Fakir mohan senapati biography of mahatma

1. What is Truly Gandhian, and What Has Been Stolen?

The title “Mahatma” was often attributed to many benefactors of society. However, it is now exclusively the domain of M K Gandhi. As Sumanyu Satpathy explains in this article, practices we today associate as “Gandhian” were in fact in existence for years prior to Gandhi’s appearance in the national consciousness. Khadi cloth and the charkha, for example, were advocated by Swadeshi activists long before Gandhi adopted them. While Gandhi turned the charkha into a national symbol, it never returned to being the household staple it was meant to be. 

Looking at Swadeshi advocates prior to Gandhi, Satpathy presents a contrast between Odia author Fakir Mohan Senapati and Gandhi, stating that Fakir Mohan’s approach to self-sustenance was pragmatic while the latter’s existed only in theory, and came about by his need to re-identify himself as Indian after his return from South Africa. 

Fakir Mohan goes beyond the swadeshi call for the boycott of British goods, and pleads for the discarding of all foreign clothes. Not until much later, was Gandhi to distinguish between the position of the earlier swadeshi movement and his own…  the second point that Fakir Mohan makes in his essay (about “paying the foreign weaver”, etc) anticipates by a year Gandhi’s formulation on the subject in Hind Swaraj: “By using Manchester cloth, we would only waste our money.” 

[Fakir Mohan’s], rather, is an argument in favour of a need-based economy that would ensure a proper gender-balancing division of labour leading to self-sufficiency. His advocacy of the cotton that men cultivated alongside foodgrains had nothing to do with the modern-day view of growing it as a cash crop; rather, it was meant to sustain a parallel economy, that of clothing, to keep the charkha moving as a self-sustaining economic activity. 

In his Autobiography Gandhi makes the

Indian Odia author

Fakir Mohan Senapati (13 January – 14 June ), often referred to as Utkala Byasa Kabi (Odisha's Vyasa), was an Indian writer, poet, philosopher and social reformer. He played a leading role in establishing the distinct identity of Odia, a language mainly spoken in the Indian state of Odisha. Senapati is regarded as the father of Odia nationalism and modern Odia literature.

Early life and background

Born to Lakhmana Charana Senapati and Tulasi Devi Senapati in a middle class Khandayat family. When he was one and half year old his father died. After fourteen months his mother also died. Since childhood he was taken care of by his grand mother.

Senapati's uncle was jealous of young Fakir Mohan and did not allow his education. His weak health also contributed to him being a late learner. He paid towards his educational expenses by working as a child labourer.

Senapati dedicated his life to the progress of Odia language in the later 19th and early 20th century. He is called the father of Odia fiction. At his native place, school, colleges and universities are constructed in his memory like Fakir Mohan College and Fakir Mohan University.

Work

Main article: Odia Literature

Novels

Mayadhar Mansingh had described Senapati as the Thomas Hardy of Odisha. Though he translated from Sanskrit, wrote poetry, and attempted many forms of li