The Making of BHU
Before Banaras Hindu University became a vast campus, it was a debated national idea, a working college at Kamachha, a fundraising network, an Act of the Imperial Legislature—and one man’s astonishing refusal to let the vision fail.
BHU was neither a solitary man’s miracle nor an ordinary government creation. Madan Mohan Malaviya gave it direction, persistence and a national constituency. Annie Besant brought an existing educational institution and her own vision of an Indian university. Princes, merchants, householders and public subscribers supplied land and money. Lawyers converted aspiration into legislation. Teachers and students made the new university real while its campus was still being built.
Two educational dreams meet in Banaras
A university already in embryo
Annie Besant founded the Central Hindu College at Kamachha in 1898, developing a modern institution that sought to bring scientific and general education into conversation with Indian religious and philosophical traditions.
Its classrooms, staff, students and organisational experience gave the later university something more valuable than a slogan: a working educational base.
Open Kamachha mapA national residential university
Malaviya envisioned a teaching and residential university combining Sanskrit, philosophy and Indian knowledge with modern science, engineering, agriculture, medicine and professional education.
He publicly advanced the project in the first decade of the twentieth century, including at the 1905 Indian National Congress session in Banaras. His distinctive achievement was to turn a civilisational argument into an actionable institution.
Cooperation, negotiation, compromise
Besant and Malaviya did not begin with identical schemes. The making of BHU required merging projects, building a common organisation and negotiating a university that could obtain legal recognition while retaining an Indian intellectual purpose.
Official BHU accounts therefore correctly describe Malaviya as founder while explicitly acknowledging Besant’s close cooperation and support.
The makers behind the founder
Mahamana Madan Mohan Malaviya
Visionary, organiser, negotiator and principal fundraiser. He travelled through princely states, commercial cities and public meetings, converting prestige into pledges and sympathy into subscriptions. His moral authority was BHU’s most durable early capital.
Dr Annie Besant
Educator, Theosophist and public leader. Central Hindu College and its associated institutions entered the BHU story, allowing teaching to begin from Kamachha before the great southern campus was ready.
Maharaja Rameshwar Singh of Darbhanga
An important early patron who served as president of the Hindu University Society. His courtly standing helped rally princely and elite support; he also presided at the famous 1916 gathering in which Gandhi spoke.
Kashi Naresh Prabhu Narayan Singh
The Benares royal house provided the great tract on the southern edge of the city traditionally described as more than 1,300 acres. Without continuous land, the residential campus—roads, hostels, faculties, farms and open space—could not have taken its distinctive form.
Sir Sunder Lal
The distinguished lawyer helped navigate the legal and constitutional work and became BHU’s first Vice-Chancellor. Early planning meetings included jurists such as Tej Bahadur Sapru, Motilal Nehru, Sachchidananda Sinha and others whose drafting and advocacy transformed desire into an Act.
The unnamed subscribers
BHU celebrated itself as the product of public effort because donations did not come only from maharajas. Merchants, professionals and ordinary supporters contributed across India. The resulting university carried a powerful claim: society could endow a modern national institution.
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From proposal to university: the making in dates
Annie Besant and collaborators establish the college at Kamachha, providing the educational seed from which BHU would grow.
Malaviya publicly presents his plan for a Hindu university during the Banaras Congress period, arguing for an institution capable of national regeneration.
Malaviya and Besant move toward a common university project. The Hindu University Society takes shape, with the Maharaja of Darbhanga as president, Malaviya at its organising heart and a draft scheme circulated.
Negotiations, fundraising and constitutional drafting continue. A documented January 1914 meeting at Sir Sunder Lal’s Allahabad residence involved leading legal minds reviewing the framework.
Education member Harcourt Butler introduces the Benares Hindu University Bill in the Imperial Legislative Council.
The Bill passes and receives assent. The statute incorporates a teaching and residential university and provides the legal mechanism for transferring the Society’s and Central Hindu College’s assets and obligations.
Viceroy Lord Hardinge lays the foundation stone at the new campus during an extraordinary gathering of rulers, scholars, public leaders and religious representatives.
Sir Sunder Lal becomes founding Vice-Chancellor. Academic work begins from the Central Hindu College/School setting while construction proceeds; the Act formally comes into force on 1 April 1916.
Faculties, hostels, laboratories, library, hospital, engineering colleges, women’s education, art collections and the Vishwanath temple turn the plan into a city of learning.
The foundation ceremony—and Gandhi’s unsettling speech
The foundation ceremony was carefully staged as a national event. Lord Hardinge laid the stone; the Maharaja of Darbhanga presided; princes in jewels, officials, educationists and students filled the great pandal. Ritual observances and extension lectures continued around the ceremony, with speakers from science, agriculture, philosophy and civic life.
Then Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, recently returned from South Africa, disturbed the pageantry. In his 4 February 1916 BHU speech, he contrasted the jewellery and splendour on the dais with India’s poverty, criticised the dominance of English over Indian languages, and commented on the suffocating security surrounding the Viceroy. It was among his earliest major public interventions after returning to India.
How Malaviya raised a university
Malaviya’s fundraising became legendary because it combined personal austerity, ceremonial persuasion, national networking and relentless follow-up. He addressed courts and commercial associations, met industrialists, appealed to religious duty and civic pride, and accepted contributions of very different sizes.
Princes supplied scale
Darbhanga, Benares and numerous princely houses gave the project social standing, land or money. The Nizam of Hyderabad is also recorded among important donors despite the university’s “Hindu” title—evidence that support crossed a simple communal boundary.
Merchants supplied networks
Business families and public associations could mobilise pledges across trading cities. Later industrial philanthropy, including Birla patronage, left major buildings such as the New Vishwanath Temple.
Small gifts supplied legitimacy
Public subscription made BHU more than a royal benefaction. Every modest donation strengthened Malaviya’s argument that the university belonged to society.
Making the campus: a planned city of learning
The land south of old Banaras allowed an unusual experiment: a largely residential university with broad avenues, teaching precincts, hostels, sports grounds, gardens, farms, temples, museum, hospital and technical institutes. The semicircular/campus geometry often read today as inevitable was produced gradually through plans, funds, construction phases and changing academic needs.
Lanka and the main gate
The monumental entrance announces departure from the dense bazaar into a green academic city. Lanka itself grew with the university, becoming a busy student-commercial district rather than merely a gate outside campus.
Open mapMalaviya Bhavan
The founder’s campus residence, now a memorial and study centre, returns the immense institution to a human scale. Verify public hours and group permissions before visiting.
Open mapCentral Office
The administrative core embodies BHU’s formal institutional life. Its ceremonial architecture, axial placement and surrounding roads help visitors understand the campus as planned governance, not a random collection of departments.
Open mapSayaji Rao Gaekwad Library
The Central Library’s name records princely patronage from Baroda. Its collections represent a second act of university-making: buildings create space, but books, manuscripts and journals create scholarship.
Open mapMahila Mahavidyalaya
Established in 1929, the women’s college marked an essential expansion of the founding project. A national university could not claim social reconstruction while leaving women outside higher learning.
Open mapBENCO to IIT (BHU)
The Banaras Engineering College began in 1919; mining, metallurgy and technology units followed. Their eventual consolidation into the Institute of Technology and later IIT (BHU) shows Malaviya’s early conviction that national renewal required engineers as well as classicists.
Open mapSir Sunderlal Hospital and IMS
Clinical service and medical teaching grew into the Institute of Medical Sciences and its major hospital. Here the university’s mission reaches beyond classrooms into the health of eastern Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring regions.
Open mapBharat Kala Bhavan
Founded in 1920 through Rai Krishnadasa’s cultural vision and later housed at BHU, the museum holds painting, sculpture, textiles, decorative arts and literary-cultural archives. It represents the founders’ belief that a university preserves civilisation as well as producing degrees.
Open mapNew Vishwanath Temple
Conceived within Malaviya’s campus vision and built over decades with Birla patronage, the tall marble temple became BHU’s most recognisable landmark. Its open devotional presence symbolises the campus idea, but it should not be mistaken for the original Kashi Vishwanath in the old city.
Open mapBHU grows beyond its founders
| Academic strand | Founding purpose | What it became |
|---|---|---|
| Central Hindu College | Modern and traditional learning at Kamachha | The institutional bridge into BHU; school legacy continues separately |
| Arts, Sanskrit and philosophy | Civilisational and humanistic learning | Large faculties of humanities, languages, social sciences and Sanskrit studies |
| Science | Research and modern scientific capacity | Major departments, laboratories and interdisciplinary institutes |
| Engineering | Industrial and technical self-strengthening | IIT (BHU) |
| Medicine and Ayurveda | Clinical service alongside Indian medical knowledge | Institute of Medical Sciences, hospital and specialised centres |
| Agriculture | Science for India’s rural economy | Institute of Agricultural Sciences and research farms |
| Fine and performing arts | Culture as a university discipline | Music, visual arts and museum collections of international importance |
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A meaningful BHU heritage walk
Half-day heritage route · 4 to 5 hours
- Main Gate and Lanka: understand how the university changed the southern city.
- Malaviya Bhavan: founder, fundraising and personal discipline—only if officially open.
- Central Office precinct: read the ceremonial planning and institutional axis.
- Sayaji Rao Gaekwad Library exterior: patrons, books and knowledge infrastructure.
- Bharat Kala Bhavan: allow at least 60–90 minutes; confirm opening day and ticket rules.
- New Vishwanath Temple: finish with the campus’s most visible symbol.
Add IIT (BHU), Mahila Mahavidyalaya or the medical campus according to interest. The campus is large; combine walking with an authorised e-rickshaw or vehicle.
BHU is an active academic, medical and residential campus—not an unrestricted tourist park. Avoid examinations, demonstrations, hospital congestion and restricted hostels; carry identification and follow security instructions.
Stories, myths and necessary corrections
“Malaviya made BHU alone”
Correction: he was the indispensable founder and driving force, but Besant, the Hindu University Society, Sunder Lal, royal patrons, donors, teachers and subscribers made the institution possible.
“BHU began on 4 February 1916”
Clarification: that was the foundation-stone ceremony. The Act passed in 1915, came into force in April 1916, and teaching began through the Kamachha base while campus construction continued.
“The campus appeared fully planned”
Correction: a strong plan guided it, but BHU developed in phases as money, departments and changing educational needs shaped the landscape.
“All fundraising anecdotes are documented”
Correction: some donations are institutionally recorded; colourful shoe-auction and insult-to-donation tales often survive as lore in variant forms. Label them honestly.
“Hindu meant only theology”
Correction: the founding scheme placed modern science, engineering, agriculture and medicine beside classical and religious learning.
“The BHU temple is Kashi Vishwanath”
Correction: the campus Shri Vishwanath Temple is a modern landmark. The historic Kashi Vishwanath Jyotirlinga stands in the old city.
Why BHU changed Varanasi
BHU pushed the city decisively southward. Lanka became a student gateway; bookshops, hostels, clinics, cafés and rented housing spread around the campus. The university brought laboratories, concerts, political debates, hospitals, museums, sports and students from across India into Kashi’s older sacred economy.
It also made Varanasi a modern intellectual capital in a new sense. The city already possessed Sanskrit schools, artisan knowledge, music lineages and religious scholarship. BHU added the scale of a residential research university—sometimes cooperating with those older worlds, sometimes competing with them, and often transforming them.
Visitor etiquette and practical planning
Best time
October–March mornings are pleasant. Summer afternoons are severe. Weekdays give the truest sense of campus life but can be busy; museum and memorial closure days must be checked.
Photography
Outdoor heritage photography may be possible, but departments, hospital areas, archives, museum galleries, hostels and security points have separate rules. Ask first.
Students are not exhibits
Do not photograph classes, residents or patients without consent. Keep tours small and avoid blocking academic buildings.
Hospital sensitivity
Sir Sunderlal Hospital is a working regional medical centre. Do not include wards or crowded clinical approaches in casual sightseeing.
Temple conduct
Remove shoes, dress appropriately and follow current phone/camera instructions. Peak worship hours can be crowded.
Getting around
The campus is too large for an unplanned walk. Use the heritage loop, carry water and confirm whether outside vehicles or e-rickshaws can enter on that day.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded BHU?
Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya was its founder and principal driving force. Dr Annie Besant’s Central Hindu College and collaboration were foundational; many legal, royal, financial and academic partners helped create the university.
When was BHU established?
The Act passed on 1 October 1915, the foundation stone was laid on 4 February 1916, and the Act came into force on 1 April 1916. “Established in 1916” is correct, but the making spanned many years.
Who donated BHU’s land?
The traditional and widely repeated institutional account credits Kashi Naresh Prabhu Narayan Singh with the large campus tract, described as more than 1,300 acres.
What was Annie Besant’s role?
She founded Central Hindu College in 1898 and supported the common university project. Its institutional resources helped BHU begin teaching while the new campus was constructed.
Why did Gandhi criticise the foundation gathering?
He contrasted princely jewellery and elaborate security with poverty, linguistic alienation and the need for genuine national service. His speech made the ceremony morally more complex—and historically unforgettable.
Can tourists enter BHU?
Many public-facing areas are normally accessible, but BHU is an active campus with changing security, event and vehicle rules. Museums, memorials, departments, hostels and hospital spaces have separate access conditions.
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Sources and further reading
- Banaras Hindu University official website
- BHU official overview: establishment and founders
- Mahatma Gandhi’s BHU speech, 4 February 1916
- India Code: Banaras Hindu University Act, 1915
- S. L. Dar and S. Somaskandan, History of the Banaras Hindu University, BHU Press.
- BHU archives, foundation-day photographs, building plaques and institutional histories should be preferred for precise dates.
Walk through the making of modern Varanasi
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