Around the turn of the twentieth century, as Gandhi was getting the satyagraha movement off the ground, a number of thinkers began advocating for social and religious reforms. Amongst them was Laxmanshastri Joshi, a Sanskritist, Vedic scholar and an articulate, passionate champion for erasing the hold that the caste divide and other Hindu dogmatic traditions had on Indian society. He armed Gandhi with arguments that helped bring the so-called untouchables into
mainstream. With courage and civility, he sought the higher truth and spoke out against Hindu orthodoxy and for the heterodoxy and...