GENESIS

When one travels from Madurai in Tamilnadu along the highway leading to Coutrallam the famous waterfalls, what comes strikingly into view   at the 40th kilometre is the  Gandhi Niketan Ashram- one of the few surviving Gandhian Institutions in India,  still vibrant with Gandhian thoughts and ideals.

On entering the campus of this institution located in a sprawling 40 acres of land one can feel the peace and tranquility that pervades the place.

    
FOUNDER
 
         
     
     

Gandhi Niketan Ashram which  has a long history and  rich tradition behind it  is the brain child of a young man  of  21 burning with the desire of helping to  create  an independent India and reconstructing  Rural India as envisioned  by Mahatma Gandhi.

This young man in question was the well known Gandhian and freedom fighter Mr.G.Venkatachalapathy whose chance encounter with the Mahatma was to change his life forever.

      
               
      In 1930 at the age of twenty one, he had the golden opportunity of spending one evening and night with Mahatma Gandhi while touring Tamilnadu and under  the  Mahatma's magic  spell he decided that his  life's ambition  would be to follow  the  Mahatma  in thought, deed and action. Nothing else in the world mattered to him. The result was the founding of the Gandhi Niketan Ashram in 1940 by him with the sole aim of rural reconstruction and imparting basic education as spelt out by Mahatma Gandhi to rural children.    
                   
       
After India attained independence in 1947, the Gandhi Niketan Ashram was involved in areas like community development, panchayati raj, and khadi and village industries.  Development  officials  and  activists  from all  over India were trained here to work at the grassroots. The Ashram also played a key role in the Bhoodan movement spearheaded by Acharya Vinoba Bhave.
    
     
1941 – 1st  Anniversary Founder lighting the lamp