Madan Mohan Malaviya (25 December 1861 — 12 November 1946; Hindi pronunciation: [məd̪ən̪ moːɦən̪ maːlʋiːj(ə)] ) was an Indian scholar, educational reformer, and activist notable for his role in the Indian independence movement. He was president of the Indian National Congress four times and the founder of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha. He was addressed as Pandit, a title of respect. Malaviya is known as the founder of one of the most prestigious universities of India named Banaras Hindu University.
Malaviya strove to promote modern education among Indians and founded the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) at Varanasi in 1916, which was created under the 1915 BHU Act. It is the largest residential university in Asia and one of the largest in the world, with over 40,000 students across arts, commerce, sciences, engineering, linguistic, ritual, medicine, agriculture, performing arts, law, management, and technology disciplines from all over the world. He was the Vice Chancellor of the Banaras Hindu University from 1919 to 1938.
Malaviya was one of the founders of the Bharat Scouts and Guides. He founded a highly influential English newspaper, The Leader, in 1919, published from Allahabad. He was also the chairman of Hindustan Times from 1924 to 1946. His efforts resulted in the launch of its Hindi edition named Hindustan Dainik in 1936.
Malaviya was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian distinction, on 24 December 2014, a day before what would have been his 153rd birthday.
Malaviya was born in Allahabad, India, on 25 December 1861, in a Gaur Brahmin family to Brijnath Malaviya and Moona Devi. He was born in a locality known as Lal Diggi (now Malviya Nagar) in a small house of Sawal Das of Saryakund. His grandfather, Premdhar Prasad, was the son of Vishnu Prasad. Since they hailed from Malwa (Ujjain) in the present-day state of Madhya Pradesh, they came to be known as 'Malaviya'. He married Kundan Devi from Mirzapur at sixteen. His ancestors were highly respected for their learning and knowledge of Hindu scriptures and Sanskrit scholarship. His father also was learned in Sanskrit scriptures and used to recite the Srimad Bhagavatam.
Malaviya's education began at the age of five in Mahajani Pathsala. Later, he joined Hardeva's Dharma Gyanopadesh Pathshala, completed his primary education and joined a school run by Vidha Vardini Sabha. He then joined Allahabad Zila School (Allahabad District School), where he started writing poems under the pen name Makarand which were published in journals and magazines.
Malaviya matriculated in 1879 from the Muir Central College, now known as the University of Allahabad. Harrison College's principal provided a monthly scholarship to Malaviya, whose family had been facing financial hardships, and he was able to complete his B.A. at the University of Calcutta.
Malaviya desired to pursue an M.A. in Sanskrit. Still, family circumstances did not allow him to do so, and his father wanted him to pursue the family profession of Bhagavat recital instead. In July 1884, Madan Mohan Malaviya began his professional career as an assistant master at the Government High School in Allahabad.
Malaviya started his political career in 1886 with an address to the Indian National Congress session in Calcutta. Malaviya would go on to become one of the most powerful political leaders of his time, being elected Congress president on four occasions.
In December 1886, Malaviya attended the second Indian National Congress session in Calcutta under the chairmanship of Dadabhai Naoroji, where he spoke on the issue of representation in Councils. His address not only impressed Dadabhai but also Raja Rampal Singh, ruler of Kalakankar estate near Allahabad, who had founded a Hindi weekly, Hindustan, but was still looking for a suitable editor to turn it into a daily. In July 1887, Malaviya resigned from the school and joined as editor of the nationalist weekly. He remained there for two and a half years, and then left for Allahabad to study for his L.L.B. In Allahabad, he was offered the co-editorship of The Indian Opinion, an English daily. After finishing his law degree, he started practicing law at Allahabad District Court in 1891, and moved to Allahabad High Court by December 1893.
Malaviya became the president of the Indian National Congress in 1909, a position he held again in 1918. He was a moderate leader and opposed separate electorates for Muslims under the Lucknow Pact of 1916. The "Mahamana" title was conferred on him by Mahatma Gandhi.
Malaviya renounced his practice of law in 1911 to fulfil his resolve to serve the causes of education and social service. Despite this vow, on one occasion when 177 freedom fighters were convicted to be hanged in the Chauri-Chaura case, he appeared before the court and won the acquittal of 156 freedom fighters. He followed the tradition of Sannyasa throughout his life, adhering to his avowed commitment to live on the support of society.
He was a member of the Imperial Legislative Council from 1912 until 1919, when it was converted to the Central Legislative Assembly, of which he remained a member until 1926. Malaviya was an important figure in the Non-cooperation movement. He was opposed to the politics of appeasement and the participation of Congress in the Khilafat movement.
In 1928, he joined Lala Lajpat Rai, Jawaharlal Nehru, and many others in protesting against the Simon Commission, which had been set up by the British to consider India's future. Just as the "Buy British" campaign was sweeping England, he issued a manifesto on 30 May 1932 urging concentration on the "Buy Indian" movement in India. Malaviya was a delegate at the Second Round Table Conference in 1931.
During the Salt March, he was arrested on 25 April 1932 along with 450 other Congress volunteers in Delhi, only a few days after he was appointed as the president of Congress following the arrest of Sarojini Naidu. In 1933, at Calcutta, Malaviya was again appointed as the president of the Congress. Before independence, Malaviya was the only leader of the Indian National Congress to be appointed as its president for four terms.
On 24 September 1932, an agreement known as Poona Pact was signed between Dr. B R Ambedkar (on behalf of the depressed classes among Hindus) and Mahatma Gandhi (on behalf of the other Hindus). The agreement guaranteed reserved seats for the depressed classes in the provisional legislatures within the general electorate, and not by creating a separate electorate. Because of the pact, the depressed class received 148 seats in the legislature, instead of the 71 as allocated in the Communal Award proposal of the British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald. After the pact, the Communal Award was modified to include the terms as per the pacts. The text uses the term "Depressed Classes" to denote Untouchables among Hindus who were later called Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under India Act 1935, and in the Indian Constitution of 1950.
In protest against the Communal Award to provide separate electorates for minorities, Malaviya and Madhav Shrihari Aney left the Congress and started the Congress Nationalist Party. The party contested the 1934 elections to the central legislature and won 12 seats.
Malaviya started his journalistic career as editor of the Hindi daily Hindustan in 1887. Raja Rampal Singh of Kalakankar (Pratapgadh District), impressed by the speech and personality of Malaviya during the second Congress Session in Calcutta held in 1886, requested him to assume this position.