Munshi wrote his works in three languages namely Gujarati, English and Hindi. Before independence of India, Munshi was part of Indian National Congress and after independence, he joined Swatantra Party. Munshi held several important posts like member of Constituent Assembly of India, minister of agriculture and food of India, and governor of Uttar Pradesh. In his later life, he was one of the founding members of Vishva Hindu Parishad.
Due to influence of Aurobindo, Munshi leaned towards revolutionary group and get himself involved into the process of bomb-making. But after settling in the Mumbai, he joined Indian Home Rule movement and became secretary in 1915.[7] In 1917, he became secretary of Bombay presidency association.[7] In 1920, he attended annual congress session at Ahmedabad and was influenced by its president Surendranath Banerjee.[7]
In 1927, he was elected to the Bombay legislative assembly but after Bardoli satyagraha, he resigned under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi.[7] He participated in the civil disobedience movement in 1930 and was arrested for six months initially. After taking part in the second part of same movement, he was arrested again and spent two years in the jail in 1932.[7] In 1934, he became secretary of Congress parliamentary board.[10]
As the demand for Pakistan gathered momentum, he gave up non-violence and supported the idea of a civil war to compel the Muslims to give up their demand. He believed that the future of Hindus and Muslims lay in unity in an "Akhand Hindustan".[11] He left Congress in 1941 due to dissents with Congress, but was invited back in 1946 by Mahatma Gandhi.[9][7]
Secretary of Congress Parliamentary Board (1934)[10]
Home Minister of Government of Bombay (1937–40)[10]
Post-independence India
Jawaharlal Nehru driving tractor with Munshi and Rajkumari Amrita Kaur. (From right to left, Munshi wore goggles and Gandhi cap)
He was a part of several committees including Drafting Committee, Advisory Committee, Sub-Committee on Fundamental Rights.[12][13] Munshi presented his draft on Fundamental Rights to the Drafting and it sought for progressive rights to be made a part of Fundamental Rights.[14]
After the independence of India, Munshi, Sardar Patel and N. V. Gadgil visited the Junagadh State to stabilise the state with help of the Indian Army. In Junagadh, Patel declared the reconstruction of the historically important Somnath temple. Patel died before the reconstruction was completed. Munshi became the main driving force behind the renovation of the Somnath temple even after Jawaharlal Nehru's opposition.[15][16][17]
Munshi was appointed diplomatic envoy and trade agent (Agent-General) to the princely state of Hyderabad, where he served until its accession to India in 1948. Munshi was on the ad hoc Flag Committee that selected the Flag of India in August 1947, and on the committee which drafted the Constitution of India under the chairmanship of B. R. Ambedkar.
Besides being a politician and educator, Munshi was also an environmentalist. He initiated the Van Mahotsav in 1950, when he was Union Minister of Food and Agriculture, to increase 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.[18]
Munshi served as the Governor of Uttar Pradesh from 1952 to 1957.[10] In 1959, Munshi separated from the Nehru-dominated (socialist) Congress Party and started the Akhand Hindustan movement. He believed in a strong opposition, so along with Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, he founded the Swatantra Party, which was right-wing in its politics, pro-business, pro-free market economy and private property rights. The party enjoyed considerable success and eventually died out.
Member of constituent assembly of India and its drafting committee (1947–52)[10]
Union minister of food and agriculture (1950–52)[10]
Agent general to the Government of India, Hyderabad (1948)[10]
Academic career
Munshi was thinking of giving an institutional foundations to his ideas and ideals since 1923. On 7 November 1938, he established Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan with Harshidbhai Divatia and his wife Lilavati Munshi at Andheri, Bombay.[19] Later, he established Mumbadevi Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya to teach Sanskrit and ancient Hindu texts according to traditional methods.[20]
He served as Chairman of Institute of Agriculture, Anand (1951–71), trustee of the Birla Education Trust (1948–71), executive chairman of Indian Law Institute (1957–60) and chairman of Sanskrit Vishwa Parishad (1951–1961).[10]
Munshi, with pen name Ghanshyam Vyas, was a prolific writer in Gujarati and English, earning a reputation as one of Gujarat's greatest literary figures.[7] Being a writer and a conscientious journalist, Munshi started a Gujarati monthly called Bhargava. He was joint-editor of Young India and in 1954, started the Bhavan's Journal which is published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan to this day. Munshi was President of the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad and the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan [hi].[10][9]
Munshi was also a litterateur with a wide range of interests. He is well known for his historical novels in Gujarati, especially his trilogyPatan-ni-Prabhuta (The Glory of Patan), Gujarat-no-Nath (The Lord and Master of Gujarat) and Rajadhiraj (The King of Kings). His other works include Jay Somnath (on Somnath temple), Krishnavatara (on Lord Krishna), Bhagavan Parasurama (on Parshurama), and Tapasvini (The Lure of Power) a novel with a fictional parallel drawn from the Freedom Movement of India under Mahatma Gandhi. Munshi also wrote several notable works in English.
Munshi has written some fictional historical themes namely; Earlier Aryan settlements in India (What he calls Gaurang's – white skinned), Krishna's endeavors in Mahabharata times, More recently in 10th century India around Gujarat, Malwa and Southern India..
K.M. Munshi's novel Prithivivallabh was made into a movie of the same name twice. The adaptation directed by Manilal Joshi in 1924 was very controversial in its day: The second version was by Sohrab Modi in 1943.
In 1948 he wrote a book about Mahatma Gandhi called Gandhi: The Master.
A school in Thiruvananthapuram is named after him as Bhavan's Kulapati K.M. Munshi Memorial Vidya Mandir Sapthat.
A postage stamp was issued in his honor in 1988.[27]
The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan has instituted an award in his honor – The Kulapati Munshi Award – awarded to recognize and honor a citizen of the Kendra who has done excellent and outstanding service to society in any special field.[28]
^ abSheth, Jayana (1979). Munshi : Self-sculptor (1st ed.). Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. pp. 239–243. OCLC568760494. Archived from the original on 8 February 2024. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
^Davis, Richard H. (1997). Lives of Indian Images. Princeton University Press. p. 210.
^Chowdhry, Prem (2000). Colonial India and the Making of Empire Cinema: Image, Ideology, and Identity. Manchester University Press. p. 123.
^ abcBhagavan, Manu (2008). "The Hindutva Underground: Hindu Nationalism and the Indian National Congress in Late Colonial and Early Post-Colonial India". Economic and Political Weekly. 43 (37): 39–48. JSTOR40277950.
Kulkarni, V. B. (2014) [1959]. K.M. Munshi. Builders of Modern India. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. ISBN978-81-230-1917-8.
