A many-sided public figure of Western India, he served as Judge, a position that he filled with distinction. A tireless leader of social reform movements, he was to found institutions for the study of economic problems too. He founded the National Social Conference in 1885 and the Industrial Association in 1890. The memoranda that these organisations prepared were to be far-reaching in their influence. Religious reform too engaged his attention and he was to deeply influence the Prathana Samaj, a variant of the Brahmo Samaj. He was convinced that without reform, there was no hope for India as a nation. .The change we should seek is thus a change from constraint to freedom, from credulity to faith, from status to contract, from authority to reason, from unorganised to organised life, from bigotry to toleration, from blind fatalism to a sense of human dignity.