History of Shyama Prasad Vidyalay

Blog article and photographs contributed by Managing Committee, Shyama Prasad Vidyalay, Lodi Estate, New Delhi

In the long history of man whenever oppressors have tried to suppress human aspirations they have failed miserably. It has happened time and again, many a times.

In the year 1905 when the then British Government in order to suppress national movement in bengal decided to partition the province, they forgot to take lesson from history and the inevitable happened – instead of subduing this action of the Government gave a philip to the movement and it increased manyfolds. Faced with a robust opposition from the people of Bengal the British Government had to annul their decision.

This annulment further increased the intensity of the movement to such an extent that the harassed British Government decided to transfer capital of India from Calcutta to Delhi, which was comparatively, a-political.

At that time the city of New Delhi was still in the conceptual stage and capital of India became, what is presently known as the city of Old Delhi. This transfer of capital involved shifting of a large block of population, majority of whom were bengalis.

From time immemorial bengalis as a community, whenever they have moved out of Bengal, they have always settled down as a group and have spread their culture around three institutions – a Kali Temple, a Bengali Club and a place of learning. In this case also same thing happened – a Kali Temple came up which is known today as ‘Tees Hazari Kali Bari’, a Bengali Club known as ‘Kashmirigate Bengali Club’ came into being and finally the ‘Kashmirigate Bengali Boys School’ was set up.

In the meantime the city of New Delhi which was under construction got officially inaugurated in the year 1933. Here also first a Kali Temple came up which is presently known as ‘New Delhi Kali Bari’. This Temple though small, is situated in sylvan surroundings and is very beautiful. New Delhi Bengali Community started regrouping around this Temple and lot of Institutions such as Milan Samity, Bengali Club etc. came up. A few learning centers were also set up amongst them Raisina Bengali School, Lady Irwin School and Union Academy were prominent.

Activities of British Government of making a new capital city almost ended with establishment of two colonies namely Lodhi Estate and Lodhi Colony in the southern part of the city. These two colonies were beautifully laid down and were clean and airy by any standard. In the year 1945 when the Second World War had just ended a few armament related offices of Govt. of India at Calcutta were closed down. The staff of these offices, who were mostly Bengalis were transferred to Delhi. Most of these transferred staff got their accommodation in the above colonies.

At that time the Schools we have named earlier either did not have Bus Services of their own or surplus accommodation wherever Bus services were available. In view of this proper education for their children became the primary concern for the new residents of these new colonies. To find a solution to this pressing problem a few residents came forward, amongst whom S. L. Banerjee, D. C. Bhattacharya, S. K. Roy Chowdhury were prominent. These gentlemen felt that since all houses built in Lodhi Colony area were Government owned there was no possibility of a privately owned Building. Since for establishing a School the primary requirement was of a place where students could assemble together for studying, they decided to approach New Delhi Municipal Committee for help. They wanted to take some accommodation on rent - in one of two Primary Schools in Lodhi Colony.

In view of the above in the month of May 1947 a Co-ordination Committee comprising of 10 members was formed. The primary job of this committee was to locate a place where the school could be established.

The co-ordination committee members thought that it would be easier to proceed further if the proposed school could become a part of any one of the schools already established. Proceeding in this line the Co-ordination Committee members approached the Secretary of Union Academy, Rajabazar Sudhir Chandra Sarkar and its Principal Brajo Madhav Bhattacharya. As per the suggestion of these two gentlemen it was decided that the proposed school would be established as a branch of Union Academy, Rajabazar.

In June 1948 3 rooms of the girls Primary School of New Delhi Municipal Committee at Lodhi Colony were taken on rent and the new School started Functioning from there. Ms. Renu Mukherjee was appointed as the Head Mistress.

After almost two months, on 8th August 1948 with the initiative taken by the Chairman of the Co-ordination Committee D. L. Majumdar, Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee officially inaugurated the School.

In September 1948 a General Body of the School was formed whose members included the members of the Co-ordination Committee, Donors to the School Fund and the Parents of the Students studying in the School. On 5th September 1948 the General Body elected a Managing Committee consisting of 13 members – D. L. Majumdar was elected the President of the Committee, G. C. Ghosh Vice-President, S. L. Banerjee Secretary, S. K. Roychowdhury Joint Secretary and D. C. Bhattacharya Treasurer. General Body gave the following instructions to the newly elected Managing Committee :

1. Obtaining Approval from the Directorate of Education.
2. Arranging a piece of Land in the vicinity of Lodhi Colony / Lodhi Estate to house the School.
3. Preparation of a Draft Constitution for smooth Administration of the School.

It is felt that it would be proper to mention at this stage that since in the main school at Rajabazar, both bengali as well as non-bengali speaking students were studying together it was decided that the same system would be followed at the branch school also.

The Managing Committee now started their work in full steam and within a short period of time, in May 1949 got the approval of the Primary Section (I to V) from the Directorate of Education. After this in the Month of November 1952 the Secondary Section (VI to VIII) was approved by the Education Department and finally in May 1956 the Education Department gave their approval for the Higher Secondary Section (IX to XII).

The Managing Committee was very fortunate in their effort in another matter too. In August 1953 the Land Development Officer allotted to it 3.5 acres of land in Lodhi Estate Area on 99 years lease.

With passing of time, the newly establish school at Lodhi Colony was slowly becoming quite popular with the residents. There was lot of pressure on the Management for admitting more and more students. In view of this the Committee decided to shift the school to its own land in Lodhi Estate. The school started functioning on its own premises from the year 1954.

The effort of the Managing Committee in motivating the bengali community of Delhi for financial support succeeded to a great extent. Besides this financial helps also came from Govt. of West Bengal.

With the money in hand the Managing Committee now decided to start construction of the school building. The foundation stone of the building was laid by Dr. Radha Krishnan, Vice-President of India on 6th March 1960. The double storied building was completed in the year 1961.

Ms. Renu Mukherjee who was Head Mistress right from the inception, had brought up the school to the present stage with lot of love and care. She left the services of the school in the year 1955. She would be always remembered fondly for her contribution in the development of the school. In the year 1956 Ms. Kamal Rani Mitra was appointed as the first Principal of the school. By this time the school was already recognized as a Higher Secondary Institution by the Department of Education.

Ms. Kamal Rani Mitra left the services of the School in the year 1965 and after that quite a few individuals joined the s1chool as its Administrative Head. All relevant details are given bellow :

1. Ms. Aruna Mazumdar 1965 to 1966
2. Ms. Shuvra Ghosh 1967 to 1997
3. Ms. Shankari Chowdhury 1997 to 1998
4. Ms. Indrani Mazumdar 2001 to 2003
5. Ms. Shukla Dutta Gupta 2006 to 2009
6. Ms. Suman Doval 2012 to Till date

Two names out of the above require a special mention. Ms. Kamal Rani Mitra with a lot of diligence and love had placed the school on a solid foundation. Ms. Shuvra Ghosh built a beautiful edifice on this foundation. During her tenure the school had an all round development. Experimenting with method of teaching together with proper training of mind and maintenance of strict discipline raised the standard of the students to new heights. This process in turn gave Shyama Prasad Vidyalaya a prestigious position amongst the institutions run by bengalis of Delhi. In fact if we term these few years in the life of the school as the ‘Golden Age’, it will not be a travesty of truth.

Human history is the story of man’s rise and fall - a success is always followed by a downfall. It happened in the life of our school also. A long period of 15 years from the year 1997 to 2012 can be termed as the Dark Age in the life of the school. We do not want to get into any details of it.

When Ms. Suman Doval became the Principal in the year 2012 the conditions slowly started improving. For this, we, who are well wishers of the school will be always thankful to her.

In its meeting held on 5th September 1948 the General Body had instructed the Managing Committee to go ahead with preparation of a draft constitution and the same was approved by the General Body when it met on 4th December 1949. For quite some time the Management of Union Academy, Rajabazar was suggesting that the branch management at Lodhi Colony should follow the constitution of the main school while preparing their own. They were also suggesting that the branch school should make preparations so as to sever all connections with the main school as early as possible.

In view of this desire on the part of the main school the Managing Committee in its two meetings – 17th March 1957 and 31st March 1957 decided to set up a new Institution. They also decided that the new Institution would be named after Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee who had inaugurated the school in the year 1948. Since then the new school setup at Lodhi Estate came to be known as ‘Shyama Prasad Vidyalaya’.

Following the above decision the Managing Committee unanimously decided to hand over to the new institution all assets and liabilities etc. of Union Academy branch School at Lodhi Estate, with immediate effect.

Further, in the above mentioned meetings the constitution and rules/regulations governing the Administration of Shyama Prasad Vidyalaya was approved and these were registered with Registrar of Company, Delhi on 9th April 1957.

After this there was one more change in the administrative structure of the school when Delhi Government enacted the Delhi Education Act. 1970 as per which though everything remained in the hands of the Governing Body as the old Managing Committee is now being called, a 15 member Managing Committee was formed to look after the day to day work of the school.

The names of two members of the Governing Body will always be remembered fondly along with the name of the school. They are Amal Kanti Bose, the 12th President and Shyamal Roychowdhury, the 13th Vice-President of the Governing Body. Because of the initiative taken by Amal Kanti Bose the school came out of its dark period. During his Presidentship a full life statue of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and a Saraswati Temple was erected.

Shyamal Roychowdhury was responsible for putting the accounting system on scientific basis and because of him Shyama Prasad Vidyalaya is one of the few schools in Delhi whose accounts are regularly checked by Internal as well as External Auditors.

With the passing of time Shyama Prasad Vidyalaya could carve out a place of its own in bengali society of Delhi and at this moment we salute all those people for whom this has become possible.

History is the courtyard of time. It exists here with a sense of timelessness. Here various human emotions, feelings mingle together and give rise to celestial symphonies which continuously get produced and lost in cosmos. In the same vein, in the school also because of mixing of pain of failure, happiness of success and a bit of jealousy give rise to symphonies which are regularly getting generated and lost. However, in the process these leave traces of its music in our ears.

In the late forties of 20th Century a few well meaning persons saw a dream – in their mind a hope slowly took shape and in these 70 years has turned into a large Tree. Educationist Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee while inaugurating the School had expressed to the first president D.L. Majumdar “now that the school has come in to being, it is your responsibility to ensure that it grows in life.” After a gap of 70 years when we are preparing to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee we have to sit together and evaluate as to what extent we have been able to full fill the dream of the pioneers.

In this world of ours nothing lasts forever – what is there today will not be there tomorrow. This is how the life cycle goes on. We human beings can fathom only a very little of the future. May be, that is why we always tend to hold on to the present and are so much enamoured with the past. We prey to the Omniscient and Omnipresent One to let our school leave its mark on the shifting sands of time.

Om Shanti Om Shanti Om Shanti