Dr Y.S. Parmar

Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar was the first Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. Hill Post and The Tribune call him the founder and the architect of Himachal Pradesh. The Tribune gives his dates as 4 August 1906 to 2 May 1981. Hill Post says he left the judiciary in 1941 to work for the people, led the Hill State Peoples' Conference and a satyagraha in Suket State, and that this helped lead to the formation of Himachal Pradesh in 1948. Wikipedia says he was Chief Minister from 1952 to 1956.

Hill Post says he stepped down when the Government of India kept Himachal a separate entity under an administrator, making it a Union Territory; Wikipedia adds that he had resisted the merger of Himachal with Punjab that the States Reorganisation Commission recommended. Hill Post says he was elected leader of the Congress Legislative Party after democracy was restored in July 1963, and he remained Chief Minister until 1977, more than seventeen years in all. Wikipedia says Himachal became a full state on 25 January 1971, in this second term.

Key moments

• 2 February 1966: he appeared before the Parliamentary Committee on the Demand for Punjabi Suba and gave evidence. His memorandum named the hill areas of Punjab as Kangra, Kulu, Simla, Lahaul-Spiti, Pathankot tehsil (Dalhousie and Bakloh), Una, Kalka, Nalagarh and Morni, and said the people there found themselves in a difficult position: in the Hindi region for language and in the Punjabi region for administration, so neither here nor there (report, para 47).
• 15 March 1966: the committee concludes that the hill areas of the Hindi region contiguous to Himachal Pradesh, with linguistic and cultural affinity to it, should be merged with Himachal Pradesh (para 69).
• November 1966: Hill Post says that through his advocacy the hill areas of Kangra, Shimla, Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti were merged into Himachal Pradesh.
• 1971 and 1977: Himachal Pradesh becomes a state in 1971, and he leaves office in 1977; The Tribune's tribute says he resigned that year, reportedly over what he saw as unconstitutional interference in his party and the Central Government.

What he is remembered for. The Tribune calls him Himachal Nirmata, the maker of Himachal, and a university and a medical college carry his name. For this record he is the neighbouring Chief Minister whose memorandum and evidence put the case for taking Punjab's hill areas into Himachal when the Punjabi-speaking state was being drawn, a case the committee accepted.