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Bunker Roy

Indian social activist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ2654764
Source-derived summary

Sanjit "Bunker" Roy (born 30 June 1945) is an Indian social activist and educator who founded the Barefoot College. He was selected as one of Time 100's 100 most influential personalities in 2010 for his work in educating illiterate and semi-literate rural Indians. Roy was awarded the Padma Shri by Giani Zail Singh in 1986.

Early life

He attended The Doon School from 1956 to 1962, and St. Stephen's College, Delhi from 1962 to 1967.

He was the Indian national squash champion in 1965 and also represented India in three world squash championships.

Barefoot College

Bunker is a founder of what is now called Barefoot College. After conducting a survey of water supplies in 100 drought-prone areas, Roy established the Social Work and Research Centre in 1972. Its mission soon changed from a focus on water and irrigation to empowerment and sustainability. The programs focused on siting water pumps near villages and training the local population to maintain them without dependence on outside mechanics, providing training as paramedics for local medical treatment, and on solar power to decrease dependence and time spent on kerosene lighting.

Editorial summary

“Bunker Roy” enters the record as indian social activist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bunker, Indian and social can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1945, 2010, 1986, 1956—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1945-08-02. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Bunker, Indian and social.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Bunker Roy” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bunker, Indian and social provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2654764. VIAF identifies the subject as 308180626. The Library of Congress control number is n2014018028. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 2010, 1986 and 1956.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Bunker Roy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.