About Us
Seva Mandir, founded in 1968 by Dr. Mohan Singh Mehta, is an Indian non-profit organization based in Udaipur, South Rajasthan. Prior to founding Seva Mandir, Dr. Mohan Singh Mehta had been an Assistant Professor of Economics at Agra University, where he received an inspirational letter from one of his idols, the great freedom fighter Pandit Hriday Nath Kunjru. Pandit Kunjru wrote ‘there will be many more people in the society to become Professors, but today the society needs more volunteers for its own cause, for the people who need our help and support.’ This moved Dr Mehta so much that he immediately left his job in Agra to return to his home in Udaipur and began to lay the foundations of what later became Seva Mandir.
Initially, Seva Mandir’s work focused on adult education. The idea was to equip the rural, predominantly tribal, citizens of Udaipur district with the skills and capacities that would enable them to become active agents of their own development. Providing adults with basic literacy was seen as a means of transferring additional knowledge and establishing a relationship with the rural communities out of which further work could emerge.
Over the years, however, it became clear that while this work was contributing to change on the ground, it was not adequate. Seva Mandir responded to this by diversifying its repertoire of activities and became engaged in natural resource development work. Over the years, this expanded to include a wide range of activities implemented within a framework based on the Ghandhian notion of constructive work. This Ghandhian notion, Constructive work, entails citizens to become engaged in the co-creation of their new social realities.
In the recent years, Seva Mandir has been consolidating its work in both peri-urban townships and urban slum areas. Though these areas have distinct social, political and economic realities, the underlying principles that characterize Seva Mandir’s work are still of great relevance to bringing about positive social change.