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Shankar Prasad Bhargava (1888-1962)

SP (Shankar Prasad) Bhargava was married to Asharfi Bhargava and had four children, 3 sons and a daughter. They were Govind Prasad (1912-1961), Professor Krishna Prasad (KP) Bhargava (1925-1991), Rajeshwar Bhargava (1918-1940, tragically died of typhoid fever) and daughter Hem Bhargava (1934-1991). He is the grandfather of Balram Bhargava. He was an economist and the Director of Education for the princely state of Alwar. He was initially the principal of SD College of Commerce in Cawnpore, United Provinces, British India in 1929. Shortly afterwards, he then joined the Economic wing of the Political Department in Delhi (a department directly under the control of the Viceroy of India, which controlled the Princely States). He worked there under V. Narahari Rao, who after independence became the first Comptroller and Auditor General of India (1948-1954). In 1933, the administration of the Alwar State was taken over by the Political Department with Mr FV Wylie (later Sir FV Wylie, the last British governor of the United Provinces) as the Prime Minister of Alwar State. He took to overhaul the administration of the State and asked the Political department to suggest a suitable educationist to take up the task. V. Narahari Rao suggested SP Bhargava for the post, as the first principal of Raj Rishi College and advisor to State economic matters. When SP Bhargava was appointed as principal with the assent of Maharaja Tej Singh, the last ruler of Alwar State, he was granted a tax-free salary of Rs 500 pcm and a fully furnished bungalow. In Alwar, from 1933-1946, he was known as a brown sahib as he lived aristocratically, with a chauffeur driven car, immaculately dressed in the evenings playing tennis followed by bridge. However, he was a strict vegetarian and very religious, arranging many discourses over the Gita and Ramayana, by learned preachers from Delhi and Mathura. During his tenure in Alwar, he was also the Census Commissioner of the State of Alwar in 1941. This data collected was used for the partition of India in 1947, although he was sceptical thinking that Pakistan would not be created. One of his prominent students was Mr RC Mody, a previous head for several all-India departments with the Reserve Bank of India. Mr Mody’s is the father of economist Professor Ashoka Mody. SP Bhargava had a stroke in 1946 and was bed ridden for the next 16 years till the end of his life in 1962 in Lucknow.