The rough and tumble world of commerce is often so cutthroat that it is difficult to imagine disparate business houses would come together to germinate and nurture an education institute following a shared philanthropic vision. But this is exactly how one of India’s premier education institutes — the Hindu College — was born.
Around the late 1800s, there was an emerging realisation that on one hand, India had its diminutive and scattered traditional education system, and on the other end was the rising spectre of English missionary education promoted by the British Raj and its officers. Hindu College was formed out of the need for modern and non-missionary education rooted in Indian ethos.
A need was felt to create a modern but non-missionary education system that was rooted in Indian ethos – and this led to formation of the Hindu college.
It is remarkable that a bunch of top sahukars (wealthy businessmen) risked displeasing the British government—and in turn, their businesses—to start a joint educational initiative that asserted a different way of thinking.
The venture’s first managing committee and the board of trustees mostly had wealthy people from different industries like textile, iron, wheat flour, building contractors, jewellers along with a sprinkling of eminent and wealthy bankers, lawyers, engineers and administrators. Looking back at it today – it was indeed a bold and unprecedented enterprise.
It is often said that nothing happens in isolation. It is the collective and cumulative history that propels a person toward his or her most important decisions. That’s what happened to Lala Ram Krishna Dass Sahu Gurwala, the main founder of Hindu College. As per the family records, the Gurwalas used to trade in grains and by 1560 Lala Nodhamal was famous for his wealth as well as for his philanthropy and charitable activities. In fact, the surname ‘Gurwala’ was added to the family name because they would feed pilgrims with chana (grams) and gur (jaggery) at various pilgrimage shelters. Around the early part of 1700, the family shifted from Lalpura in Uttar Pradesh to Delhi. The family was so wealthy that various nobles and nawabs and even the various Mughal emperors would take loans from them during times of famine or war.
Ram Krishna Dass’ grandfather, Lala Ramji Dass was a close confidant of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and he provided huge amounts of money to fuel the 1857 revolt. So, when the mutiny got over, the British ransacked his house, confiscated his property and hanged him in front of the Chandni Chowk police station. The Gurwala family was all but demolished. But slowly, Ramji Dass’ son Lala Narain Dass managed to restart his business, and bit by bit the family again became prosperous.
Though Lala Ram Krishna Dass was the adopted son of Lala Narain Dass, he had the family’s entrepreneurial zeal. He founded the famous Delhi Cloth and General Mills or DCM in 1889, which would go on to become one of the most iconic industry hubs of India.
Ram Krishna Dass was influenced by his family history during the British sarkar, which made him want to do something to stem the tide of missionary education. It is this ‘inqilabi’ or revolutionary thought that led him to set up the Hindu college in 1899.
A society by the name of ‘Hindu College Delhi’ was established in May 1899, and was run by a board of trustees—many of whom had business links with Ram Krishna Dass. The college started with just 13 students and six professors in a small house in Kinari Bazaar in Chandni Chowk. Thus began a unique experiment, an education institute that was financed by the business community – but one that openly and proudly aligned itself to the freedom movement. The inauguration ceremony of the Hindu College was performed by Indian scholar and reformer Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, who remained on the college board of trustees for the first 10 years. Other freedom fighters like Lokmanya Tilak and Annie Besant sent letters of support when the college first started.
The Hindu College was clearly functioning without the support of the British government because during its first decade, the college faced many financial difficulties but the British refused to make any grants or concessions. Instead, it was the main mentor Krishna Dass who would continually bail out the college by making personal grants or having other trustees and philanthropists donate generously towards college expenses.
“ The formation of Hindu college was an act of selfless philanthrophy and service of nation . This kind of work is no more happening – because now education tycoons take land on concession and then they take big fat monthly fee with no regard to investing in young students and shaping their value system . Even with all the digital ecosystem and power of internet – no business enterprise gets as involved in shaping the youth as the founders of Hindu college did – more than 100 years ago . “ says Lalit Bhasin , an eminent advocate and President of the Old Students Union for two decades.
Krishna Dass suffered huge losses in the several contracts he undertook for setting up the Delhi Durbar in 1911 for the British. Once considered one of the richest people in Delhi, he had to mortgage his goods and his DCM shares for a loan of Rs 4 lakh from the Bank of Upper India. But before the loan could start a new beginning, Krishan Dass died in debt in 1915.
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Run by revolutionaries
It is interesting that Krishna Dass’ ‘assertive India’ model continued to be followed by later trustees. Despite tremendous pressure from the British government, the college board consisting largely of top-crust Indian businessmen would select highly qualified and intellectually independent lecturers and principals. Freedom fighter N.K Nigam joined the college as a lecturer. At the height of British search operations for Chandra Shekhar Azads – this revolutionary freedom fighter was provided refuge to hide in the Hindu College boys’ hostel by Nigam.
Lest the British government be in any doubt as to where the sympathies of the students, faculty and even the board lay, the students invited MK Gandhi to visit the college on 25 January 1930. They also presented him with a donation of Rs 500 towards the freedom struggle. In the years between 1930 to 1947, when discontent against the British was simmering, the students of the college actively participated in the Quit India Movement and other campaigns. It was brave of students and the businessmen on the board of trustees who were steering the management committee.
“Every institute has an ethos and a culture. Hindu College has a culture of nurturing original scholarly thought, liberal social outlook and independent political philosophy. This has led to the spawning of remarkable alumni that leads from the front in various fields,” says Justice Mukta Gupta, a Delhi High Court judge and an alumnus of Hindu College.
This article is a part of a series called BusinessHistories exploring iconic businesses in India that have endured tough times and changing markets. Read all articles here.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)