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36. Shravak Shiromani Sahoo Shri Shantiprasadji
Shravak Shiromani means the greatest among the Shravaks-ardent believers in Jainism.
Childhood and Education: He was one of the most outstanding Jain gentlemen of the 20th century. He achieved religion, health, desires, wealth and salvation in most appropriate ways. He has been successful in his mission of life. He was born on May 22. 1911 at Najibabad of the Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh. The roots and forest of Himalayas and the borders of Gadhwal District are not very far from here. The name of his grandfather was Salekhchandra. He was famous as a religious man as well as a social worker in his region. Shri Diwansinhji and Shrimati Moortidevi were the parents of Shri Shantiprasadji. His primary education was in Najibabad and college education was first in Meerut and later at Benaras Hindu University. He was very clever in his studies. He had passed his B.Sc. degree examination with first class. He was well cultured in the family. He did not miss to go to temple regularly even at his advanced age. He used to visit Hastinapur and other holy places and participate in religious celebrations.
RamaRani was his wife. She was the only daughter of famous Marwari Industrialist Shri Ramkrishna Dalmiya. Her mother died in her childhood and so she was brought up under the care of Sheth Jamnalal Bajaj. She was therefore deeply influenced by patriotism, self-supporting, self-confidence and secularism right from her childhood. With the marriage of Shri Shantiprasadji two top, wealth and cultured families came together. Their good deeds grew very soon within only 10 to 15 years the family took a foremost place among prestigious families of India. Shantiprasadji had three sons named Ashok, Alok and Manoj, and one daughter named Alka. As the wealth of the family increased, he was more inclined to the service of the society and expands cultural activities among others. He had various types of professions; he was deeply involved in industry and business. He was extremely intelligent, he could know and test the men, he was liberal towards his staff and workers. He has foresight of a big industrialist and administrator. He, therefore, took up foremost position in the industrial sector of India. Here was the meeting of both money and education and this lead the family to be famous in the whole country. Shri Shantiprasadji was kind, noble, liberal, simple and most cultured. He loved mankind. He had high traditions of his family and forefathers. He was impressed by the helpful nature of his mother. Service to society was the tradition of this family since many generations and this was apparent in the life of Shri Shantiprasadji since his age of 18 years. He took advanced participation at the All India Youth Conference at Hastinapur in 1929 and we would see his real for unity, administrative skill and co-operation. This was indicative of his future greatness. He and his wife Rama Rani rendered great services, granted valuable guidance, inspiration and enthusiasm at the annual conference of All India Digambar Jain Parishad in the summer of 1940 at Lucknow and since then the Jains accepted them as their leaders and advisers. There were burning problems of widow-marriage, inter-caste marriage, dowry etc and differences prevailed between old and new generations. He could succeed in solving most of these problems to a great extent and many of his suggestions were accepted by almost the whole of Jain community. He made efforts for unity among Jains of various sects. He became the chief of Bharat Jain Maha Mandal and encouraged the caste brothers to establish unity and cooperation. He established Digambar Jain Maha Samiti in 1974 with a purpose to make it an allaccepted institution of all Digambar Jain community and increase religious-attachments among them. At the time of our independence struggle and also at the time of wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971, he made long discussions with the Prime Ministers Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri and Smt. Indira Gandhi
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