[3] As a well-known public figure, his personality as a calm and patient optimist influenced his attitude towards dealings with Britain as well as reform in India.

He also edited a Bombay Anglo-Marathi daily paper—The Induprakash, founded on his ideology of social and religious reform.

[4] Mahadev Govind Ranade was born into a Chitpavan Brahmin family in Niphad, a taluka town in Nashik district.

Given his political activities and public popularity, the British colonial authorities delayed his promotion to the Bombay High Court until 1895.

[8] Ranade was a progressive social activist whose activities were deeply influenced by western culture and the colonial state.

In every area, he was prone to see little virtue in Indian customs and traditions and to strive for reforming the subject into the mould of what prevailed in the west.

[10][11] Ranade was influenced by Bishop Joseph Butler in linking the social justice work of the Prarthama Samaj with Christian metaphysics.

His reformer friends expected him, who had co-founded the 'Widow Marriage Association' as far back as 1861, to act in accordance with his own sermons and marry a widow.

He acceded to the marriage because he anticipated that if he married an already wedded woman, the children born to her would be considered illegitimate outcasts by his society.

A television series on Zee Marathi named Unch Majha Zoka (roughly translated as 'My Swing Flies High') based on Ramabai's and Mahadevrao's life and their development as a 'women's rights' activist was broadcast in March 2012.