Navayug School - yaadein
About Life Mr Jivan Nath Dar
Mr. Dar was born on 13th April 1904.
The biggest influences on his life were his mother, who adopted him after she became a widow at the age of 19 & the Indian Freedom Movement. His mother was the granddaughter of Raja Dina Nath Madan, who was the Chief Minister of Punjab during the regime of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. She was a fiercely independent & self-respecting lady, who gave a high degree of freedom to her son within clearly laid out parameters of the discipline. Mr. Dar was deeply devoted to her, and but for her, he would have surely joined the freedom movement under Gandhi. Both the son & the mother were his passionate followers. Both also stood for genuine human equality, uplift of the underprivileged & a firm belief that through one's efforts one could overcome the most severe handicaps. It was this belief which made the mother & son leave the comforts, as also, the murky domestic politics of Raja Dina Nath's haveli in Lahore & move to U.P. in the 1930s to start a life on their own.
Mr.Dar studied in schools in Lahore & U.P.For his college he joined Lucknow Christian College, which he left when there was a call in 1924 to join the newly started S.D.College of Commerce, which was supposed to be more nationalistic. He was a keen student of Geography.
After completing his college education he joined it as a lecturer. He found the most academic pursuit & absence of opportunity to mold young minds dull, so he joined Modern School, Delhi. The school was then located in Daryaganj. He was among the founding fathers who carried a brick each to Barakhamba road to lay the foundation of the new school building. He enjoyed the curriculum of Modern School & made an impact on the school. He soon realized that education of the underprivileged in a palpably Indian setting was to be the mission of his life, so he left for Vidya Bhawan, Udaipur, where he accepted a job at 50% of the salary at Modern School. When his daughter was born, his mother told him to temper his romance for educating the underprivileged with earning enough for his family's needs, so he joined the Doon School. He liked the training & the program which the school offered to its students, but not being allowed to keep his mother with him on the campus made him unhappy, so he joined The Scindia School Gwalior. In 1956 he took over as the Principal of the iconic Netarhat School, where admissions were made purely on merit & the fees were paid as per a student's family income. The school paid higher salaries than colleges. It was able to collect a distinguished faculty & attain high academic standards. Today, probably no other school has as many students in the Civil Services as Netarhat. He resigned from his job at Netarhat as he was unwilling to give admission to a minister's relative who had not made the grade in the entrance test. Then he joined Vikas. After leaving Vikas, he joined Navayug, a school similar in its flavor to Netarhat.
In 1973, Mr. J N Dar was invited to start Navayug which he ran until 1977.
He passed away on July 10, 1989, leaving a legacy of which Navayug is a blazing star.
(Inputs by his son Mr. K N Dar)
