A towering personality

Ravi Rohmetra
Duggar land has its own brilliant and unique history. It has given birth to politicians, academicians, social works and leaders of caliber.One prominent amongst them has been Pt. Prem Nath Dogra.He was born in village Smailpur on 24th of oct.,1884.He after schooling in a village school, graduated from Foreman College Lahore in 1908.Besides his academics he was a prominent athlete and has  won many prizes in sports field.
He served the state govt , after joining as Tehsildar in various capacities and was even given the post of Lent Officer Incharge Bhadarwah Jagir of Maharaja and later became the Wazir Wazarat ( Deputy Commissioner).He was a very Principled person and acted judiciously in dealing with the problems.
His retirement was a boon to him as he got ample time to interact with the masses to know the issues and problems.On social side he founded Harijan Sewa Mandal to help upliftment of Harijans, but it irked Orthodox people. He gave birth to Brahman Mykhya Mandal to help eradicate social evils in Brahman society.
Besides he emerged leading member of Dogra Sadar Sabha, and  was elected member of Jammu Muncipality and its vice-President for a decade till 1949.
All this gave him prominence and in 1945 elections he was elected to Assembly( Praja Sabha).He during 1963-64 was the Sanghchalak of RSS for J&K
Under his stewardship as RSS Sanghchalak he had to carry out strenous jobs for organizing  relief camps for the refugees from west Pakistan and uprooted people due to Pak invasion during 1947.His services and help to Clearance Operation  added colours to his feather. The then Prime Minister of J&K Shiekh Mohd. Abdullah, jealous of his popularity arrested him in 1949 on  his false  allegation but agitations by Jammuities forced release. All efforts  of the then Government  failed to help Shiekh Mohd. Abdullah to dominate and contain Pt Dogra.
He was now elected President of J&K Praja Parshad (1950-1964), but then got himself relieved from there. He was a staunch believer of democracy in real sense and fought for uniformity all around the country under the slogan “EK NISHAN; EK VIDHAN;EK PARDHAN” and to give full unquestionable intergrity to the country. The agitation to achiev above motives attracted jail for him for nine months.Though detained in Kashmir he was elected member assembly in 1957 then also in 1962 & 1967 from Jammu city North. He proved to be a great parliamentarian and earned praises of his opponents like the then Chief Minister Gulam Mohd. Bakshi and G.M Sadiq.He even rose to level to hold the Presidents Post of All India Jana Sangh for the year 1955-56.He lead the Jana Sangh Group in the legislative Assembly. To sum up Mr. Dogra  proved to be true and faithfull soilder of soil and everyone is proud of him.

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