He was the 2nd of the five children of Mahadeo Rajaram Tarkunde, a popular lawyer and social reformer at Saswad,then headquarters of Purandar taluka adjoining Pune.
Those elected as president and general secretary have included V. M. Tarkunde, Rajni Kothari, Rajinder Sachar, K. G. Kannabiran, Arun Shourie, Y. P. Chhibbar, Arun Jaitley, Satish Jha, Dalip Swami, and others.