History of Rotary in India
CALCUTTA was the home town for the first Rotary club in the mainland
of Asia. R.J. Combes, the manager of a steel products
company while on a business trip to U.S.A. was so
impressed by the "Friendship, fellowship, and service" aspects of
the movement called Rotary that he wanted to introduce the idea to
his friends in Calcutta also. There was no difficulty for
him to convince enough people and convene the first meeting on 26
September, 1919.
The new club was chartered just after three months of the first
meeting, on the New Year day of 1920 to be exact. All the twenty
charter members were non-Indians.
The first Indian member was S.C.Rudra who was inducted in 1921. In
1921 itself Sir Surendranath Banerjee was made an honorary member.
The first Indian to become the club secretary was Nitish C. Laharry
(1926) who climbed all steps to reach Rotary's top slot viz. R.I.
president ship in 1962-'63.
A.FM.Abdul Ali was the first Indian to adorn the collar of a club
president.
Except for the lone club chartered in Lahore (in Pakistan now) in
1927, for about a decade India had to be content with only one club,
i.e. R.C. of Calcutta. Things changed when James Wheeler Davidson of
Calgary, Canada arrived on Indian shores with a firm determination
to spread Rotary in India. In fact he was responsible for
establishment of Rotary clubs in different countries including
Australia, New Zealand, Southern Europe, Egypt,
Siam and Japan and was known as 'Marco Polo of Rotary.'
Jim Davidson planted Rotary in Bombay as well as
Madras (now Chennai) in 1929.
Of the 38 charter members of the club in Bombay, 37 were
non-Indians. The only Indian was Sir Phiroz Sethna, a legislative
member, who later served as district governor (1937-'38).
F C .James of United Planters Association of South India, who was a
past president of R. C. of Calcutta helped Jim Davidson
in the formation of the Madras Club. On 10 May 1929, thirty charter
members, all non-Indians assembled and elected C. G. Armstrong
Chairman of Madras Port Trust as the charter president A.A.Hayles,
former editor of The Mail was also among the charter members. In
1929 itself Raja Sir M.A. Muthaiah Chettiar was inducted into the
club.
Even though Davidson organised a Rotary club in Delhi
also in 1929, in a couple of years the club had to be closed down as
the membership tapered off due to one or other reasons. In 1930 two
clubs were formed- Etah and Meerut.
Mahatma Gandhi addressed Rotary Club of Calcutta which had only
non-Indians on the rolls even then.
The growth of Rotary in India was rather very slow for
many years, thanks to the predominance of foreigners in the clubs
and other reasons such as agricultural nature of Indian economy.
In 1933 Rotary branched out to Amritsar and to
Bangalore in 1934. By 1936 Ahmedabad, Baroda,
Jamshedpur, Poona
and Sholapur had Rotary clubs. Three clubs were chartered
in 1937, Lucknow, Surat and Cochin.
R. C. of Cochin had
22 charter members of whom 10 were non-Indians and Sir R. K.
Shanmugam Chetty was the charter president. (Chartered on 23 August
1937) This club had the unique privilege of meeting at an Island (Wellingdon
Island) which was built by one of its own members (Sir Robert
Bristo).
Asansol, Madurai
and Rajkot clubs were formed in 1938 Another three clubs
at Agra,
Salem and Jabalpur came into existence the next year. The
Delhi Club was also revived in 1939, thanks to the efforts of Sir.
Frederick James, the first Rotary governor from India.
Dehra Dun and Dharward invited Rotary in 1940. The next year
Rotary moved to Bhopal, Mithapur, Belgaum and
Nilgiris.
Nilgiris club extended Rotary to Coimbatore in 1943.
Visakhapatnam and Navasari clubs were already functioning.
Patna club with 36 charter members was also formed the same
year. Other clubs of 1943 origin were Kakinada,
Vijayawada, Bhuj, Patiala,
Kanpur, Allahabad, Guntur, Kolhapur
and Patna.
Tirunelveli club was also chartered in 1943 with 45 charter members
and District Collector Viswanatha Rao as the charter president.
Rotary clubs of Nagpur, Baruch, Satara, Mysore
and Bhavnagar were formed in 1944. In the two years that
followed Cuttack, Dhanbad, Akola,
Nasik, Ratlam, Moradabad, Faizabad, Gadag, Indore,
Jaipur and Gorakhpur were added to the Rotary India map.
Tirunelveli club took Rotary to Tuticorin also in 1946. As many as
ten clubs were chartered in 1947. They were: Godhra, Gwalior,
Palanpur, Nadiyad, Ambala, Mussoorie, Lucknow(2),
Ahmednagar, Hubli, Vellore
and Howrah.
By the time India
became independent, there were 71 Rotary clubs (14 in Gujarat, 10 in
Maharashtra, 10 in UP, seven in Tamil Nadu, seven in Karnataka
and 23 in another 10 states) with a total membership of 3121
members.
Up to 1931-32, Rotary clubs in India were non-districted.
From 1932 to 1935 clubs in India, Burma and
Ceylon were grouped under provisional District A.
On 1 July 1935 District 89 was formed with clubs in Afghanistan,
Burma, Ceylon
and undivided India. The first district governor was Sir
Frederick E James (1935-36). Sir Phiroz Sethna followed him the next
year. Sir F. E.
James had to be once again at the saddle due to the sudden death of
Phiroz Sethna.
The first conference of Provisional District "A" was held in 1932 at
Calcutta with Sir F. E. James as the first governor with a
total registration of 39. The 1934 conference was held at
Bombay and 1936 at Bangalore. Up to 1936, R.I.
president was not represented at the conferences and there was no
conference in 1934-35.
The first conference of Rotary District was in Madras in
1936'37 under the governorship of Sir F E. James. Haji M.Eusoff
represented the R.I.President at this conference which had a
registration of 63. The second conference was at Baroda
which had a registration of 121. At the third conference which was
held at Colombo the attendance further improved to 210.
In 1939 District 89 was bifurcated to create District 88 also which
consisted of Afghanistan, Burmah and part of undivided
India. B. T Thakur, Col.Warren Boulton and again B.T.Thakur
were the D.G.s between 1939 and 1942.
The district conferences of District 88 were held at Calcutta
(regn.220), Bhopal
and Agra (regn.82). District 88 was subsequently
renumbered as District 90 which had one of its conferences at
Jamshedpur with Nitish C.
Laharry as District Governor. This conference had a registration of
154 and R.I. President's representative was Sir Frederick James.
Growth of Rotary in independent India was also sluggish.
In seven years (up to 1954) only 54 clubs could be added. In 1950,
there were only 198 clubs with a Rotarian strength of 7,785 in the
whole of Asia, the least numbers both in matter of clubs
as well as total number of Rotarians, among the six Rotary regions
then existed.
By 1958, there were five Rotary districts in India,
Ceylon, Burmah,
Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan with about 7,500
Rotarians. In another ten years, there were 430 clubs and 16,055
Rotarians in these countries.
In 1968-69, Pakistan became a separate district. The
number of districts in India was 12 in 1970-71. From
seventies the growth of Rotary in India picked up some
momentum. The number of clubs which stood slightly above three
hundred more than doubled in the next ten years. The same tempo
continued in the first half of eighties also. In 1980-81 there were
899 clubs in India in 14 R. I. Districts with a
membership of 35,172 Rotarians.
The extension of Rotary in the second half of eighties broke all the
previous records. The number of clubs chartered between 1985 and
1989 (five years) was more than double the number of clubs formed
between 1975 and 1984 (ten years). Out of the current strength of
1947 (1999 April figure) clubs 19 percent of the clubs are those
established in five years between 1985 and 1989 (362 clubs).
In the first half of nineties also Rotary continued to grow well. Of
the existing Indian clubs 317 were chartered during these years.
District 3140 alone contributed 50 clubs during the period.
In the beginning of 1995-96, when the system of regions in the
Rotary world was abolished and the new zone system was introduced,
India had 1654 Rotary clubs in 28 districts and the number of
Rotarians was 58,777. In 1996 there was remarkable growth of Rotary
in India, thanks to Calgary Challenge. As many as 133
clubs were chartered in 1996. In 1995 the number of new clubs was
only 74. In the first quarter of 1997, there were 1,791 clubs in
India with a total membership of 68,043.
The first Asia regional conference was held in Delhi in
1958 with a registration figure of 2,913. The regional office
established in Bombay
in 1934 was shifted to Singapore in 1939, but the same
was closed down in 1948. A full fledged regional office was opened
in Delhi in 1984. Another Asia regional conference was
held in Delhi in 1987 and this regional conference broke
all previous registration records with its 10,501 registrations.
Delhi again was fortunate to host the Council on Legislation
in 1998.
During the last 88 years of Rotary's existence in India,
several world leaders emerged from this region. The first Asian to
become R.I. President from Asia was Nitish Laharry (1962-63) from
Calcutta. We had to wait another thirty years for another
Indian to be elected as R. I President. In 1991-92 Rajendra K.Saboo
(Raja Saboo) from Chandigarh had the rare opportunity of
leading the world's leading service organisation. Raja Saboo also
served as the Chairman of The Rotary Foundation (1996-97), the only
Indian to hold the position in Rotary's history.
