Govind Ballabh Pant
गोविंद बल्लभ पंत1887-1961 · Freedom & Statehood · Khoont village, Hawalbag, Almora
Govind Ballabh Pant rose from a Kumaoni village to the first rank of India's founders: lawyer of the freedom struggle, premier of the United Provinces, Home Minister of India and a Bharat Ratna, the hills' greatest gift to national politics.
He was born on 10 September 1887 in Khoont village near Almora. A brilliant lawyer at Kashipur and Nainital, he took up the hill causes first, fighting the forced-labour system of begar and defending the Kakori accused, and bore a lathi charge in 1928 that injured him for life.
Pant led the Congress in the United Provinces, became its premier in 1937 and again at independence, and as the first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh governed India's largest state through its founding years. In 1955 Nehru brought him to Delhi as Home Minister, where he steered the reorganisation of states and the integration that followed.
He received the Bharat Ratna in 1957 and died in office in March 1961. His name is stitched across the state and the country, from Pantnagar's agricultural university, the first in India, to institutes, hospitals and the stadium in Delhi.