Explanation:

Explanation :

Gopal Ganesh Agarkar

• He was born on 14 July 1856 in Tembhu in Satara district of Maharashtra. He was a proponent of rationalism, individualism, equality, and humanism. He believed that education and the press could play a critical role in spreading these ideas.
• Agarkar was inspired from the Age of Enlightenment in Europe and the writings of Mill, Spencer, Voltaire and Rousseau which made him a proponent of scientific rationalism.
• He believed in the role of Education in empowerment of both women and men. Towards this objective, he along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak, established multiple educational institutions like the New English School, the Deccan Education Society, and Fergusson Collage.
• A Rationalist: Gopal Ganesh Agarkar believed in the power of reason in inducing people to overcome blind superstitious faiths. He believed in leading a life based on rationality & equality.
• While Tilak’s “objected to any British interference”, which was based on his “pride in the Hindu Brahmanical tradition”, Agarkar was “influenced by Western intellectual tradition” and he did not have any qualms with British reforms in Indian society.
• This ideological difference deepened with Agarkar’s argument for an urgent need to bring about social reform to address the plight of women and perils of caste hierarchy in India under the very aegis of British rule.
• He was the first editor of 'Kesari', the journal started by Tilak.
• He was critical of orthodox practices in Hinduism. Tilak, on the other hand, did not like Agarkar’s sarcasm about Hinduism in Kesari.

Vitthal Ramji Shinde

• Maharshi Vitthal Ramji Shinde was born in a small princely state of Jamkhandi, now a part of Karnataka, in a Marathi-speaking Maharashtrian family.
• On his return from England in 1903, Shinde dedicated his entire life towards religious and social reforms. Though he continued working for Prarthana Samaj, but he emphasized on the abolition of untouchability from India.
• He founded the Somvanshiya Mitra Samaj on March 14, 1907 to abolish the Devdasi system amongst Mahar and Mang women.
• He even established the Akhil Bhartiya NirashritAkhil Bhartiya Nirashrit Asprushyata Nivarak Sangha, through which he organized an All-India convention in Mumbai emphasizing on the removal of untouchability, during the years 1918 to 1920.
• He visited Burma between 1925 and 1926 to study social ethics and Buddhist religion. On his return to India, he took active participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement with Mahatma Gandhi in 1930 and served six-month imprisonment in Yerawda prison near Pune.
• He wrote a book titled "Bhartiya Asprushyatecha Prashna" (India's untouchability question) that was published in 1933.

Kisan Faguji Bansod

• He was born in a Mahar Family at Mohapa village near Nagpur in Maharashtra. 
• He wanted the Dalits boys and girls to be educated so he established the Chokhamela girls' schools at Nagpur. 
• Setting up his own press in 1910, Bansod published the journals Nirashrit Hind Nagarik, Vital Vidhvansak and Majur Patrika.
• He was influenced by the Bhakti cult and the work of Brahmo Samaj and the Prarthana Samaj.

Gopal Hari Deshmukh 'Lokahitwadi'

• He was an Indian activist, thinker, social reformer and an important figure of the Social Reform Movement in Maharashtra.
• Deshmukh authored 35 books on a variety of subjects, such as religion, society, the economy, politics, history, and literature.
• Gopal Hari Deshmukh, commonly known as Lokahitawadi, was an Indian who had a Western education and lived from 1823 to 1892.
• He served as a judge and a member of the Governor General’s Council in 1880.
• In 1876, he attended the Delhi Durbar dressed in handspun khadi as an advocate of national independence.
• His most extensive writings are mainly historical.
• He began contributing several brief essays to the magazine Prabhakar starting in 1848 on religious, social, political, economic, and educational subjects.
• These 108 items, collectively called Shatapatre, were gathered in 1860 as a component of the Lokhitwadikrta Nibandha Sangraha.
• Great social reformer and rational thinker Lokahitawadi urged people to be independent and pursue a Western education.
• These, in his opinion, were methods for developing a sober mindset and dealing with the nation’s urgent problems.
• He suggested that India’s guiding principles should be humanitarianism and social service.
• He started a weekly, Hitechhu, and also played a leading role in founding the periodicals, Gyan Prakash, Indu Prakash, and Lokahitawadi.