| 1922 | February 19, born in Kandhala, Muzzaffarnagar, western Uttar Pradesh; moved to Lahore in the late 1920s |
| 1929 | December, attended the Lahore Session of the Indian National Congress |
| 1938 | Completed secondary education at the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic School, started B.Sc. in Physics at Government College, Lahore |
| 1940 | Transferred to Meerut College |
| 1940 | October, abandoned his studies to join the Freedom Movement |
| 1942 | August 8, attended the Quit India meeting of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), at Gowalia Tank Maidan, Mumbai; overwhelmed by Mahatma Gandhi’s powerful speech; became involved in underground activities of the AICC directorate, came in contact with Sucheta Kripalani, Girdhari Kripalani and Swami Anand, among others |
| 1943 | April-June, detained in a police lock-up in Kotwali, Delhi, along with Sadiq Ali |
| 1944 | October, joined Mirabehn at Kisan Ashram, midway between Roorkee and Haridwar; active in village development until August 1947 |
| 1947 | August onwards, in charge of the Congress Socialist Party centre for the rehabilitation of refugees; set up a co-operative rehabilitation camp in Kurukshetra for 400 families from Jhang, Pakistan; in close contact with Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, L.C. Jain, etc. |
| 1948 | February, co-founder of the Indian Cooperative Union (ICU) |
| 1948 | November, departed for Israel via Britain; worked in Devonshire in an agricultural reconstruction programme; later enrolled as occasional student (for International Relations and Diplomacy) at the London School of Economics |
| 1949 | September 3, married Phyllis Ellen Ford; returned with her to India via Europe, Israel, stayed for a few weeks in the kibbutz Degania Alef |
| 1950 | January, rejoined Mirabehn; established, near Rishikesh on land belonging to the Pashulok Trust, a cooperative village called Bapugram |
| 1950 | November 24, birth of son, Pradeep |
| 1952 | November 7, birth of daughter, Gita |
| 1954 | February, left Bapugram, disillusioned by the futility of the idealistic experiment in village development; in December joined his family in London; stayed for 3 years, worked for Peace News |
| 1957 | September, returned to India, via Sri Lanka, visiting Dhanushkodi and Rameswaram; reached Delhi in November |
| 1958-1964 | Elected General Secretary of the Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development (AVARD), founded by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, from 1959 with Jayaprakash Narayan as President; regular contributions to the AVARD Newsletter |
| 1962 | April, publication of Panchayat Raj as the Basis of Indian Polity: An Exploration into the Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly |
| 1962 | November 21, wrote an open letter (co-signed by N.N. Datta and Roop Narain) to all MPs criticising PM Nehru’s weak response to the Chinese invasion; led to the arrest of the 3 co- signatories, imprisoned in Tihar jail for 2 months; sparked off a public debate, with controversial articles published in the press |
| 1963 | July 31, birth of daughter, Anjali |
| 1963-1965 | Director of Study and Research of the All India Panchayat Parishad; detailed examination of the Madras Panchayat system, research in the Tamil Nadu State Archives (TNSA); preliminary note completed in July 1965 |
| 1965 | September, left for London due to serious road accident of his son; began extensive research in the British colonial archives |
| 1971 | Publication of Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century and of Civil Disobedience and Indian Tradition; in November, Seminar in Delhi on “Science, Technology and Society in 18th century India” |
| 1972 | Publication of The Madras Panchayat System, vol. II |
| 1972-1973 | Appointed Senior Fellow of the A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Sciences,Patna |
| 1975-1977 | During the Emergency, based in London, launched the “Save J.P. Campaign” |
| 1977 | June, returned to India, spent several months in Patna, Bihar, in close contact with CM Karpuri Thakur, member of Think-Tank |
| 1978 | Delivered a series of 3 lectures on “The Clash between India and Europe since the Eighteenth Century”, sponsored by Dinman and the Gandhi Peace Foundation; returned to London in October |
| 1979 | Short period of archival research in London, alongside caring for his sick wife |
| 1980 | From July resumed research in Chennai, TNSA |
| 1981 | Started living in Sevagram; intensive research, writing and lectures on Mahatma Gandhi |
| 1982-2004 | Lectures delivered in Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Bikaner, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, etc.; articles published in the press and various journals |
| 1983 | Publication of The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century |
| 1984 | Research in the TNSA on the Chengalpet district records |
| 1985 | Elected President of the Patriotic and People-Oriented Science and Technology (PPST) Foundation |
| 1986 | Publication of a series of 3 lectures on “Some Aspects of Earlier Indian Society and Polity and their Relevance to the Present”, New Quest, vols.56–58 |
| 1986 | March 29, death of wife, Phyllis |
| 1987 | Appointed Member of the Indian Council of Historical Research, re-appointed in 1991, and again in 1999–2001 |
| 1990-2006 | Distinguished Fellow (Emeritus Fellow since 2000) of the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai |
| 1991 | Published Bharatiya Chitta Manas va Kaal (in Hindi); English translation by Jatinder Bajaj, published in 1993 |
| 1992 | April, participated in the European Research Foundation conference, Lisbon, paper on India’s Polity, its Characteristics and Current Problems (published in 1996) |
| 1993 | Insightful statements made in the context of the Ayodhya controversy, cf. his talk “Undamming the Flow”, in J.K. Bajaj (ed.): Ayodhya and the Future India, Chennai 1993, pp.213– 238 |
| 1999 | Publication of Despoliation and Defaming of India |
| 2001 | 2001 Appointed Chairman of National Commission on Cattle set up by the Government of India |
| 2002 | Publication with T.M Mukundan of The British Origin of Cow-slaughter in India |
| 2002 | December, Infinity Foundation Award |
| 2003 | Publication of Understanding Gandhi & Rediscovering India: Collection of Essays and Speeches (1956–1998) |
| 2006 | October 24, passed away in Sevagram |
For more details, see Tributes with an Introductory Essay to Dharampal’s Oeuvre