Pincode 110001: A businessman’s tribute to his wife, LSR college has helped fuel dreams of several young women

In the 1950s, Shri Ram had established himself as a successful businessman by setting up Delhi Cloth Mills (DCM) on the insistence of the local government, which wanted him to aid in generating employment opportunities. With his sons Bharat Ram and Charat Ram by his side, the operations of the mill, which was planned with 25,000 spindles, expanded as the years went by. For the convenience of his workers, he established a residential colony with 700 houses, complete with electricity, running water supply, sewerage lines, cooperative stores, a primary school, a library, an auditorium, a swimming pool, playgrounds and a children’s park and dispensary.

It was around this time that the need for a new women’s college was felt in Delhi. “Though Miranda House and Indraprastha College were the two women’s colleges in Delhi in 1955, these were insufficient to take in the number of women wanting to study further. Shri Ram wanted to set up an educational institute in the memory of his wife (Phoolan Devi)…He discussed the idea with his sons, as they were the ones managing the business and finances now…The sons liked the idea and agreed to give Rs 3 lakh to begin with,” wrote Sonu Bhasin in his book Entrepreneurs who built India — Lala Shriram.

Shri Ram applied to Delhi University to start Lady Shri Ram College for Women. He told the university that the corpus would be put together by DCM and the Commercial Education Trust, which was already running the Shri Ram College of Commerce, also in Delhi University.

Bhasin wrote further: “Lady Shri Ram College was perhaps the closest to Lala Shri Ram’s heart. He supervised the construction of the college and hostel buildings himself. In spite of his frail health, he would spend time at the construction site and interact with the workers. In the summer, there would be an attendant with an umbrella for him. But Shri Ram would ignore it and move quickly from one place to the other, keeping a close eye on the ongoing construction. Any good book he came across would be kept aside, earmarked for the college library.”

The new college building was completed in early 1958 and classes began in July the same year.

Despite not being in the main North Campus of Delhi University, LSR soon became the college of choice for women – a trend that has continued till date.

Old-timers recall the struggles the college faced during its initial days.

“Even as the college shifted to a new campus, they could not get the teachers to shift because that was an area which was hardly developed at that time. There are also a few stories that it was built on cemetery land. To enable teachers to live on the premises, around 24 flats were established in the new campus at the cusp of GK and Lajpat Nagar,” said a former professor who did not wish to be named.

The major thrust was the laal diwarein (red walls), a fixture that the college is still identified by. “The staff strength was built little by little. Starting with science, they decided to teach humanities too. The belief was that women need education far more (than men) and so, it has to be a purely women’s college so that the students could be sent over to Delhi by their conservative families,” she added.