Who's Who: Titles, Nicknames and "Fathers"
Titles and nicknames give easy marks if you learn them as pairs.
Titles of leaders
| Title | Person |
|---|---|
| Grand Old Man of India | Dadabhai Naoroji |
| Lokmanya | Bal Gangadhar Tilak |
| Mahatma; Bapu | M.K. Gandhi |
| Gurudev | Rabindranath Tagore |
| Netaji | Subhas Chandra Bose |
| Sardar; Iron Man of India | Vallabhbhai Patel |
| Punjab Kesari; Sher-e-Punjab | Lala Lajpat Rai |
| Deshbandhu | C.R. Das |
| Rajaji | C. Rajagopalachari |
| Frontier Gandhi (Badshah Khan) | Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan |
| Lok Nayak | Jayaprakash Narayan |
| Bharat Kokila (Nightingale of India) | Sarojini Naidu |
| Mahamana | Madan Mohan Malaviya |
| Shaheed-e-Azam | Bhagat Singh |
| Veer (Swatantryaveer) | V.D. Savarkar |
| Quaid-e-Azam | M.A. Jinnah |
| Andhra Kesari | T. Prakasam |
| Tiger of Mysore | Tipu Sultan |
| Sher-e-Kashmir | Sheikh Abdullah |
"Fathers" and "Founders"
| Title | Person |
|---|---|
| Father of the Indian Renaissance | Ram Mohan Roy |
| Father of Indian Unrest | B.G. Tilak (Valentine Chirol's phrase) |
| Father of Local Self-Government | Lord Ripon |
| Father of Indian Railways | Lord Dalhousie |
| Father of the Civil Services in India | Lord Cornwallis |
| Father of the Communal Electorate | Lord Minto |
| Father of the Nation | M.K. Gandhi (so called by Subhas Bose, 1944) |
| Father of Indian Constitution | B.R. Ambedkar |
Keep practising
Notes are only half the work. Test yourself with questions and discuss doubts with other aspirants.
Prepared for exam revision from standard sources such as NCERT, Bipan Chandra, Spectrum and official records. Historians differ on some dates, figures and interpretations, so check your exam syllabus and a standard textbook. Found a mistake? Tell us.