CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 103 of 120

Correct — A, Hridayanath Kunzru. Kunzru was a member of the Servants of India Society, the body Gopal Krishna Gokhale had founded in 1905 to train men for the full-time, salaried, non-political service of the country, and he became its life President in 1936. The Seva Samiti he set up at Allahabad in 1914 belongs to that tradition — a voluntary social-service organisation for relief work, work at fairs and pilgrimages, and civic service, rather than a political association. Kunzru's later public life ran along the same line: he was among the founders of Indian Scouting and became the first National Commissioner of the Bharat Scouts and Guides, serving from 1952 to 1957.

• (b)G. K. Gokhale — He founded the parent body, not this one. The Servants of India Society was set up by Gokhale at Pune in 1905, and Kunzru joined it; Gokhale died in February 1915 and had no hand in the Allahabad Samiti.
• (c)Shri Ram Bajpai — The closest of the three, and a genuine trap. Bajpai founded the Seva Samiti Boy Scouts Association in 1914 — a scouting body of similar name and the same year — but the Seva Samiti at Allahabad itself is Kunzru's. UPSC has keyed both attributions in different papers, so the two must be held apart.
• (d)T. B. Sapru — Tej Bahadur Sapru was a lawyer and constitutionalist of Allahabad, President of the All India Liberal Federation and a central figure at the Round Table Conferences. His work was constitutional and political, not the founding of a social-service samiti.

The Servants of India Society, founded by Gokhale at Pune in 1905, was an experiment in professionalising public work — members took vows of poverty and full-time national service and were trained for it. Its members went on to build a network of allied bodies for famine and flood relief, work at melas, education and civic service. The Seva Samiti at Allahabad, founded in 1914, is one of these, and Allahabad's role as a great pilgrimage centre explains why an organised body for service at fairs took root there.

Two organisations founded in the same city in the same year, with almost the same name, and UPSC has asked about both. The distinction to fix is that the Seva Samiti is Kunzru's and the Seva Samiti Boy Scouts Association is Shri Ram Bajpai's — CDS keyed the first attribution again in 2023 and the second in its own 2020 second-session paper. Kunzru is also the link to the later story of Indian scouting, since the various Indian scouting bodies were merged into the Bharat Scouts and Guides in 1950 and he became its first National Commissioner in 1952.

• Hridayanath Kunzru founded the Seva Samiti at Allahabad in 1914.
• He joined the Servants of India Society, founded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale in 1905, and became its life President in 1936.
• He was among the founders of Indian Scouting and was the first National Commissioner of the Bharat Scouts and Guides, from 1952 to 1957.
• The Seva Samiti Boy Scouts Association, founded in 1914, was the work of Shri Ram Bajpai, not of Kunzru.
• Tej Bahadur Sapru, another Allahabad figure in the options, was President of the All India Liberal Federation.

• Attributing the Seva Samiti to Shri Ram Bajpai; his foundation is the Seva Samiti Boy Scouts Association.
• Assuming Gokhale founded everything associated with the Servants of India Society; the Society is his, its offshoots are his members'.
• Confusing the Servants of India Society with the Servants of the People Society, founded by Lala Lajpat Rai in 1921.

As a founder-to-organisation match, often with two similarly named bodies of the same year set against each other.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Servants of India Society was founded in 1905 by

  • (a)Bal Gangadhar Tilak
  • (b)Gopal Krishna Gokhale
  • (c)Lala Lajpat Rai
  • (d)Surendranath Banerjee

  Answer(b) Gopal Krishna Gokhale — founded at Pune, to train men for the full-time, salaried service of the country.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who was the first National Commissioner of the Bharat Scouts and Guides?

  • (a)Shri Ram Bajpai
  • (b)Hridayanath Kunzru
  • (c)Annie Besant
  • (d)Tej Bahadur Sapru

  Answer(b) Hridayanath Kunzru — he held the office from 1952 to 1957, after the Indian scouting bodies were merged in 1950.