Five decades, one thread.

Early life

Born into a Saurashtra family

Mahesh Savani was born into a Patidar family from Ranparada village in Saurashtra. A Gujarati profile gives his date of birth as 3 November 1970. He studied at Sadhana Vidyalaya and later earned a civil engineering diploma from Dayananda Sagar in Bengaluru.

Family

A father starts with one machine

Vallabhbhai Savani had worked as a labourer at a diamond manufacturing company, earning a reported ₹125 a month. In 1978 he installed a single machine and opened his own diamond unit. It is the origin of the PP Savani Group, named after his elder brother, the late Premjibhai Popatbhai Savani.

Education

The first PP Savani school

According to the group, Vallabhbhai Savani laid the foundation stone of the P P Savani Group of Schools in 1982, at Khodiyar Nagar in Surat’s Varachha area. A group school dates the group’s establishment to 1987, when P P Savani Chaitanya Vidya Sankul began with 287 students.

Enterprise

Joining the family business

Mahesh Savani joins his father’s diamond business. Output reportedly grows from around 35,000 to around 300,000 pieces a month, and the business opens branches in Mumbai, Belgium and Hong Kong. In May 1992, according to a Gujarati profile, he marries Bhavnaben.

Enterprise

A testing period

From 2003 he faces legal cases related to diamond imports and lives in Mumbai and then Belgium for around three years. He is acquitted and returns to Surat.

Social

The first kanyadaan

A man close to the Savanis dies shortly before the weddings of his two daughters. Reports variously describe him as a relative or as an employee. Mahesh Savani performs the kanyadaan himself and pays for both weddings. The same year the family moves into real estate.

Social

From single weddings to a December tradition

After a series of individual weddings, the first group ceremony is held. Reports date it to 2010 or 2012. From then on the weddings become an annual December event at the PP Savani Chaitanya Vidya Sankul in Abrama, Mota Varachha.

Children

A pledge for martyrs’ children, and 236 brides

After the Uri attack of 18 September 2016, he pledges to fund the education of the martyred soldiers’ children. They can stay in their current schools or study free, with hostel places, at PP Savani schools in Surat. He also offers support for higher education and for daughters’ weddings, and writes to the Prime Minister and the defence ministry.

In December, 236 fatherless brides, including five Muslim women and one Christian woman, marry at his ceremony, and his son Mitul marries alongside them. AFP’s report travels worldwide. “I have become a proud father to have performed kanyadaan of over 700 girls,” he says.

Education

P P Savani University; 251 couples

P P Savani University is established under the Gujarat Private Universities (Amendment) Act, 2017, with its campus at Dhamdod near Kosamba. On 24 December, 251 couples of Hindu, Muslim and Christian faiths marry at the annual ceremony.

Social

261 couples, with insurance and bank accounts

On 23 December, 261 couples marry, among them six Muslim and three Christian couples and 54 brides who had lost both parents. Each couple receives ₹2 lakh of insurance cover under a government scheme and a new bank account.

Social

The weddings continue

The December ceremony, named Panetar after the traditional Gujarati bridal saree, is held with the Lakhani family. Reports put the number of brides at 271 or 300.

Public life

A season in politics; 300 daughters

On 27 June he joins the Aam Aadmi Party in Surat, welcomed by then Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. In December he joins a fast at the party’s Gandhinagar office over a recruitment-exam paper leak.

That month’s ceremony, Chundadi Mahiyar-ni, sees 300 daughters of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian faiths marry, including the first Sikh bride. Doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants and journalists who served during the COVID-19 pandemic perform the kanyadaan.

Social

Back to his daughters; a national record

On 17 January he leaves the Aam Aadmi Party. He says politics had left him no time for his business, social work and family, and that his daughters had told him he was not a man of politics.

In December, the two-day Dikri Jagat Janani ceremony marries 300 daughters. It also sets an India Book of Records mark for the most organ-donation pledges at a single event: 1,38,283. He also launches the Vidyarthi Dattak Yojana for 1,000 students.

Social

Passing 5,000

On 25 December, 75 daughters marry before a gathering of more than 25,000 people. ANI reports that the total has reached 5,000. “Like every year… we have taken full responsibility for the girls who don’t have their fathers around anymore,” he says.

Social

111 daughters from 39 communities

On 14 and 15 December, 111 daughters marry, among them two Muslim brides, two hearing-impaired brides and two differently-abled brides. Morari Bapu, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and C R Patil attend. According to the group, couples receive a honeymoon trip, mothers a pilgrimage, and 50,000 tulsi saplings carry organ-donation messages.

Children

Pahalgam pledge and a pilgrimage for mothers

After the Pahalgam attack in April, he pledges full education, through graduation and including NEET and JEE coaching, for children orphaned in the attack, through PP Savani School and PP Savani University. In June, with Dr Faruk Patel’s KP Group, the family arranges a Char Dham-style pilgrimage for about 300 mothers of the brides and Umrah for Muslim daughters and their husbands.