Dashrath Manjhi – The Man Who Moved a Mountain

Dasrath Manjhi, a landless farmer from India, made history after he spent over two decades chiseling away at a mountain with rudimentary tools,
in order to create a road for his community, when the Government refused to.

Dashrath Manjhi (1934 - August 17, 2007) was born into a poor labourer family in Gahlour village near Gaya in Bihar, India. He is also known as Mountain Man. Dashrath Majhi's wife, Falguni Devi, died due to lack of medical treatment because the nearest town with a doctor was 70 km away from their village in Bihar, India.

Dashrath did not want anyone else to suffer the same fate as his wife, so he carved a 360-foot-long (110 m) through-cut, 25-foot-deep (7.6 m) in places and 30-foot-wide (9.1 m) to form a road through a mountain in the Gehlour hills, working day and night for 22 years from 1960 to 1982.

His feat reduced the distance between the Atri and Wazirganj blocks of the Gaya district from 75 km to 1 km, bringing him national acclaim.