Karsandas Mulji

Context (IE): Karsandas Mulji was in limelight due to relasese of biopic Maharaj.
Born in Bombay in 1832 in a Gujarati Vaishnav family.
He was an active member of the Gujarati Gnanprasarak Mandalli (Gujarati Society for the Spread of Knowledge), founded by the Students’ Society of Elphinstone College.
As Elphinstone College alumani, he was classmates with prominent Gujarati reformists such as poet Narmad and educationist Mahipatram Neelkanth.
He contributed articles to Rast Goftar & co-founded Streebodh, a women’s magazine launched in 1857.
He also published a weekly called Mumbainu Bajar (the Bombay Market) for some time.
During his tenure as Assistant Superintendent of Rajkot state, he published a monthly journal titled Vignanvilas on science and industry.

Rast Goftar, an Anglo-Gujarati newspaper founded by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1851.

Due to support to window remarraige he was evicted from family and was excommunicated from caste due to an overseas jouney by him.
Later, he was employed at a charitable school founded by Sheth Gokaldas Tejpal.

Fight against exploitation

He founded Satyaprakash in 1855 with the support of wealthy reform-minded individuals.
A Vaishnav himself, Karsandas began to expose the misdeeds of Vaishnav priests, including their exploitation of women devotees.
He died in 1871 and remembered as the social reformer-journalist who won the Maharaj Libel Case.

Vaishnav priest Jivanlalji refused to appear in Bombay High Court in a case initiated by Dayal Motiram in 1858. He coerced Vaishnavite followers to agree to three conditions:
- No Vaishnav could write against the Maharaj;
- No Vaishnav could take him to court;
- And if anyone sued him, the followers would bear the cost of the case and ensure that the Maharaj did not have to appear in court.
Karsandas criticised this coercive agreement in numerous articles in Satyaprakash, terming it gulamikhat (agreement of slavery). When Jivanlalji Maharaj started losing followers, he fled from Bombay.
In response to the growing sentiment against the priests, another young priest Jadunath Maharaj tried to restore the sect’s influence by asthetic liberal views.
The Maharaj cleverly shifted the debate to questioning the divine origin of the scriptures, leaving the discussion unresolved.

Narmad challenged the Vaishnavite priests’ coercive and immoral practices in his article in Satyaprakash.
The article titled “Hinduono Asal Dharma ane Haalna Pakhandi Mato” (The Primitive Religion of the Hindus and the Present Heterodox Opinions), accused priests of sexual liaisons with female devotee.
It further stated that the book of Gokulnath, the grandson of Vallabhacharya, who founded the Pushtimarg sect of Vaishnavism, endorsed immorality.
It led to the Maharaj filing the famous libel case in the Bombay court, “the greatest trial of modern times since the trial of Warren Hastings“.
The Maharaj filed the lawsuit against Karsandas and the paper’s publisher, Nanabhai Ranina.
Final judgement favoured Karsandas and established that everyone, including priests, is equal under the law. It rejected the State’s traditional role as gaubhrhaman pratipa (Protectors of cows & Brahmins).