve
On April 18, 1858, Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve, the man who pioneered women's empowerment in India, was born. Dhondo Keshav Karve, better known as Anna Karve, was a pioneer in empowering women and promoting widows' education in pre-independence India. He was born in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra.
FACTS
• Child marriages were common in Indian society in the early twentieth century. When Karve was fourteen years old, he was married off to Radhabai, an eight-year-old girl. His parents orchestrated the wedding.
• His wife, unfortunately, died in childbirth in 1891. He was left with a young son named Raghunath Karve, who, like his father, grew up to be a visionary social reformer. He was a math professor who pioneered sex education and birth control in India.
• Two years after the death of his first wife, Dhondo Keshav Karve remarried a 23-year-old widow named Godubai, who had been widowed at the age of eight months.
• He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Elphinstone College in Mumbai (then known as Bombay).
• Dhondo Keshav Karve taught mathematics at Fergusson College in Pune, Maharashtra, from 1891 to 1914. He was inspired to campaign for women's empowerment by statesmen such as Pandita Ramabai, Vishnushastri Chiplunkar, and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar.
• In 1893, he established the ‘Widhawa-Wiwahottejak Mandali,' which encouraged widow remarriage while also caring for their orphaned children. Widhawa-Wiwaha-Pratibandh-Niwarak Mandali was renamed Widhawa-Wiwaha-Pratibandh-Niwarak Mandali in 1895. (Society to Remove Obstacles to Marriages of Widows).
• In 1896, he founded the “Hindu Widow's Home Association” (also known as Hindu Widows Home or Widows Home Association), a shelter and school for widows in Hingane, Maharashtra. He chose the remote location because he had been expelled from Pune's orthodox Brahmin community for supporting widow remarriage and education.
• He struggled to support his social reformatory efforts due to a lack of resources. He walked from Hingane to Pune for many years, both to teach mathematics at Fergusson College and to collect small amounts of money.
• In 1907, he founded the Mahila Vidyalaya (Mahila Vidyalaya) (School for Women). He founded the Nishkam Karma Math (Social Service Society) in 1908 to train workers for the widows' home and Mahila Vidyalaya.
• In 1916, he founded India's first university for women, inspired by the Women's University in Tokyo, Japan. With only five students, the university was founded in Pune.
• From 1917 to 1918, he founded the Training College for Primary School Teachers and the Kanya Shala, a girls' school.
• A philanthropic industrialist named Vithaldas Thackersey donated 1.5 million Indian rupees to the women's university in 1920. The university was renamed ‘Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (S.N.D.T.) Indian Women's University' as a mark of respect.
• He wrote two autobiographies, ‘Atmawrutta' in Marathi (1928) and ‘Looking Back' in English (1936).
• In March 1929, he travelled to Malvern, England, to attend the Primary Teachers' Conference. At a meeting of the East India Association in London's Caxton Hall, he spoke on "Women's Education in India."
• He embarked on a yearlong tour of Africa in December 1930, sharing information about his work for women in India in places like Mombasa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar.
•The S.N.D.T. University established its first college in Mumbai in 1931, and later moved its headquarters there.
• He founded the ‘Samata Sangh' in 1944. (Association for the Promotion of Human Equality). The Government of India recognised S.N.D.T. University as a proper statutory university five years later, in 1949.
• In 1955, the Government of India bestowed upon him the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour. On his centennial birthday in 1958, he received the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.
• Stamps commemorating his birth centenary were issued by the Indian government in 1958. The stamps featured a living person for the first time in independent India.
• Dhondo Keshav Karve died in Pune, India, on November 9, 1962, at the age of 104.