Madan Mohan Malviya

On 25 December 1861 Madan Mohan Malviya was born in a Pandit family in Allahabad (now Prayagraj) Uttar Pradesh. He changed his nickname from 'Chaturvedi' to 'Malviya' because his ancestors had come to Allahabad from Malwa.

Malviya has done many works towards raising the level of education in India and improving the society. Because somewhere they knew that until Indians, won't be educated and won't understand what freedom really means? Until then the Indian freedom struggle will not get the speed it should get. In addition, his thought was that he has to prepare the youth for independent India, so that he knows how to support the overall development of his country.

With the same thinking, he laid the foundation of 'Banaras Hindu University' in 1915. They went to different places and collected funds from the famous people there to build this. An anecdote in this link is very famous. It is reported that when Mahamana reached Nizam, Hyderabad to collect funds for the University, Nizam refused to donate them.

But Madan Mohan also insisted that he wanted donations. So they put out a different trick. They picked up Nizam's slippers and told him I will sell these slippers to the people in the market and tell them you didn't have money so gave them the slippers.

In such a way, Nizam himself paid a good amount and bought his own slippers from him. Later, during the construction of BHU, Mahamana named the colony built for teachers' accommodation on campus as 'Nizam Hyderabad Colony'. Today Banaras Hindu University is one of the largest and major educational institutions not only in the country but in the whole world.

In addition to all this, he always emphasized on women education, their rights and rights of Dalits. He always said he don't want to die in Banaras. Because it is said that one who dies in Banaras is never born again on earth. But Mahamana wanted to be born again on the land of India and dedicate his life to the poor and needy.

But on 12 November 1946 he breathed his last in Banaras.

The Better India salutes this precious gem of India!