Indian journalist and social reformer, born in 1853 at Baroda, the son of a poor Parsi in the employment of the state, who died shortly after his birth. His mother took him to Surat, where he was educated in a mission school, but he never succeeded in gaining an academical degree. Coming to Bombay, he fell under the influence of Dr. John Wilson, principal of the Scottish College. As early as 1875 he published a volume of poems in Gujarati, followed in 1877 by The Indian Muse in English Garb, which attracted attention in England, notably from Tennyson, Max Müller, and Florence Nightingale. His life work began in 1880 when he acquired the Indian Spectator, which he edited for twenty years until it was merged in the Voice of India. In 1901 he became editor of East and West. Always holding aloof from politics, he was an ardent and indefatigable advocate of social reform in India, especially as regards child marriage and the remarriage of widows. It was largely by his efforts, both in the press and in tours through the country, that the Age of Consent Act was passed in 1891. His account of his visits to England, entitled The Indian Eye on English Life (1893), passed through three editions, and an earlier book of a somewhat satirical nature, Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1883), was equally popular. He died at Bandora, near Bombay, on the 12th of July 1912. Up to the time of his death he continued to edit the monthly periodical East and West, and he wielded remarkable influence with a long succession of viceroys, governors and heads of departments in India, as well as originating various philanthropic enterprises.
See R. P. Karkaria, India, Forty Years of Progress and Reform, (London, 1896); and biographies by Payaram Giduma (1891) and Sirdar Jogendra Singh (1914).
