Pokhriyal was born in Pinani village, Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand to Paramanand Pokhriyal and Vishambhari Devi. He claimed to have received an M.A. degree from Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University. Pokhriyal married Kusum Kanta Pokhriyal on 7 May 1985, with whom he has three daughters. One of their daughters, Arushi Nishank is a classical dancer. His wife died on 11 November 2012 in Dehradun at the age of 50.
Political career
Pokhriyal started his career as a teacher in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Saraswati Shishu Mandir. He was first elected to public office in the erstwhile undivided Uttar Pradesh as a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Karnaprayag constituency in 1991, defeating a five-time Congress MLA. He was re-elected in 1993 and 1996 from the same constituency. In 1997 he was appointed to the position of Uttaranchal development minister. He was also Uttarakhand's chief minister and served as a member of the Lok Sabha's 17th session and the chairman of the Assurance Committee. He is a representative of Haridwar constituency in the Lok Sabha. He was the member of the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand for five consecutive terms from 1991 to 2012. He was first elected for the Karnaprayag ward in 1991 and served for three consecutive terms. In 2014, he resigned from the Doiwala, and was elected for Haridwar the Lok Sabha. On 30 May 2019, he was sworn in as Minister of Human Resource Development in the 2nd Modi Government. Following the ministry's name change to the Ministry of Education in July 2020, he served under the tile of Minister of Education.
Literary career
Pokhriyal has written novels, stories and poems. He has authored 44 books in Hindi, some of which have been translated to English as well as other Indian languages. They have been described by some critics and literature connoisseurs as "heavy on patriotism, light on literary quality". Most of his books were published by two private publishers – Vani Prakashan and Diamond Books, and many were published between 2009 and 2011, when he was chief minister of Uttarakhand.
Controversy
In 2014, Pokhriyal caused a controversy when he made a statement in the parliament claiming that astrology should be promoted. He said "Astrology is the biggest science. It is in fact above science. We should promote it". Talking about Lord Ganesha, he said that ancient Indians had the knowledge to transplant a severed head. He has also claimed that Sage Kanada had conducted a nuclear test lakhs of years ago. Pokhriyal has listed two different dates of birth on official documents, a discrepancy that he attributed to the Hindu horoscope. In the 1990s, the Open International University for Complementary Medicines of Colombo, Sri Lanka conferred a D.Litt. for his contribution in literature. He subsequently received another D.Litt. degree from the same institution for contributions in the field of science. However, OIU is neither registered as a foreign university nor as a domestic university in Sri Lanka, as confirmed by the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka. In August 2019, an appeal was filed in President Ram Nath Kovind’s office for Ramesh Pokhriyal's disqualification as minister for citing a ‘fake’ doctorate degree. Pokhriyal's claim to have received an M.A. degree from Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University have also been called into question. In 2019, after being appointed as the HRD Minister, Pokhriyal issued a directive saying that all the files and note sheets forwarded to him must be in Hindi. This created controversy with ministry officials, as not all of them had the level of proficiency in Hindi needed to prepare notes in that language, and the norm until then had been to prepare all official notes in English. Even though the government had traditionally encouraged officials to have a working knowledge of Hindi, existing rules did not make it compulsory for officials to be highly proficient in Hindi. In August 2019 at the 57th convocation ceremony of IIT Bombay, Pokhriyal falsely claimed that the U.S. space agency NASA had acknowledged that talking computers could be developed only by employing Sanskrit, which he described as "the world's only scientific language". He also misquoted that Charaka, hailed as one of the principal contributors of Ayurveda, was the first person who researched and discovered atoms and molecules, when in actuality, it was 6th century BCE philosopher Kanada who developed the foundations of an atomistic approach to physics and philosophy in the Sanskrit text Vaiśeṣika Sūtra.
