The hills' great lives
🏔️People of Uttarakhand
A small state with an outsized roll of honour: the women who started Chipko, a Bharat Ratna statesman, the Pundit who mapped Tibet on foot, the first Indian woman on Everest, soldier-saints, poets and the voices of Garhwali and Kumaoni song.
Where the record allows it, each biography links straight to the person's home village in our directory of Uttarakhand's 20,400 villages, so you can see the actual place, its block, pin code and surroundings, not just a name in a story.
🌳 Environment
✊ Freedom & Statehood
Govind Ballabh Pant
1887-1961Freedom fighter, first CM of Uttar Pradesh, Bharat Ratna
📍 Khoont village, Hawalbag, Almora
Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali
1891-1979The soldier who refused to fire at Peshawar in 1930
📍 A village near Peethsain, Pauri Garhwal
Sridev Suman
1916-1944Died after an 84-day hunger strike against Tehri's princely rule
📍 Jaul village, Tehri Garhwal
Badridutt Pandey
1882-1965'Kumaon Kesari' who broke the forced-labour system in 1921
📍 Haridwar, in a family of Bageshwar
Kalu Singh Mahara
1831-1906Kumaon's rebel of 1857, remembered as Uttarakhand's first freedom fighter
📍 Thuwa Mahar, near Lohaghat, Champawat
🧭 Explorers & Mountaineers
✍️ Writers & Chroniclers
Sumitranandan Pant
1900-1977Chhayavad poet of nature, Jnanpith laureate
📍 Kausani village, Garur, Bageshwar
Jim Corbett
1875-1955Hunter of man-eaters turned conservationist and author
📍 Nainital
Ruskin Bond
born 1934The storyteller of Mussoorie and the Garhwal hills
📍 Landour, Mussoorie (home since 1963)
Shivani (Gaura Pant)
1923-2003Hindi novelist who put Kumaon's women at the centre of the page
📍 Rajkot, in a Kumaoni family of Almora
Manohar Shyam Joshi
1933-2006Novelist and father of the Indian TV serial (Hum Log, Buniyaad)
📍 Ajmer, in a Kumaoni family of Almora