Mahatama Hansraj, born on 19 April 1864, in Hoshiarpur, was an Indian educationist and a follower of Arya Samaj movement founder, Swami Dayanand. He founded, with Gurudatta Vidhyarthi, the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic Schools System (D.A.V.) in Lahore on 1 June 1886, where the first D.A.V. school was set up in memory of Dayanand who had died three years earlier.
He was also a compatriot of freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai. Hansraj
served as the principal of D.A.V. College for 25 years, and committed the
rest of his life in social service. A number of Dayanand Anglo-vedic
educational institutions were established. Today D.A.V. runs over 900 colleges,
schools, professional and technical institutions.
