When Swami Shraddhanand established Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya in 1902 on the holy banks of the Ganges with an objective of reviving the age old Gurukul system of education, he retained English as one of the subjects to be taught. The kind of visionary that he was, he must have visualized that if the Brahmacharis had to keep pace with the moving world, they should learn the language that would give them access to the modern knowledge.

English continues to be a compulsory subject at the graduation level in the faculties of Humanities and Oriental Studies. Keeping in view the role English is playing in developing India, the English Dept. of this university has started teaching Functional English along with English and Indian English literatures. Keeping in tune with the basic character of this university the Department of English is teaching not only Indian English literature but Indian aesthetics as compulsory papers at the post graduate level. We also specialize in the area of the application of Sanskrit Poetics to English and Indian English literatures at the doctoral level.