Mahadev Desai was an India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n independence activist and nationalist writer; he was most famously known for being the personal secretary of Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...

.

Career

Desai was a young lawyer in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...

 when he decided to join Gandhi along with Narhari Parikh

Narhari Parikh

Narhari Parikh was an Indian freedom fighter and social reformer, who was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and the chief architect of the Indian Independence Movement in Gujarat.-See also:*Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel...

, Mohanlal Pandya

Mohanlal Pandya

Mohanlal Pandya was an Indian freedom fighter, social reformer and one of the earliest followers of Mahatma Gandhi. Along with fellow Gandhians like Narhari Parikh and Ravi Shankar Vyas, Pandya was a key organizer of nationalist revolts in Gujarat, and a leading figure in the fight against...

 and Ravi Shankar Vyas

Ravi Shankar Vyas

Ravi Shankar Vyas was an Indian freedom fighter and social reformer, hailing from and working in the state of Gujarat. He was one of the earliest and closest associates of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and along with Narhari Parikh and Mohanlal Pandya, the chief organizer of...

, and became his most devoted secretary for over 25 years, from 1917 to 1943. The four were the earliest supporters of Gandhi.

Mahadev Desai was arrest

Arrest

An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...

ed with Gandhi during all the nationalist revolts. The chief period of interest is the time Gandhi was incarcerated in the Yeravda Jail near Pune

Pune

Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...

, Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

 from 1931 to 1934. Desai wrote most of his important works on Gandhi during this period. He was arrested on the morning of August 9 after Gandhi's call to the British to Quit India and sent to the Aga Khan Palace

Aga Khan Palace

The Aga Khan Palace was built in the year 1892 by Sultan Muhammed Shah, Aga Khan III in Pune. Since then it is one of the biggest landmarks in Indian history...

 for imprisonment

Imprisonment

Imprisonment is a legal term.The book Termes de la Ley contains the following definition:This passage was approved by Atkin and Duke LJJ in Meering v Grahame White Aviation Co....

.
On August 15, 1942, Mahadev Desai died of a massive heart-attack at the age of 50.

Gandhi was devastated by Desai's death at a young age. Both Gandhi and his wife Kasturba Gandhi

Kasturba Gandhi

Kastürbā Gāndhi was the wife of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, marrying him in an arranged marriage in 1883.-Early life and background:...

 had seen him as their son, and his death was mourned by Gandhi's supporters across the country.

He wrote several books on the non-violent struggles led by Gandhi in India, and a diary

Diary

A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...

 called Day to Day with Gandhi in nine volumes.

Besides writing a day-to-day diary, Desai also contributed regularly to Young India and Navajivan, two journals of which Gandhi was the editor. During Gandhi's incarceration, Mahadev took up the responsibility of the editor of Navajivan. He also translated Gandhi's autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth

The Story of My Experiments with Truth

The Story of My Experiments with Truth is the autobiography of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, covering his life from early childhood through to 1920. It was initiated at the insistence of Swami Anand and other close co-workers of Gandhi, for him to explain the background of his public campaigns...

, into English.
Motilal Nehru

Motilal Nehru

Motilal Nehru was an early Indian independence activist and leader of the Indian National Congress, who remained Congress President twice, and...

, father of Jawaharlal Nehru, requisitioned the services of Mahadev Desai in 1920 from Gandhi to edit the daily newspaper, Independent, from Allahabad

Allahabad

Allahabad , or Settled by God in Persian, is a major city of India and is one of the main holy cities of Hinduism. It was renamed by the Mughals from the ancient name of Prayaga , and is by some accounts the second-oldest city in India. It is located in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,...

. Desai created a sensation by bringing out a hand-written cyclostyled

Cyclostyle (copier)

The Cyclostyle duplicating process is a form of stencil copying invented by David Gestetner in London in 1890. A stencil is cut with the help of small toothed wheels on a special paper underlaid with carbon paper which serves as a printing form. Gestetner named the Cyclostyle after a drawing tool...

 newspaper after the printing press was confiscated by the British government. Desai was sentenced to one year rigorous imprisonment for his writing. In prison, Desai saw that the jail authorities mistreated prisoners, frequently flogging them. His report describing the life inside an Indian jail, published in Young India and Navajivan, compelled the British authorities to bring about some drastic jail reform measures.

Desai was among the founding members of the All India Newspaper Editors' Conference. He also frequently contributed to various nationalist Indian newspapers such as Free Press, Bombay Chronicle

Bombay Chronicle

Bombay Chronicle was an English-language newspaper, published from Mumbai , started in 1910 by Sir Pherozeshah Mehta , a prominent lawyer, who later became the president of the Indian National Congress in 1890, and a member of the Bombay Legislative Council in 1893.It was an important Nationalist...

, Hindustan Times

Hindustan Times

Hindustan Times is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded in 1924 with roots in the Indian independence movement of the period ....

, The Hindu

The Hindu

The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...

and Amrita Bazar Patrika

Amrita Bazar Patrika

Amrita Bazar Patrika was one of the oldest newspapers in India; it is written Bengali . It debuted on 20 February 1868. It was started by Sisir Ghosh and Moti Lal Ghosh, sons of Hari Naryan Ghose, a rich merchant from Magur, in District Jessore, in Bengal Province of British Empire in India. The...

.

His son Narayan Desai

Narayan Desai

Narayan Desai, son of Mahatma Gandhi's personal secretary and biographer Mahadev Desai, was born on December 24, 1924, in Bulsar, Gujarat. Brought up in Gandhi's Ashram in Sabarmati, Ahmedabad and Sevagram near Wardha, Narayan stopped attending school to be educated and trained by his father and...

 is also a non-violent activist.

External links

• Works by Mahadev Desai