Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar (English: Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar, born: 17 December 1869, Bihar; died: 23 November 1912) was a revolutionary writer, historian and journalist. He was such a thinker of Indian awakening, in whose thinking and writings there was a wonderful combination of localism and pan-Indianness. He was a staunch follower of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak and because of bringing public awareness in Bengal, he was called ‘Tilak of Bengal’. He also made continuous efforts for the promotion of Hindi.
Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar was born on 17 December 1869 in Deoghar.[1] He was born in a village named ‘Karaun’ near, which is now in Jharkhand state. Deuskar’s ancestors, of Marathi origin, were residents of Deus village near Shivaji’s fort named Alban in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. During the expansion of Maratha power in the 18th century, his ancestors came from Deus village of Maharashtra and settled in ‘Karaun’.
After the death of his mother at the age of five, the child Sakharam was brought up by his widowed aunt who was well acquainted with Marathi literature. His efforts, teachings and hard work created a love for Marathi literature in Sakharam. Along with studying the Vedas in his childhood, Sakharam also learned the Bengali language. History was his favorite subject. He considered Bal Gangadhar Tilak as his political guru. Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar married R. of Deoghar in 1891. He passed the matriculation examination from Mitra High School and was appointed a teacher in the same school in 1893. It was here that he came in contact with Rajnarayan Basu and along with teaching, on the one hand, he also kept writing articles on political, social and literary subjects in various Bengali newspapers and magazines for his socio-political expression. In 1894, there was an English magistrate named Hard in Deoghar. The public was upset with his injustice and atrocities. Deuskar wrote several articles against him in the newspaper ‘Hitvaadi’ published from Calcutta, as a result of which Hard threatened to remove Deuskar from his job at the school. After that Deuskar ji left his job as a teacher and went to Calcutta (present day Kolkata) and started working as a proof reader in ‘Hitwadi Newspaper’. After some time, on the basis of his extraordinary talent and ability to work hard, he was made the editor of ‘Hitwadi’.
Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar was well versed in Sanskrit, Marathi and Hindi languages. He used to edit the famous Bengali language paper ‘Hitwadi’. With his inspiration, a Hindi version of this paper named ‘Hitvarta’ was published, which was edited by Pt. Baburao Vishnu Paradkar. Deuskar had launched a movement to ensure that Hindi should be written by combining words with inflection like Bengali, Marathi etc. His major contribution was the creation of a book named ‘Desher Katha’. Its first edition was translated into Hindi by Pt. Baburao Vishnu Paradkar under the name ‘Desh Ki Baat’. In this book, light was thrown on the condition of the subjugated country. The foreign government confiscated it as soon as it was published, but it was widely publicized across the country secretly. Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar’s house was the meeting place of revolutionaries like Aurobindo Ghosh and Barindra Ghosh, who used to do journalism during the day and engage in their party’s work at night. He was a staunch follower of Lokmanya and because of bringing public awareness in Bengal, he was called ‘Tilak of Bengal’. He also made continuous efforts for the promotion of Hindi.
Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar did public service in Kolkata. He instilled the feeling of nationalism among the youth by starting Shivaji Mahotsav in Kolkata. He was the promoter of Swadeshi even before the Banga Bhang movement. Sakharam, who considered the independence of the country as the goal of his life, also kept in touch with the revolutionary movement and contributed to public awareness by writing literature in Bengali and Hindi. ‘Buddhivardhini Sabha’ was formed in Kolkata under the chairmanship of Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar. Through this meeting, not only did the knowledge of the youth increase, they also gained political knowledge and people were inspired to use indigenous products. Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar had a major contribution in the movement against partition in 1905. Patriot Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar died at an early age on November 23, 1912.
