Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi

Founder

Photo: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA)

Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi is the founder of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (1938)[1], an Indian non-profit working on education and arts & culture from Mumbai.

Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi (30 December 1887 - 8 February 1971), who wrote under the pen name Ghanshyam Vyas, was an Indian lawyer, independence activist, politician and writer from Gujarat. He is a major figure in Gujarati literature and is widely known by the honorific Kulapati.

In 1938 he founded Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, an educational and cultural trust dedicated to Indian learning, which continues to run schools and colleges across India and abroad.

Early life and education

Munshi was born in Bharuch, Gujarat, into a Bhargav Brahmin family. He took a BA at Baroda College in 1907, winning a prize for the highest marks in English, and was taught there by Sri Aurobindo, who influenced him considerably. He obtained an LLB in Bombay in 1910 and enrolled as an advocate of the Bombay High Court.

Career

Munshi practised law from 1910 and became secretary of the Indian Home Rule movement in 1915. He was elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly in 1927 and later resigned in connection with the Bardoli Satyagraha. He served as Home Minister of the Bombay Presidency from 1937 to 1940 and was imprisoned several times for his part in the civil disobedience movement.

He founded Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan on 7 November 1938 at Andheri, Bombay, together with Harshidbhai Divatia and his wife Lilavati Munshi. After independence he was Agent-General to Hyderabad State in 1948, a member of the Constituent Assembly and its drafting committee, Union Minister of Food and Agriculture from 1950 to 1952, and Governor of Uttar Pradesh from 1952 to 1957.

As a writer he produced novels, plays and essays in Gujarati, Hindi and English, including the Patan trilogy and the multi-volume Krishnavatara.

Recognition

India Post issued a commemorative postage stamp in his honour in 1988. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan instituted the Kulapati Munshi Award in his memory.[2][3]

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Founded in 1938 by Kulapati K. M. Munshi with Mahatma Gandhi's blessings, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is one of India's largest educational and cultural trusts. From its Mumbai headquarters it runs schools, colleges, Indology research institutes, Sanskrit and performing-arts academies, hospitals and tribal welfare institutions, and publishes the Bhavan's Journal, carrying its motto of value-based education across India and abroad.

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan reports the following, on its own site: