Mahatma Gandhi National Memorial Trust

The National Gandhi Memorial Trust (Hindi: गाँधी स्मारक निधि) also called the Gandhi Qaumi Yaadgar Fund, is a memorial trust run by the Central Government of India established to commemorate the life of Mahatma Gandhi. It funds the maintenance of various places associated with Mahatma Gandhi's activities during India's freedom movement, and is also a leading producer of literature on Gandhi and Gandhian thought in India.

The initial public fund raising for the Trust was considered to be very successful, and Dr. Martin Luther King wrote that at $130 million it was "perhaps the largest, spontaneous, mass monetary contribution to the memory of a single individual in the history of the world."

Fund-raising receipt for the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi signed by Acharya Kriplani from 1949.

Obverse	"Gandhi Rashtriya Smarak Nidhi" in Hindi
Reverse	"Gandhi Qaumi Yaadgar Fund" in Urdu
Signature	Acharya Kriplani

Establishment of Gandhi Smarak Nidhi

On 30th January 1948 the father of free India who led us from slavery to freedom through non violence fell a victim to an assasin’s bullets. The nation reeled in agony when the light hat illumined for decades over the destinies of India went out.

The great galaxy of national leaders took a decision to create National Trust in his memory to be called Gandhi Smarak Nidhi.

As is well known, Gandhi Smarak Nidhi (GSN) was established by the Indian National Congress after the martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. To start with, the ad hoc committee constituted as per the decision taken on 6th February 1948 included great nationa leaders - Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad and Shri Jagjivan Ram amongest many others. On 13th February 1948, an appeal was issued by Dr. Rajendra Prasad to the people to donate liberally to the GSN. The Congress Working Committee approved these decisions and measures in its meeting held on 21-22 February 1948. Finally, on 17th December 1948 the GSN was constituted as a public charitable Trust having a 24 member Board of Trustees including the above national leaders along with other equally eminent national leaders.

They sent out an appeal to the Nation to Contribute their might to the fund. The main purposes of the fund was to further the manifold constrictive activities in which Gandhiji was interested, and to preserve and propogate his teachings. Ten million people contributed Rs.10 crorcs 98 lakhs 29 thousand one hundred six rupees and ninety five paize ( Rs 10,98,106-95).

In February 1949 the Trust was registered with 24 eminent political Social and Industrial leaders of the country as founder Trustees.

Objectives: The Trust deed laid down that income and also the corpus shall be used for conduct and promotion of the manifold constructive activities with which Mahatma Gandhi was associated and any other activities in furtherance of his ideals.

From 1952 to 1959 the work of the Nidhi was conducted from Delhi. Various specialized organizations for carrying on work in exclusive fields of constructive work were set up. Later in 1962-63 separate state Bodies were established and registered as a State Gandhi Smarak Nidhi.

Independet Trust

So in 1963 the Punjab State Gandhi Smarak Nidhi was registered as Independent Trust Named Gandhi Smarak Nidhi Punjab. When in 1966 the Punjab State divided into three states then Trust renamed as Gandhi Smarak Nidhi Punjab, Haryana & Himachal Pradesh.

Founder Trustess

Dr. Gopi Chand Bhargav (Chairman), Prof. Abdul Majid Khan,Smt. Gaura Devi, Prof. Shadi Ram Joshi,Sh. Som Bhai, Sh. Om Parkash Trikha(Secretary)

Headquarter

The Nidhi's headquarter is situated in Swadhyay Ashram, Village Pattikalyana, Tehsil Samalkha, District Panipat, Haryana (India) on G.T. Road just 70 Miles away from National Capital Delhi. 

Main Objects

The main purpose of the trust is "to further the manifold constructive activities in which Gandhi Ji was interested and such other activities of a like nature which give concrete shape to his ideas. The trust funds were also to be used for collecting, preserving and propagating his teachings"

Reverse Description

J. B. Kripalani

Jivatram Bhagwandas Kripalani (11 November 1888 – 19 March 1982), popularly known as Acharya Kripalani, was an Indian politician, noted particularly for holding the presidency of the Indian National Congress during the transfer of power in 1947. Kripalani was a Gandhian socialist, environmentalist, mystic and independence activist.

He grew close to Gandhi and at one point, he was one of Gandhi's most ardent disciples. Kripalani was a familiar figure to generations of dissenters, from the Non-Cooperation Movements of the 1920s to the Emergency of the 1970s.

Early life

Jivatram (also spelled Jiwatram) Bhagwandas Kripalani was born in Hyderabad in Sindh in 1888. Following his education at Fergusson College in Pune, he worked as a schoolteacher before joining the freedom movement in the wake of Gandhi's return from South Africa.

Kripalani was involved in the Non-Cooperation Movement of the early 1920s. He worked in Gandhi's ashrams in Gujarat and Maharashtra on tasks of social reform and education, and later left for Bihar and the United Provinces in northern India to teach and organise new ashrams. He courted arrest on numerous occasions during the Civil Disobedience movements and smaller occasions of organising protests and publishing seditious material against the British raj.

Congress leader

Kripalani joined the All India Congress Committee, and became its general secretary in 1928–29. Kripalani was prominently involved over a decade in top Congress party affairs, and in the organisation of the Salt Satyagraha and the Quit India Movement. Kripalani served in the interim government of India (1946–1947) and the Constituent Assembly of India. During this time he rejected the proposal of United Bengal from Abul Hashim and Sarat Bose and called for the division of Bengal and the Punjab.

Later life

Kripalani remained a critic of Nehru's policies and administration, while working for social and environmental causes. While remaining active in electoral politics, Kripalani gradually became more of a spiritual leader of the socialists than anything else; in particular, he was generally considered to be, along with Vinoba Bhave, the leader of the what remained of the Gandhian faction. He was active, along with Bhave, in preservation and conservation activities throughout the 1970s.

In 1972-3, he agitated against the increasingly authoritarian rule of Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India. Kripalani and Jayaprakash Narayan felt that Gandhi's rule had become dictatorial and anti-democratic. Her conviction on charges of using government machinery for her election campaign galvanised her political opposition and public disenchantment against her policies. Along with Narayan and Lohia, Kripalani toured the country urging non-violent protest and civil disobedience. When the Emergency was declared as a result of the vocal dissent he helped stir up, the octogenarian Kripalani was among the first of the Opposition leaders to be arrested on the night of 26 June 1975. He lived long enough to survive the Emergency and see the first non-Congress government since Independence following the Janata Party victory in the 1977 polls.

He died on 19 March 1982 at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, at the age of 93. In the 1982 film Gandhi by Richard Attenborough, J.B. Kripalani was played by Indian actor Anang Desai. His autobiography My Times was released 22 years after his death by Rupa publishers in 2004. In the book, he accused his fellow members of Congress (except Ram Manohar Lohia, Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan) of "moral cowardice" for accepting or submitting to plan to partition India. A stamp was issued on 11 November 1989 by the Indian Postal Department to commemorate the 101st anniversary of his birth.