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K. M. Munshi
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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (July 2007) |
Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi (December 30, 1887 - February 8, 1971) was an Indian freedom fighter from the state of Gujarat. A lawyer by profession, he then turned to literature and politics.
Munshi was born on 30 December, 1887 in the town of Bharuch in Gujarat. He got his education in Vadodara, where he excelled in academics. One of his teachers at the then Baroda College was Sri Aurobindo. Munshi later practised in Bombay High Court.
Munshi was an active participant in the Indian Independence Movement ever since the advent of Mahatma Gandhi. He joined the Swaraj Party but returned to the Indian National Congress with the launch of the Salt Satyagraha in 1930. He was arrested several times, including during the Quit India Movement of 1942. A great admirer of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Munshi served in the Central Legislative Assembly in the 1930s.
After the independence of India, Munshi went as the diplomatic envoy and trade agent to the princely state of Hyderabad, where he served until its accession in 1948. He was also part of the ad hoc Flag Committee that selected the Flag of India in August 1947, and one of the members of the committee which drafted the Constitution of India under the chairmanship of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Munshi founded the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in 1938 in Bombay. Bhavan's is one of the leading educational and cultural institution in India.
Munshi separated from the Nehru-dominated Congress Party and joined the newly formed Swatantrata Party led by Chakravarti Rajgopalachari, which was right-wing in its politics and pro-business, pro-free market economy and private property rights. The party enjoyed limited success, and had died out. However later KM Munshi joined the Jan Sangh. He and Purushottam Das Tandon were among those who strongly opposed propagation and conversion in the constituent assembly.
He served as the Governor of Indian State of Uttar Pradesh from 1952 to 1957.
Besides being a politician and educationist, K.M. Munshi was also an environmentalist. He initiated the Vanmahotsav in 1950, when he was Union Minister of Agriculture and Food, to increase the area under forest cover. Since then Van Mahotsav a week long festival of tree plantation is organised every year in the month of July all across the country and lakhs of trees are planted.
Munshi was also litterateur with a wide range of interests. He has enriched genres like the novel, short story, biography, autobiography,etc. He is specially known for his historical novels in Gujarati. His trilogy Patanni Prabhuta (The Greatness of Patan), Gujaratno Nath (The Ruler of Gujarat) and Rajadhiraj (The Emperor) is considered significant in the literature of Gujarat. His other works include Jay Somnath, Krishnavatara and Bhagavan Parasurama.
Another work from him is Tapasvini ( The Lure of Power ) a novel with a fictional parallel drawn from the Freedom Movement of India under Gandhijie
K.M. Munshi's novel titled Prithvi Vallabh was directed by Late Manilal Joshi into a sweeping adaptation to a movie of same name. King Munja (Wagle Sandow), lord of Aranti, is a renowned warrior, lover of the arts, and libertine. One day, he is captured by his bitter rival, Tailap, with the help of King Bhillam (P.Y. Altekar) of Dharavati. Once in Tailap's clutches, Munja is sentenced to death. The order is stopped at the last minute by Tailap's widowed sister, Minalvati (Fatma Begum), who wishes to torture him a bit first. Instead, she falls for the rakish sovereign and they soon conspire to escape back to Aranti together. Unfortunately, Tailap gets wind of this scheme and has Munja trampled by elephants. This film was very controversial in its day; Mahatma Gandhi railed against it for excessive sex and violence.
Prithvi Vallabh was also made into a movie titled the same by Late Sohrab Modi released in 1943. The stories major highlights were the confrontations between Munja(Played by Sohrab Modi) and Durga Khote playing the haughty queen Mrinalvati who tries to humiliate him publicly but then falls in love with him.