Krushnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar | |
---|---|
Native name | कृष्णाजी प्रभाकर खाडिलकर |
Born |
Sangli |
November 25, 1872
Died | August 26, 1948 | (aged 75)
Citizenship | Indian |
Education | Deccan College |
Notable works | Kichak Vadh |
Krushnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar (Devanagari: कृष्णाजी प्रभाकर खाडिलकर) (25 November 1872 – 26 August 1948) was a Marathi writer from Maharashtra, India. George calls him "a prominent lieutenant of Lokmanya Tilak". He was editor of Kesari, Lokmanya and Navakal. Khadilkar in the beginning of his career wrote prose-plays, but achieved "even greater recognition" with plays like Svayamvara – which had songs which were based on Indian classical music. The notability of his dramatic technique, in his fifteen plays, was to "endow ancient Hindu legends and tales with contemporary political significance". The Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature (Volume Two) (Devraj To Jyoti), remarks that while Annasaheb Kirloskar "laid the foundation of popular sangit natak", it saw its great rise and gradual decline with the advent of Khadilkar. It considers Khadilkar along with Bal Gandharva as "the architect of what later on came to be called the golden age of the Marathi drama".
In 1921, after Tilak's death, Lokmanya was founded by admirers of Tilak. Khadilkar assumed its editorship. In 1923 he resigned because of his support of Gandhi's position in division of nationalist political opinion, under opposition from the promoters who rejected it. In March 1923 Khadilkar started his own newspaper Nava Kaal, which "supported Gandhi's programme" and its editorials "preached Gandhi's philosophy.
Khadilkar was born on 25 November 1872 in Sangli. At age 15, he wrote a novel, and the next year he wrote a play. He received his B.A. degree in 1892 from Deccan College in Pune. Out of his abiding interest in plays, he closely studied during his college years the plays of Sanskrit and English playwrights.
In 1897, Khadilkar joined the editorial staff of Bal Gangadhar Tilak's daily Kesari (केसरी). His ideas and literary style so closely matched those of Tilak that the readers of Kesari never knew as to which of the two had written the editorials appearing in the newspaper. In 1908 the colonial government arrested Tilak on charges of sedition for an article written by Khadilkar. Tilak was sentenced to six years transportation to be served in Mandalay.