Madan Mohan Malaviya

The Story

Born in Allahabad into a learned family, Malaviya was a brilliant student and a powerful journalist and lawyer. He entered public life through the Congress in the 1880s, and combined his legal and editorial skills in service of the nation — serving as President of the Indian National Congress four times, in 1909, 1918, 1932, and 1933.

His greatest achievement was educational: after years of fundraising across Bhārat, he founded the Banaras Hindu University in 1916, the first great university built by the effort of Bhārat — a residential, co-educational institution for the study of both the learning of Bhārat and the West. He also championed the cause of Hindi.

He devoted his later years to the cause of the nation's temples and its culture, and he was a lifelong advocate of swaraj within the frame of Bhārat's own civilisation. He died in 1946, on the eve of the freedom he had served — and his statue in the Parliament and the university he built remain his living memorials.