Vidarbha · Deccan Inland Plateau

People

Name	Years	Field	Known for
Harishena	Reigned c. 475–500 CE	Ruler	The Vakataka king of the Vatsagulma branch, ruling from what is now Washim, under whose court the second and greatest phase of excavation at the Ajanta caves was carried out. The dynasty was based in Vidarbha; the caves it paid for are in Marathwada.
Raghuji Bhonsle I	c. 1695–1755	Ruler	Built the Nagpur Bhonsle state into the dominant power of the eastern Deccan, extending its raiding and revenue reach as far as Bengal and Odisha. Nagpur as a capital city dates from his line.
Sant Gadge Baba	1876–1956	Reformer and kirtankar	Born at Shengaon in Amravati district. Travelled village to village with a broom and a broken pot, cleaning the village before performing kirtan in it, and using the kirtan to argue against caste practice, animal sacrifice and drink. He built dharamshalas and schools and kept nothing.
Rashtrasant Tukdoji Maharaj	1909–1968	Poet and reformer	From Yavali in Amravati district; wrote the Gramgeeta, a long verse programme for village self-reliance, and used bhajan as an organising method. Nagpur's university carries his name.
Mahatma Gandhi	1869–1948	Politics	Moved his base to Sevagram near Wardha in 1936 and ran the last decade of the national movement from a mud hut in a Vidarbha village, deliberately choosing a place with no railway station of its own.
Jamnalal Bajaj	1889–1942	Industry and public life	The Wardha merchant and industrialist who financed and hosted Gandhi's move, and who founded the village industry institutions that still operate at Wardha. He opened his family's Laxminarayan temple to Dalits in 1928, well before any law required it.
Vinoba Bhave	1895–1982	Social movement	Settled at Paunar near Wardha, from where he walked across India from 1951 asking landholders to donate land for redistribution — the Bhoodan movement, which collected several million acres by voluntary transfer.
B. R. Ambedkar	1891–1956	Law, politics and religion	Chose Nagpur for the mass conversion of 14 October 1956, at which he and several lakh followers took the Buddhist refuges and precepts along with twenty-two additional vows he composed. He explained the choice of Nagpur by reference to the Nagas of the region. He died on 6 December of the same year.
Suresh Bhat	1932–2003	Poet	From Amravati; established the ghazal as a Marathi form rather than an imported one, working out how a metre built for Urdu could be made to sit on Marathi stress. His verse is sung as widely as it is read.
Vasantrao Deshpande	1920–1983	Hindustani vocalist and actor	Born at Murtizapur in Akola district; combined several gharana trainings into a voice of his own and made Katyar Kaljat Ghusali the defining Marathi musical drama of the twentieth century.
Wamandada Kardak	—	Shahir	The shahir most closely identified with Bhim Geet, who wrote and performed several thousand songs on Ambedkar, the conversion and the lives of the communities that made it, and left the copyright question entirely alone.
Dadaji Ramaji Khobragade	Died 2018	Farmer and plant breeder	A smallholder in Nagbhid taluka, Chandrapur district, who noticed an unusual plant in his paddy field in the 1980s and selected from it over several seasons to fix the HMT rice variety, which then spread across central India. He never held rights over it and died poor, which is the part of the story that gets told.
Rani Hirai	16th century	Ruler	The Gond queen of Chandrapur credited with completing the city's fortification wall after her husband's death. The Gond dynasty of Chandrapur is the region's longest-ruling and least documented.

People from Vidarbha who shaped its history, arts, science, sport and public life. (13)