Kakasaheb Kalelkar
Born: 1-12-1885 - Died: 21-8-1981
Educationist, linguist, journalist, litterateur, academician, philosopher, parliamentarian, interpreter or Tagore and Gandhi and ardent advocate of emotional integration of all communities, Acharya Kakasaheb (Dattatreya Bal Krishna) Kalelkar was born at Satara (Maharashtra), on 1St December 1885 and has served the nation in various fields of public activity for an unbroken period on 75 years.
His childhood was spent in traveling form place to place with his father which often interrupted his education. In Fergusson College he actively joined the revolutionary movement and on graduating (with philosophy) he worked on the national daily Rashtra Mat of Lokmanya Tilak until it was closed down by the British Government. He then become the Principal of a national school in Barida which also had to be closed owing to disfavour of the British Government.
All political activities being thus denied, he went to the Himalayas to satisfy his spiritual hankering and trudged on foot for over 2500miles in the Himalayas as “Sadhu Dattareya”.
For Some time, he taught at Tagore`s Shantiniketan from where Gandhiji brought him to his Ashram at Sabarmati, later appointing him as Vice-Chancellor of Gujrat Vidyapith.
As a litterateur of all-India repute who knows seven languages, Kakasaheb has written over 120 books in Gujrati, Hindi, Marathi and English. Several of his books have won literary awards including the Award of National Academy of Letters which has also selected some of his works for translation into other languages. Kakasaheb presided over the Gujrati Literary Conference in 1959, in which year he was also awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Prize for his services to Hindi language and literature. The Hindi Sahitya Sammelan Gave him 1966 their highest degree of Vidya Vachaspati.
As an eminent litterateur, he was nominated by the President to be a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and served on that body for 12 years, in 1964 the President conferred on him the Padam Vibhushan, the highest award of that year. On 1st December 1965 when he completed 80 years of his life, he was felicitated at a ceremony in the Rashtrapati Bhawan when the President presented to him a volume of tributes by eminent personalities from all over a biography of his in English. He died in New Delhi on 21 August 1981
