Mahadev Govind Ranade


Mahadev Govind Ranade
Birthday
BirthplaceNiphad, Nashik District, Maharashtra, India
Died
Occupationscholar, social reformer and author

Ranade, Mahadev Govind

 

Born Jan. 18, 1842, in Ni-phad, Maharashtra; died Jan. 17, 1901. Indian public and political figure and economist. Son of a rich Brahman.

Ranade graduated from the University of Bombay. From 1885 to 1893 he was a member of the legislative council of the Bombay presidency. He was a leader of the Indian bourgeois-nationalist organization in Maharashtra and, later, of the Indian National Congress. In the Indian national movement he sided with the moderate bourgeois-liberals.

In his works, Ranade drew a vivid picture of India’s plunder by the colonialists. Ranade called for the development of large-scale industry and banking in India and demanded that the British colonial authorities offer support to Indian enterprises. A proponent of state protectionism, he considered state regulation and control to be the decisive factor in the modernization of the Indian economy. His agrarian program amounted to a strengthening of private ownership of land and the creation of a strong middle class composed of landowners and the upper stratum of the peasantry. Ranade greatly influenced the formation of the ideology of the Indian national bourgeoisie.

WORKS

Ranade, M. G. Essays On Indian Economics. Bombay, 1899.