Indefatigable Crusader Of Learning

He who opens a school, shuts the door to ignorance and a world devoid of knowledge. Education is not just about how to read and write, but, more importantly, about how to ignite young minds to grow into respectable and responsible world citizens. As part of the Birla clan, veteran industrialist-turnededucationist and philanthropist Sudarshan Kumar Birla, who currently manages the affairs of Birla Education Trust, Pilani, talks about the vision of the Birla family which set out to establish schools and colleges of excellence as early as 1901.

- Joseph Rozario

SUDARSHAN KUMAR BIRLA, POPULARLY KNOWN AS S K Birla or simply SK to his friends, is the eldest grandson of the legendary Ghanshyam Das Birla, the patriarch of the massive Birla empire, and the son of Lakshmi Niwas Birla, who was the eldest son of G D Birla. As the creators of perhaps the largest and wealthiest Marwari business empire, the Birla clan has been synonymous with wealth, entrepreneurship and philanthropy for well over a century. Though divided now, it continues to command substantial presence in India’s corporate world through scores of businesses and through numerous philanthropic initiatives, especially educational institutions.

The Birla Education Trust

The seeds of education were sown in Pilani, the native village of the Birlas in Rajasthan, in 1901 by G D Birla’s father, Seth Shiv Narayan Birla, when he set up a pathshala for educating both his family’s children, as well as the children of the village. This pathshala, where G D and his brothers had their early education, led to the foundation of a charitable trust after more than quarter of a century called the Birla Education Trust (BET), which has grown into a huge entity today.

The Birla Education Trust was registered in 1929 in Calcutta (now Kolkata) with G D at the helm, its sole objective being to put a nondescript village in Rajasthan on the education map of the country. The rest is history. The initiative actually was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship—a socio-economic philosophy propounded by Gandhiji, by which the wealthy of India should establish trusts for the welfare of the masses, especially the poor.