Who are some great Indians that most people have not heard of?

March 04, 2025

In 1975, during the Emergency imposed by PM Indira Gandhi, a young professor Champat Rai was teaching physics to students at S.S.M. Degree College in Dhampur, Bijnor, UP, when the police arrived to arrest him because he was associated with the Sangh (RSS). Champat Rai, who was very popular among his students, knew what could happen if he was arrested. The police also had an idea of how much resistance the students could put up.

Professor Champat Rai told the police officers, "You go back, I will come to the police station after finishing the class with the children." The policemen knew the weight of this person's words, so they returned. After finishing the class and telling the children to go home peacefully, Professor Champat Rai reached home, touched the feet of his parents and took their blessings and reached the police station for a long jail journey.

When he came out after spending 18 months in various jails of Uttar Pradesh and living a very painful life, the RSS chief Rajju Bhaiya (Rajendra Singh Tomar) recognized the determination of this youth and put the responsibility of preparing Ayodhya for the fight for Shri Ram Mandir on his shoulders.

Champat Rai kicked his government job and started working for Lord Rama's work. He went to every village of Awadh and knocked on every door. He raised a youth army at the local level which was ready to fight any situation. Every street and corner of Ayodhya recognized Champat Rai and he also recognized every street and corner. He became so knowledgeable about the history, present and geography of Awadh that his friends started calling him the ‘Encyclopedia of Ayodhya’.

Even before the demolition of Babri, Champat Rai started collecting ‘documentary evidence’ on existence of Ram Mandir before the Babri structure. These evidences were used by the Supreme Court when they gave a judgement on Ram Temple in 2010s. He read and saved lakhs of pages of documents, read and preserved every book, his house was filled with these papers, and he also memorized every information. When K. Parasaran and other fellow lawyers entered the field to fight the legal battle for the birthplace, he was the one who gave them irrefutable evidence.

On 6 December 1992, big leaders were teaching discipline to the kar sevaks from the stage. Many instructions were being given. Oaths were being taken not to harm the Babri structure, at that time Champat Rai was with the local youth some distance away from the stage. A journalist asked Champat Rai "What will happen now...?" He answered smilingly "This is Ram's monkey army, it did not come here to do PT on the sound of a whistle... it will do what it has come to do."

Saying this, he took a shovel in his hand and moved towards the Babri structure, then only the slogan of Jai Shri Ram echoed and... history was created. Champat Rai has not been made the secretary of the Ram Mandir Trust for nothing. He has dedicated his entire life to the feet of Lord Ram Lalla. People also lovingly call him ‘Ramlala ka Patwari’. This person is a warrior of Sanatan Dharma. He is not a coward leftist, communist and librandµ who talks nonsense...

After CM Kalyan Singh, in the Babri demolition cases, Champat Rai is the only one who has always taken the responsibility of that incident on himself in front of the court and the general public. Champat Rai has said that as soon as he sees the peak of the Ram temple, he will start inspiring the young generation to fulfil the responsibility of Mathura.

Champat Rai is an ascetic and scholar who takes care of even the smallest things of religion. Once he stayed at someone's place in Kashi for some work, then at night he saw that the direction of the bed was such that while sleeping his feet were facing south, he did not accept this even for a single night, he got the direction of the bed corrected at night, only then he slept. The person who travels from village to village in dhoti kurta and who stubbornly follows the smallest details of Hindu lifestyle in his personal life, he created history.