Sane Guruji was born
at Palgad in the Dapoli taluka in the Ratnagiri
district of Maharashtra, in a poor Chitpavan Brahmin
family. He passed the matriculation examination
in 1918, his B.A. in 1922 and M.A. in 1924 from
the Bombay University.
His mother’s influence on him was most predominant.
Daily she preached to her children to be true,
honest, obedient, God-fearing and self-sacrificing
for the benefit of others. He had studied the
Hindu Scriptures, Sanskrit books on Philosophy,
and the works of the Maharashtra saints, of Ramakrishna
Paramahansa, Vivekananda and Tagore, of Tolstoy,
Carlyle, Ruskin and the other well-known nineteenth
century English writers. He was attracted by Gandhiji’s
philosophy and life, and decided to follow his
teachings.
He joined the Tatvadnyaana Mandir, Amalner,
Dhulia district, in 1923 and became a teacher
in the Pratap High School in 1924. He resigned
his post in 1930 to enter public life.
He participated in the Civil Disobedience Movement
(1930), was arrested and sentenced to fifteen
months’ imprisonment. The years 1932-33
he spent in the Dhulia and Nasik jails. Once
again from August 1940, he served a jail term
of two years for having made a fiery speech
against the Government at a Youth Conference
held at Chandavad in Nasik district. In between,
he was holding literacy classes, especially
for Hindi, selling Khadi, collecting funds for
the Congress and for providing relief to the
families of those who had participated in the
political movement and some of whom had died
in Police firings.
He undertook several fasts-in 1941 to urge
the workers of Amalner to keep away from the
Communists and join the Congress, in 1946 to
force the priests of the Vithoba Temple at Pandharpur
to throw open the temple to the Harijans, in
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February 1948 to pacify
the public against the Brahmins in Maharashtra
aroused by Gandhiji’s assassination by a
Brahmin youth, and in December 1949 to force the
Congress Government to cancel the orders prohibiting
students from participating in political activities.
In 1947 he also organised a campaign in Bombay
to clean the slum areas.
He stood for a reformed Hinduism, and as such
for the abolition of caste and untouchability.
He advocated National Education with an emphasis
on character building of the students with a view
to making them nationally conscious.
He opposed regionalism which bred rivalry between
the States. In fact, he evolved a scheme of an
Antar Bharati School to be established at some
centre in India with branches in all the States,
the object of which would be to study the language,
customs, traditions, arts crafts, folk songs,
dances, etc., of another State, and thus achieve
national integration.
In 1939, in Amalner, he started a Marathi weekly,
the Congress, which was suppressed by the Government.
In 1948 he started the Sadhana in Poona and
Bombay, to preach economic, social and religious
brotherhood and equality through the socialistic
ideology.
Similarly, he made extensive use of the public
platform to spread the message of the Congress,
and later on his Socialistic ideas.Sane Guruji
has written about 200 books in Marathi, out
of which about 150 have been published, the
most popular being ‘Shyam’ and ‘Shamchi
Aai’.
He was a staunch follows of the Congress till
1947 when he joined the Congress Socialist Party.
He was a bachelor and led an ascetic, quiet
life. His is an outstanding example of a selfless
life dedicated to political and social service.
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