Who was knows by the nick-name”Lokhitvadi”____

Correct: A) Gopal Hari Deshmukh. He wrote Marathi essays under the pen name 'Lokhitvadi', meaning one who works for public welfare. Through these writings he attacked superstition, orthodoxy and caste rigidity, and supported widow remarriage and female education in 19th-century Bombay Presidency.

Why the others are wrong:

• B) M.G. Ranade was a co-founder of the Prarthana Samaj and a key figure in the Indian National Social Conference, but he did not use this nickname.
• C) Jyotiba Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873. His movement focused on anti-caste work and was not linked to this pen name.
• D) Bal Gangadhar Tilak was associated with the newspapers Kesari and Maratha and with radical nationalism, not with the Lokhitvadi pen name.

The core concept here is the 19th-century Indian social reform movement and the role of vernacular press in spreading reform ideas. For Mains GS-1, this links to the debate on reform versus nationalism and the position of the moderates.

Trap: Aspirants often pick Ranade because he is the best-known reformer of this period. Always link pen names and titles to the specific person, not to the broader movement.