Gargi College was named after an enlightened woman, GARGI, who figures in the Brihadaranyaka Upnishad of the Vedic Age. She emerges as an intelligent and bold person embodying the spirit of enquiry juxtaposed to faith as is shown by her most penetrating and challenging questions before the great sage Yajnavalkya. In the Upanishad, Gargi seems to represent the intellectual potential of the race of Homo sapiens, which continues to manifest itself, in quest of ever-widening fields of knowledge.

The college was founded in 1967 by the Delhi administration and is a constituent college of the University of Delhi. Founder Principal was Dr Indira Thakur Das who was succeeded by Dr Krishna Sharma, Dr Chhaya Biswas and then Dr. Hema V. Raghavan. The present Principal is Dr. Meera Ramachandran.

A lot is on offer academically on the strength of Gargi's being a three-in-one college, catering to arts, science and commerce. It has a little over 2000 students, 150 faculty members and 110 non-academic staff in all.