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Founders of institutions during Freedom Struggle

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Founders of Institutions in India
  1. Ramakrishna Mission-Ramakrishna Mission (RKM) is a Hindu religious and spiritual organisation which forms the core of a worldwide spiritual movement known as the Ramakrishna Movement or the Vedanta Movement. The mission is named after and inspired by the Indian spiritual Guru Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and founded by Ramakrishna’s chief disciple Swami Vivekananda on 1 May 1897. The organisation mainly propagates the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta–Advaita Vedanta and four yogic ideals– Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, and Raja yoga The organisation is headquartered  at the Belur Math. Apart from religious and spiritual teaching, the organisation carries out extensive educational and philanthropic work in India and abroad. This aspect came to be a feature of many other Hindu movements.The mission bases its work on the principles of karma yoga, the principle of selfless work done with a dedication to God.
  2. Brahmo Samaj-The first Brahmo Samaj was founded in 1861 at Lahore by Pandit Nobin Chandra Roy. It was one of the most influential religious movements in India and made a significant contribution to the making of modern India. It was started at Calcutta on 20 August 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore as reformation of the prevailing Brahmanism of the time (specifically Kulin practices) and began the Bengal Renaissance of the 19th century pioneering all religious, social and educational advance of the Hindu community in the 19th century.
  3. Arya Samaj– Arya Samaj, (Sanskrit: “Society of Nobles”) vigorous reform movement of modern Hinduism, founded in 1875 by Dayananda Sarasvati, whose aim was to reestablish the Vedas, the earliest Hindu scriptures, as revealed truth. He rejected all later accretions to the Vedas as degenerate but, in his own interpretation, included much post-Vedic thought.
  4. Satya Shodhak Samaj-Satyashodhak Samaj was a social reform society founded by Jyotiba Phule in Pune, Maharashtra, on 24 September 1873. It espoused a mission of education and increased social rights and political access for underprivileged groups, focused especially on women, Shudras, and Dalits, in Maharashtra.
  5. Kesari and Maratha– Bal Gangadhar Tilak opposed its moderate approach to freedom struggle , especially towards the fight for self-government.. He took up this issue by publishing inflammatory articles in his paper Korari (Kesari was written in Marathi, and “Maratha” was written in English), He propounded and propagated the idea that “Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright and I shall have it.” He was called “the father of Indian unrest” by British author Sir Valentine Chirol.
  6. Harijan– The term Harijan, or ‘children of God’, was coined by Narsinh Mehta, a Gujarati poet-saint of the Bhakti tradition, to refer to all devotees of Krishna irrespective of caste, class, or sex. Mahatma Gandhi, notably an admirer of Mehta’s work, first used the word in the context of identifying Dalits in 1933. Harijan Sevak Sangh is a non-profit organisation founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1932 to eradicate untouchability in India, working for Harijan or Dalit people and upliftment of Depressed Class of India. It is headquartered at Kingsway Camp in Delhi, with branches in 26 states across India.[ The Sangh helped the depressed classes to access public places such as temples, schools, roads and water resources, also conducted inter dining and inter caste marriages.It constructed and maintains several schools and hostels across the country.
  7. In 1939, Harijan Sevak Sangh of Tamil Nadu headed by A. Vaidyanatha Iyer entered the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai, with members of depressed class including P. Kakkan despite opposition from the upper caste Hindus. The Sangh led by Iyer organised several temple entry movements in other Parts of Tamil Nadu and in Travancore. Through their movements, more than 100 temples were opened to all sections of the society.
  8. In 1933 Gandhi started publishing a weekly newspaper, Harijan, in English. Harijan, which means “People of God”, and was also Gandhi’s term for the untouchable caste – lasted until 1948. During this time Gandhi also published Harijan Bandu in Gujarati, and Harijan Sevak in Hindi. All three papers focused on India’s and the world’s social and economic problems.
  9. Home Rule movement– The Indian Home Rule movement was a movement in British India on the lines of Irish Home Rule movement and other home rule movements. The movement lasted around two years between 1916–1918 and is believed to have set the stage for the independence movement under the leadership of Annie Besant and Bal Gangadhar Tilak to the educated English speaking upper class Indians. In 1920 All India Home Rule League changed its name to Swarajya Sabha.
  10. The Servants of India Society– The Servants of India Society was formed in Pune, Maharashtra, on June 12, 1905 by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who left the Deccan Education Society to form this association. Along with him were a small group of educated Indians, as Natesh Appaji Dravid, Gopal Krishna Deodhar, Surendra Nath Banerjee, and Anant Patwardhan who wanted to promote social and human development and overthrow the British rule in India. The Society organized many campaigns to promote education, sanitation, health care, and fight the social evils of untouchability and discrimination, alcoholism, poverty, oppression of woman and protection of women by domestic abuse. The publication of The Hitavada, the organ of the Society in English from Nagpur commenced in 1911. Prominent Indians were its members and leaders. It chose to remain away from political activities and organizations like the Indian National Congress. The base of the Society shrank after Gokhale’s death in 1915, and in the 1920s with the rise of Mahatma Gandhi as president of the Congress, who launched social reform campaigns on a mass scale throughout the nation and attracted young Indians to the cause.
  11. All India Muslim League-The All-India Muslim League or simply Muslim League) was a political party established in 1906 in Dhaka by the Nawab of Dhaka, Khwaja Salimullah, It advocated a separate state for the Muslims as the leaders of Muslim League felt that the Indian National Congress was dominated by Hindus. In the 1930s, the idea of a separate nation-state and influential philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s vision of uniting the four provinces in North-West British India further supported the rationale of the two-nation theory. This thought was an extension of the  ideas proposed by Syed Ahmad Khan who in 1888 at Meerut  that in case of withdrawal of British army from India and end of British rule,  can it be imagined  that “  two nations — the Mahomedans and the Hindus — could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable.”[ . Its strong advocacy, from 1930 onwards, for the establishment of a separate Muslim-majority nation-state, Pakistan, eventually fully led to the partition of India in 1947 by the British Empire.
  12. Theosophical Society– The Theosophical Society was officially formed in New York City, United States, on 17 November 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge, and 16 others. It was self-described as “an unsectarian body of seekers after Truth, who endeavor to promote Brotherhood and strive to serve humanity.” Olcott was its first president, and remained president until his death in 1907. Following the death of Helena Blavatsky, competition emerged between factions within the Society, particularly among founding members. The organization split into the Theosophical Society Adyar (Olcott-Besant) and the Theosophical Society Pasadena (Judge). It aimed at forming form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour; encouraging the study of comparative religion philosophy and science and investigating the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.
  13. Young India– Young India- Young India was a weekly paper or journal in English started by Mahatma Gandhi. Through this work, he desired to popularise India’s demand of self-government or Swaraj. It was published by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from 1919 to 1931. Gandhi wrote various quotations in this journal that inspired many. He used Young India to spread his unique ideology and thoughts regarding the use of nonviolence in organising movements and to urge readers to consider, organise, and plan for India’s eventual independence from Britain.
  14. Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh– The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,   ’National Volunteer Organisation’) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, volunteer based organisation. RSS was founded in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, a doctor in the city of Nagpur, British India. Hedgewar was a political protege of B. S. Moonje, a Tilakite Congressman, Hindu Mahasabha politician and social activist from Nagpur. The organization. It promotes the ideals of upholding Indian culture and the values of a civil society and spreads the ideology of Hindutva, to “strengthen” the Hindu community. The RSS was banned once during British rule, and then thrice by the post-independence Indian government, first in 1948 when Nathuram Godse, an erstwhile member of RSS, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi; then during The Emergency (1975–1977); and for a third time after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992.
  15. Hindu Mahasabha– The Hindu Mahasabha  orAkhil Bhārat Hindū Mahāsabhā,  is a political party in India. The organisation was originally called Sarvadeshak Hindu Sabha In 1909, Lal Chand and U.N. Mukerji established the Punjab Hindu Sabha (“Assembly”). . The Sabha stated that it was not a sectarian organisation, but an “all-embracing movement” that aimed to safeguard the interests of “the entire Hindu community”.Preparatory sessions of the All India Hindu Sabha were held at Haridwar (13 February 1915), Lucknow (17 February 1915) and Delhi (27 February 1915). In April 1915, Sarvadeshak (All India) Hindu Sabha was formed as an umbrella organisation of regional Hindu Sabhas, at the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar. Gandhi and Swami Shraddhanand were also present at the conference, and were supportive of the formation of All India Hindu Sabha. The Sabha laid emphasis on Hindu solidarity and the need for social reform.
  16. Azad Hind Fauj or India National Army– Azad Hind Fauj is associated with two names – Captain Mohan Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose. Ras Behari Bose, was an Indian revolutionary who escaped to Japan in 1915 because he conspired the assassination attempt of ‘Lord Hardinge’ on 23 December, 1912 in Calcutta. The Japanese Government honored him with the ‘Order of the Rising Sun’. After Bose went into hiding in Japan, he established the Indian Independence League in 1942 and later handed over the command to Subhash Chandra Bose, it came to be known as the Indian National Army or the Azad Hind Fauj. Subhash Chandra Bose, joined the Independence movement and became the Congress party President in 1938 but was deposed after ideological differences with Mahatma Gandhi.
    The Azad Hind Fauj, was first formed on 17 February 1942 by Captain General Mohan Singh in Singapore but was disbanded due to the differences that had emerged between Captain Singh and the Japanese. Later, Bose proclaimed the establishment of a provisional independent Indian government and his Indian National Army, which was formed by Indian Nationalists in Southeast Asia during World War 2 to secure Indian Independence from British Rule.
  17. Gadar Movement– The Ghadar Movement  was an early 20th century, international political movement founded by expatriate Indians to overthrow British rule in India. The early membership was composed mostly of Punjabi Indians who lived and worked on the West Coast of the United States and Canada, but the movement later spread to India and Indian diasporic communities around the world.  Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, some Ghadar party members returned to Punjab to incite armed revolution for Indian Independence. This uprising, known as the Ghadar Mutiny, was unsuccessful, and 42 mutineers were executed following the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial. From 1914 to 1917 Ghadarites continued underground anti-colonial actions, Key participants in the Ghadar Movement included Bhai Parmanand, Vishnu Ganesh Pingle, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Bhagwan Singh Gyanee, Har Dayal, Tarak Nath Das, Bhagat Singh Thind, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah, Rashbehari Bose, and Gulab Kaur. Although its attempts at overthrowing the British Raj were unsuccessful, the insurrectionary ideals of the Ghadar Party influenced members of the Indian Independence Movement opposed to Gandhian nonviolence.
  18. Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) – Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), previously known as the Hindustan Republican Army and Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), was an Indian revolutionary organisation founded by Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, SachindraNath Bakshi, Sachindranath Sanyal and Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee. The Hindustan Republican Association’s written constitution and published manifesto, titled The Revolutionary, were produced as evidence in the Kakori conspiracy case of 1925. Bhagat Singh was a prominent member of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) and was probably responsible, in large part, for its change of name to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) in 1928.
  19. All India Kisan Sabha– All India Farmers Union, also known as the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha), is the peasant or farmers’ wing of the Communist Party of India, an important peasant movement formed by Sahajanand Saraswati in 1936. The Kisan Sabha movement started in Bihar under the leadership of Sahajanand Saraswati who had formed in 1929 the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (BPKS) in order to mobilise peasant grievances against the zamindari attacks on their occupancy rights, and thus sparking the farmers’ movements in India. Gradually the peasant movement intensified and spread across the rest of India. All these radical developments on the peasant front culminated in the formation of the All India Kisan Sabha at the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress in April 1936, with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati elected as its first president. The other prominent members of this Sabha were N.G. Ranga, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Bankim Mukerji, and it involved prominent leaders like N.G. Ranga, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Indulal Yagnik, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Z.A. Ahmed, Pandit Karyanand Sharma, Pandit Yamuna Karjee, Pandit Yadunandan (Jadunandan) Sharma, Rahul Sankrityayan, P. Sundarayya, Ram Manohar Lohia, Yogendra Sharma and Bankim Mukherjee. The Kisan Manifesto, released in August 1936, demanded abolition of the zamindari system and cancellation of rural debts; in October 1937 it adopted the red flag as its banner. Soon, its leaders became increasingly distant with Congress and repeatedly came in confrontation with Congress governments, in Bihar and United Province.
  20. Hindu School Calcutta– Hindu School is a state government-administered school in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. This is the Oldest Modern Educational Institution in Asia (it was known to be Hindu College then). The institution played a key role during Bengal Renaissance period. It is located on College Street, in the vicinity of Hare School, College Square, Presidency University, Sanskrit College, Calcutta Medical College and the University of Calcutta. The college was formally opened on Monday, 20 January 1817 with 20 ‘scholars’. The foundation committee of the college, which oversaw its establishment, was headed by Raja Rammohan Roy. The control of the institution was vested in a body of two Governors and four Directors. The first Governors of the college were Maharaja Tejchandra Bahadur of Burdwan and Gopee Mohan Thakoor.
  21. Sanskrit College Calcutta– Sanskrit College was founded on 1 January 1824, during the Governor-Generalship of Lord Amherst, based on a recommendation by HT James Prinsep and Thomas Babington Macaulay among others. Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna Bhattacharyya, the scholar of Sanskrit, was the principal of the college for over 18 years. The institution rose to prominence during the principalship of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in 1851, who admitted students from other than the Brahmin and Baidya caste. In particular, the tol or traditional Indian training school model was incorporated as a department in the 1870s. From 1824 until 1851 the college did not have the post of principal but was headed by a secretary. From 1851 the college was headed by a principal. The Sanskrit College and University, West Bengal Bill 2015, aimed at transforming Sanskrit College into a university was passed in West Bengal Assembly on 17 December 2015.
  22. Aligarh Muslim University– Aligarh Muslim University is a public central university in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, which was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875. Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920, following the Aligarh Muslim University Act. The university was established as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, starting functioning on 24 May 1875. The movement associated with Syed Ahmad Khan and the college came to be known as the Aligarh Movement, which pushed to realise the need for establishing a modern education system for the Indian Muslim populace. He considered competence in English and Western sciences necessary skills for maintaining Muslims’ political influence. Khan’s vision for the college was based on his visit to Oxford University and Cambridge University, and he wanted to establish an education system similar to the British model.
  23. Banaras Hindu University– Banaras Hindu University (BHU), formerly Central Hindu College, is a collegiate central university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was established in 1916 jointly by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, the Maharaja of Darbhanga Rameshwar Singh, Maharaja of Banaras Prabhu Narayan Singh, Sunder Lal and British Theosophist and Home Rule League founder Annie Besant. With over 30,000 students residing on campus, it is the largest residential university in Asia.
  24. Santiniketan and Visva-Baharati– Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by his son Rabindranath Tagore whose vision became what is now a university town with the creation of Visva-Bharati. Rabindranath Tagore first visited Shantiniketan in 27 January, 1878 when he was 17 years old. In 1888, Debendranath dedicated the entire property for the establishment of a Brahmavidyalaya through a trust deed. In 1901, Rabindranath started a Brahmacharyaashrama and it came to be known as Patha Bhavana from 1925.
  25. Sabarmati Ashram– Gandhiji’s India ashram was originally established at the Kocharab Bungalow of Jivanlal Desai, a barrister and friend of Gandhi, on 25 May 1915. At that time the ashram was called the Satyagraha Ashram. But Gandhi wanted to carry out various activities such as farming and animal husbandry, in addition to other pursuits which called for the need of a much larger area of usable land. So two years later, on 17 June 1917, the ashram was relocated to an area of thirty-six acres on the banks of the river Sabarmati, and it came to be known as the Sabarmati Ashram. Sabarmati Ashram (also known as Gandhi Ashram) is located in the Sabarmati suburb of Ahmadabad, Gujarat, adjoining the Ashram Road, on the banks of the River Sabarmati, 4 miles (6.4 km) from the town hall. This was one of the many residences of Mahatma Gandhi who lived at Sabarmati (Gujarat) and Sevagram (Wardha, Maharashtra) when he was not travelling across India or in prison. He lived in Sabarmati or Wardha for a total of twelve years with his wife Kasturba Gandhi and followers, including Vinoba Bhave. The Bhagavad Gita was recited here daily as part of the Ashram schedule.
  26. Anand Bhavan-The Anand Bhavan is a historic house museum in Prayagraj (Allahabad), India, focusing on the Nehru Family. It was bought by Indian political leader Motilal Nehru in the 1930s to serve as the residence of the Nehru family when the original mansion Swaraj Bhavan (previously called Anand Bhavan) was transformed into the local headquarters of the Indian National Congress. Jawahar Planetarium is situated here, which has been striving to inculcate scientific temper among masses through its sky shows on astronomy and science. The residence was donated to Indian government in 1970 by the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi, the granddaughter of Motilal Nehru and daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru.

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