Documentary Archive · Established 2026
Born 12 August 1900 in the village of Naugavan, Tehsil Behat, District Saharanpur; died 16 January 1983. In a district where no boy from his community attended school, he began by getting himself educated, and spent the rest of his working life building educational institutions at Rampur Maniharan.
This is a documentary record of that work — papers, photographs, press cuttings and oral testimony, each item shown with its source.
A note on
evidence
Anything presented here as historical fact rests on a document, not on family memory or assertion. Where records disagree, both readings are shown. Where the evidence is insufficient, that is stated plainly. This is why the Claims section tests disputed statements against original records rather than repeating them.
Order of evidence: contemporary original record → government or institutional record → press report → later publication → oral account. Method
A list of institutions does not explain why they were built. In this rural part of Saharanpur in the early twentieth century, access to higher education was narrow; for children of cultivating families, even reaching the middle examination depended on a scholarship and someone’s patronage.
His answer was not to take a post but to build an institution — funded by community subscription and donated land, teaching agriculture and science, and able to outlast him.
Contribution 01
Schools and a college for Rampur Maniharan and the villages around it.
Contribution 02
Scholarships and hostels, without which study was not possible at all.
Contribution 03
A practical curriculum for a district that lived by farming.
Contribution 04
Land, subscription and management, drawn from many contributors.
Editorial note
The two sources differ on the year of birth by three years. The date carved on the statue is the one used here; the booklet’s reading has not been erased. Every such conflict is recorded in one place on the References page.
MSV-ARCH-PUB-001 · Later publication · 1982
By Om Prakash Gandhi, lecturer in geography at Gochar Krishi Inter College. Printed by Chaudhary Printing Press, Rampur Maniharan. First edition 1982; reissued 2023 and 2024.
MSV-ARCH-MON-001 · Monument record · 1984
Three marble plaques carved by the institution after his death. Independent of the booklet, and the deciding source for the dates of birth and death. Full text
MSV-ARCH-1943-001 · Sought
Society registration papers, the early resolutions, and the land registry and khatauni. Being sought. If you hold any of it
Certificates, invitations, a prospectus, college magazines, letters, press cuttings, or photographs in which people remain unidentified — all of it is useful. Material is examined before anything from it is presented as historical fact, and the source is credited in the record.
Anyone, including present officers of the institution, may correct what is recorded here by producing documentary evidence. Corrections are logged publicly.