Dhondo Keshav Karve

Founder

Founder of Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha

Dhondo Keshav Karve is the founder of Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha (1896)[1], an Indian non-profit working on education, women & children and livelihood from Pune.

Dhondo Keshav Karve (18 April 1858 – 9 November 1962), widely known as Maharshi Karve, was an Indian social reformer who devoted his life to the education and welfare of women, and in particular to widows. He founded the institution at Hingne near Pune that became the Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha, and in 1916 established the first university for women in India, now the SNDT Women's University.

Karve advocated the remarriage of widows and, as a widower, himself married a widow. He also campaigned against the caste system and the devadasi practice, and helped found societies for the spread of primary education in rural areas.

Early life and education

Karve was born on 18 April 1858 at Sheravali in Ratnagiri district, in what is now Maharashtra, into a lower middle-class Chitpavan Brahmin family. He graduated in mathematics from Elphinstone College, Bombay, in 1884.

Career

From 1891 to 1914 Karve taught mathematics at Fergusson College in Pune. Alongside his teaching he built a network of institutions for women: he founded a Widow Marriage Association, and in 1896 established an orphanage and shelter for destitute women and widows, the Anath Balikashram, at Hingne near Pune. A school for girls followed at the same site in 1907.

The Hingne institution grew into the Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha, which today runs schools, colleges and vocational institutes across Maharashtra, including in Pune, Satara, Wai, Nagpur, Ratnagiri and Kamshet, under the aim of women's empowerment through education. In 1916 Karve founded the Indian Women's University, later renamed the Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) Women's University, the first university for women in India.

Recognition

Karve received honorary doctorates from Banaras Hindu University (1942), the University of Poona (1951), SNDT Women's University (1954) and the University of Bombay (1957). He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1955 and the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 1958, the year of his hundredth birthday. He died in Pune on 9 November 1962, aged 104.[2][3]

Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha

Founded in 1896 by Bharat Ratna Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve as a shelter for widows in a hut at Hingne, MKSSS has grown into one of India's oldest women's education trusts, running 64 institutions across Maharashtra — from schools and hostels to engineering, architecture and nursing colleges educating over 32,000 girls and women.

Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha reports the following, on its own site: