Connection with Gandhiji 
Gandhiji visited St. Stephan’s college in Delhi and stayed at his principal Sushil Kumar Rudra’s place a couple of times.

Background
Sushil Kumar Rudra, a close friend of C.F. Andrews, was an educationist and the principal of Delhi’s St. Stephan’s College from 1909 to 1923. When Gandhiji was in South Africa, Charlie Andrews was anxious that whenever Gandhiji returns to India, he should make the acquaintance of the Poet (Rabindranath Tagore), Principal Rudra, and Mahatma Munshiram (Swami Shraddhanand). -(Young India, January 6, 1927, CWMG Vol. 32: p. 512 - 513)

Place in History 
• Mentioning about his interview with the Home Secretary James Dubouley, Gandhiji wrote to V.S. Srinivansa Sastri, ‘I had hoped yesterday…to come down to you after leaving Sir James, but the interview lasted beyond 6 o’clock, and as I did not wish to miss my last meal, I hurried to Mr. Rudra’s.’
• Gandhiji fondly remembered his stay at Principal Rudra’s house at St. Stephan’s College residence and listed some of the important events that took place under his roof, in a tribute to Principal Rudra.
• ‘Ever since my return home in 1915, I had been his guest whenever I had occasions to go to Delhi.’ Wrote Gandhiji. It was fine as long as Gandhiji had not started satyagraha. But he thought of asking him once he started satyagraha against Rowlett Bills.
• On Gandhiji’s concern that hosting him might compromise Principal Rudra and expose his college to unnecessary risk, Principal Rudra replied, ‘I cannot possibly misunderstood by keeping you under my roof as an honoured friend and guest. And if ever I have to make a choice between losing influence I may have among Englishmen and losing you, I know what I would choose. You cannot leave me.’
• On Gandhiji’s concern that hosting him might compromise Principal Rudra and expose his college to unnecessary risk, Principal Rudra replied, ‘I cannot possibly misunderstood by keeping you under my roof as an honoured friend and guest. And if ever I have to make a choice between losing influence I may have among Englishmen and losing you, I know what I would choose. You cannot leave me.’
• In the same article, Gandhiji wrote, ‘The reader may not be aware that my open letter to the Viceroy, giving concrete shape to the Khilafat claim, was conceived and drafted under Principal Rudra’s roof. He and Charlie Andrews were my revisionists. Non-cooperation was conceived and hatched under his hospitable roof.’ All quotes above are from Gandhiji’s tribute to Principal Rudra ‘A Silent Servant’. Young India, July 9, 1925.
• Prof. Winsor of St. Stephan’s college went to see Gandhiji along with a dozen students during Gandhiji’s Delhi visit in January 1935. Gandhiji in conversation with them remembered Principal Rudra while talking about hygiene. He said, ‘The late Principal Rudra, under whose hospitable roof I have had the privilege of living, used to tell me how Delhi had fought a successful battle against the swamps and mosquito-breeding pools around Delhi.’
• Gandhiji recollected his first meeting with Maulana Azad at Principal Rudra’s place in a speech at a prayer meeting in the last phase of his life. ‘In those days, I had been staying with Rudra Saheb at his St. Stephan’s college residence. The college has now been shifted to some vast premise. But I first met Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in the same old building. There I met Prof. Abdul Bari as also many other great Maulanas.’
• Gandhiji tried to convince Ali Brothers and other Muslim leaders to accept non-violence before the Khilafat movement. ‘Their reason was satisfied’ wrote Gandhiji, ‘but they said they could not act without endorsement from Muslim divines, and so there was a conference of the ulemas at the late Principal Rudra’s house where I used to stay, when in Delhi, during his lifetime.’ The religious scholars who attended the meeting included Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Maulana Abdul Bari. (Harijan, February 10, 1940, CWMG-71, page 178)
• Gandhiji stayed at Principal Rudra’s house for the first time in 1915, months after he returned to India. He reached there on April 12 and left on April 14. During this period he saw Qutub Minar and Red Fort. He also attended a students’ function at St. Stephan’s College on April 13.
• His next visits were in 1919. He stayed there on March 7-8. Again he sent a telegram to Principal Rudra on April 7, 1919: ‘Reaching there Wednesday Punjab Mail’. But on the way to Delhi on April 9, he was served with the order restricting his entry into Punjab and Delhi at Kosi station. Gandhi chose to disobey the order and was sent back to Bombay.
• He went to Delhi again on December 11, 1919, and stayed at Principal Rudra’s house at St. Stephan’s college, before leaving for Lahore the next day.

Digital Experience
Virtual Tour | Architectural Documents

Site Address/Contact Details
Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi
Old St. Stephen's College Building,
Kashmere Gate,
Delhi - 110 006

Additional Details
• The inmates of Phoenix settlement in South Africa reached India and on Andrew’s recommendation, spend some time at Principal Rudra’s family at his home.
• When Gandhiji came to know about S.K. Rudra’s death, he sent a telegram to his son Sudhir Kumar Rudra the next day. ‘My heart, my prayers with you in your grief. God will give you all strength bear loss. Love.’
• After few months, Gandhiji wrote to Sudhir Kumar Rudra, ‘Charlie Andrews tells me that you are moody and have given way to grief. It is unworthy of Sushil Kumar’s son. If a father is no more with us in body, is he not with us in the spirit and possibly more so? Let us all translate into our own lives all his noblest qualities and we need not grieve over the dissolution of the body.’