Savitri Khanolkar

Who was Savitri Khanolkar?

Savitri Khanolkar, born Eve Yvonne Maday de Maros, on July 20, 1913—1990 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, to a Hungarian father André de Maday, professor of sociology at Geneva University and President of the Société de Sociologie de Genève, and Russian mother Marthe Hentzelt, who taught at the Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She later was known as Savitri Bai, the name she was given after she married an Indian, became a Hindu and took Indian nationality. She is the designer of India's highest gallantry award, the Param Vir Chakra.

Soon after Indian independence, she was asked by the Adjutant General Major General Hira Lal Atal to design India’s highest award for bravery in combat, the Param Vir Chakra.

Major General Hira Lal Atal was given the responsibility for creating and naming independent India’s new military decorations. His reasons for choosing Mrs.Khanolkar were her deep and intimate knowledge of Indian mythology, Sanskrit and Vedas, which he hoped would give the design a truly Indian ethos. She was a painter and an artist, and wife of Captain Vikram Ramji Khanolkar, a serving officer with the Sikh Regiment, at the time of the request.

Coincidentally, the first PVC was awarded to her elder daughter's brother-in-law Major Som Nath Sharma from 4 Kumaon Regiment who was posthumously awarded for his valour of November 3, 1947 during the 1947-48 Indo-Pak war in Kashmir.