Almora was a huge district at that time, with international borders with Nepal and Tibet. The zeal to know about his land took young Jeena to distant corners and he started getting brief from all over Kumaun and Garhwal.
He was a committed social reformer and donated a large part of his earnings for various social causes. It was colonial era and the British administration honoured Soban Singh Jeena with the honorific of Rai Bahadur, which he accepted but was not enamoured of.
He was the motivational force behind the formation of Kumaun Rajput Parishad with a view to rejuvenate the largely decadent Kshatriya community of Kumaun.
After independence, he was drawn towards active politics. Being patriot to the core and steeped in Indian traditions he was one of the founding fathers of the Jan Sangh (which became the major component of the current Bhartiya Janta Party)
He contested elections for UP assembly thrice-in 1952,1 971 and 1977 from Almora Baramandal constituency on Jan Sangh ticket but was successful only in 1977 and was made a Cabinet Minister for Hill Development in the Janta party government.
Soban Singh Jeena's most lasting contribution was in the field of education. As early as in 1949 he, along with Amba Dutt Pant and Mohan Lal Verma, laid the foundation of Almora Degree College, and getting it affiliated to Agra University. This triumvirate moved heaven and earth to secure land and finances for the college and ensured that people of Kumaun did not have to go outside to receive higher education.
Subsequently, this college was taken over by the Government in 1972 and when Kumaun University came into being in 1973, it became one of the constituent Colleges. It was only a matter of time before this college was renamed as Soban Singh Jeena Campus in honour of the guiding spirit behind it.
With growing demand for the creation of a new University in Kumaun, the state government upgraded the Soban Singh Jeena campus as a new University aptly named Soban Singh Jeena University with the Government PG Colleges in Pithoragarh and Bageshwar as its affiliated Colleges.
This great son of the soil passed away in 1989.As the famous American author Seth Godin has said:
"Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work."
Soban Singh Jeena was a living embodiment of this very dictum.
