Eternal India Encyclopedia

many from Bihar had joined this prestigious institution before him. In 1904 he contested to the post of secretary of the college union against a senior student belonging to a rich aristocratic family and won. He secured a first in MA and a first in Master of Law. He set himself up as a legal practitioner in Calcutta in 1911 and also joined the Indian National Congress. In 1916 Rajendra Prasad shifted to Patna on the establishment of the High Court ofBihar and Orissa. In the April 1917 AICC session held in Calcutta Mahatma Gandhi and Rajendra Prasad met each other. He was in jail on January 15,1934 when the devastating Bihar earthquake occurred. Released two days later he set about organising relief and raising funds. His Presidentship of the Constituent Assembly was exemplary. He guided its deliberations with great skill and tact. His elevation to the Presidentship of India in 1950 came as a matter of course. He was President for 10 years after which he retired to the Sadaquat Ashram in Patna. His wife Rajbanshi Devi passed away on September 1962. Born at Tiruttani, near Tirupati, both fa- mous as pilgrim centres, to Sarvepalli Vu- raswami, a subordinate revenue official in the court of a local Zamindar. He had his early education at Tiruttani and later at Tirupati. After passing the matriculation examination he joined the Voorhee's College at Vellore with a scholarship. He was awarded a schol- arship to study at the Madras Christian Col- lege for the B.A. He was more interested in the physical sciences but chose philosophy as he got the textbooks free from a cousin who had just graduated in philosophy. After ob- taining his B.A degree in 1906 with first class honours, he wanted to study law but since he could not support himself in the law college, he accepted a scholarship of Rs 25 per month and joined the Philosophy Department of the Madras Presidency College as a teacher. He was appointed Professor of Philosophy in Mysore University in 1918. When the King George V Professorship of Mental and Moral Sciences in Calcutta University fell vacant in 1920 the Vice-Chancellor, Sir. Ashutosh Mukherjee, invited Radhakrishnan to apply for the chair. In 1927 represented Calcutta University at the Congress of Universities of the British Empire in London and delivered the Upton Lectures on Hindu Philosophy. Later going to the United States he delivered the Haskell Lectures at Chicago and attended the International Congress of Philosophy at Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1886-1975)

Harvard where he spoke on the role of Phi- losophy in the history of civilisation. In 1931 he became the Vice-Chancellor of the Andhra University at Waltair. During 1936-1939 he was the Spalding Professor of Eastern Relig- ions at Oxford. He delivered the British Acad- emy's Master Mind lecture on Buddha in 1937. After his return to India at the outbreak of World War II he was appointed Vice- Chancellor of Benares University. After India became independent, he was appointed to a number of prestigious positions. He prepared a report on the Indian Universities as Chair- man of the Universities Commission. In 1949 he became Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Elected Vice-President of India in 1952, the Bharat Ratna was conferred on him in 1954-. He became President of India in 1962. Radhakrishnan's mastery of English made him a brilliant and effective interpreter of Philosophy, Eastern religions and Western thought. He was described as "a liaison officer between the East and West." Bom in Broach, Gujarat, he got his school education in his home town. In college he was so much influenced by Sri Aurobindo Ghose that he joined the Congress, took part in Salt Satyagraha in 1930. In 1937 became the Home Minister of Bombay. As a lawyer he fought many cases for Indians jailed in Quit India movement. After Independence he became the Agent-General in Hyderabad, Served the country as a Food Minister in 1952 and Governor of Uttar Pradesh (1953-58). Joined the Swatantra Party in 1960. Munshi's love for Vedic classical Sanskrit literature made him start the Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan. K.M. Munshi (1887-1971) Born in the Amritsar District of Punjab, he belonged to a highly respectable family. His father was a well-known medical practitioner and his brother a barrister. Madan Lai passed his BA examination from the Punjab University and sailed for England in 1906 for higher studies and joined a course in engineering. In England he came in contact with Savarkar who gave him his first lesson in terrorism. When his revolutionary activities became known to his parents, his brother wrote to Sir. Curzon Wylie, who was an adviser to the Secretary of State for India, to dissuade him from taking part in nationalistic activities. He made up his mind "to shed English blood as an humble protest against the inhuman transportation and hanging of Madan Lai Dingra (1887-1909)

the Indian youths" and on July 1, 1909 shot Sir Curzon Wylie at the annual meeting, of the Indian National Association in the Jehangir House of the Imperial Institute. When the death sentence was passed on him in his trial at the Old Bailey he said: "Thank you, my lord, for my country, I thank you. I am proud to have the honour of laying down my humble life for my country. Poor in wealth and intellect, a son like myself has nothing else to offer to the mother but his own blood and so I have sacrificed the same on her altar. The only lesson required in India at present is to learn how to die and the only way to teach it is by dying ourselves. Therefore I die and glory in my martyrdom". He was hanged on August 7, 1909. Manabendra Nath Roy (1887-1954) A Communist he slipped out of India in 1915 to make contact in Java with German agents bringing arms for an Indian insurrection. This plot having failed he settled in Mexico under the name of Manabendra Nath Roy. (His original name was Narendranath Bhatta Charya). When news of the Bolshevik Revolution reached him he first helped found the Mexican Communist Party and then hurried to Moscow. There he made a favourable impression on Lenin and was put on the Executive Committee of the newly formed Communist International. Severing his connection with the Bolsheviks in 1929 after the victory of Stalin over Trotsky, Roy returned incognito to India but was arrested by the British authorities and jailed for six years. After Independence he abandoned Marxism and founded the Radical Humanist group. One of the greatest mathematicians India has produced, he was born in a South Indian Iyengar Brahmin family at Erode. His father was an accountant to a cloth merchant at Kumbakonam. He joined the Town High School at Kumbakonam where he enjoyed a free studentship. He possessed an uncanny memory and could give the values of various mathematical entities to any number of decimal places. He passed the matriculation examination in 1904 and won a scholarship. He joined the Government College at Kumbakonam but because of his sole interest in mathematics he neglected his other subjects, especially English and therefore failed to get promotion to the second year. In 1909 he got married at the age of 22 and it became Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920)