1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mulji, Kursendas

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32162441911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 18 — Mulji, Kursendas

MULJI, KURSENDAS (1832–1875), Indian journalist and social reformer, was born on the 25th of July 1832, of a family belonging to the Bhatia or trading caste of western India. Being repudiated by his family on account of his views on widow remarriage, he became a vernacular schoolmaster, and started a weekly paper in Gujarati called The Satya Prakash. In this he attacked the immoralities of the Maharajas or hereditary high priests of the Vallabhacharya sect of Vaishnavism to which the Bhatias belong. In a suit for libel brought against him in the High Court at Bombay in 1862, he won a victory on the main issue. After a visit to England on business in connexion with the cotton trade, which was not successful and brought on him excommunication from his caste, he was appointed in 1874 to administer a native state in Kathiawar during the minority of the chief; and there he died in August 1875.

See History of the Sect of Maharajas or Wallabhacharyas of Western India (1865).