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Sunday, March 15, 2026
HomeForgotten Founders

Forgotten Founders

Balkrishna Sharma: A freedom fighter & poet admired by Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Balkrishna Sharma campaigned vigorously for Hindi to be declared a national language of India. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1960.

Lokanath Misra: Politician who opposed freedom to propagate religion as fundamental right

Lokanath Misra served as governor of three 3 northeastern states. As member of the Constituent Assembly, he highlighted need to protect Hindu culture & religion.

VT Krishnamachari: India’s master planner who laid the foundation of panchayati raj system

A civil servant, Krishnamachari donned many hats in pre- and post-Independent India, with the most notable being his stint at the Planning Commission.

Algu Rai Shastri: The socialist who vociferously denounced English as a foreign language

Algu Rai Shastri, a member of the Constituent Assembly, was against forced religious conversions and known for denouncing views of religious minorities.

Durgabai Deshmukh: The brave woman from Andhra who ended her own child marriage

Durgabai Deshmukh, one of 15 women in the 299-member Constituent Assembly, was a feisty individual who studied law to help the wrongfully convicted.

Sardar Hukam Singh, a minority rights champion in Constituent Assembly

Sardar Hukam Singh, who served in first three Lok Sabhas, refused to sign draft of the constitution as he felt it failed to secure...

The Kerala governor who openly pushed Indira’s case for PM

Ajith Prasad Jain also served in a Nehru Cabinet and backed the abolition of the zamindari system.

Gokulbhai Bhatt, the Constituent Assembly member who called the Constitution ‘un-Indian’

Gokulbhai Bhatt, who quit college to join the non-cooperation movement, was a staunch proponent of the Gandhian Panchayati Raj.

Muhammad Ismail, Indian Muslim League pioneer who wanted Hindustani as official language

During Constituent Assembly debates, Ismail pushed for Hindustani because it was the most spoken and understood language in India.

Hiralal Shastri, the man who pushed for equal rights within Constituent Assembly

The first chief minister of Rajasthan, Shastri also co-founded the all-women Banasthali Vidyapith.

On Camera

Menstrual leave doesn’t work in ‘real world’. And that real world is designed by, for men

When a woman menstruates, when/if she decides to marry, when/if she decides to have kids, should not be factors when looking at a woman’s potential from a hiring standpoint.

US strike on Iran’s key oil export island Kharg raises fears of wider supply disruption

President Trump said the US had bombed military targets on Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, but spared oil infrastructure.

Supreme Leader Mojtaba, the man Iran must keep alive & the secret force ‘tasked with it’—all about NOPO

The Nirouyeh Vijeh Pasdaran Velayat, or NOPO, was the only force Ali Khamenei trusted.It was founded in 1991 and is more feared than the Revolutionary Guards.

Peaceful power transfers followed uprisings in India’s neighbourhood. It’s a sign of mature democracies

Rating democracies is a tricky business. I am only using the simple metric of who in the Indian subcontinent has had the most peaceful, stable, normal political transitions and continuity.