Mahadev Desai Biography: Indian freedom activist, academic, and writer Peer Mahadev Haribhai Desai (1 January 1892 – 15 August 1942) is most well-known for serving as Mahatma Gandhi’s personal secretary. He has been called “Gandhi’s Boswell, a Plato to Gandhi’s Socrates, and a Nanda to Gandhi’s Buddha,” among other comparisons.
Mahadev Desai Biography
Early Life
On January 1, 1892, in the village of Saras in the Surat region of Gujarat, to schoolteacher Haribhai Desai and his wife Jamnabehn, Mahadev Desai was born into an anavil Brahmin family. Desai lost his father, Jamnabehn, when he was only 7 years old. Mahadev wed Durgabehn while he was only 13 years old, in 1905. He went to Elphinstone College in Mumbai after graduating from Surat High School. After completing his L.L.B in 1913, Desai began working as an inspector for the central co-operative bank in Bombay, where he had previously worked as an auditor.
Career
Famous Indian political activist Mahadev Desai met Gandhi in 1915 and then moved in with him at the Ashram in 1917. From November 1917 through August of 1942, he kept a diary detailing his time spent with Gandhi. After Gandhi’s incarceration in Punjab in 1919, Desai became his designated successor. In 1921, Desai was given a year in prison for his writings, which eventually prompted changes to prison policies.
Desai was recruited by Motilal Nehru in 1920 to serve as the Allahabad bureau chief for the Independent, Nehru’s journal. Desai caused a stir when, after the printing press for the Independent was seized by the British government, he published a hand-written cyclostyled newspaper. In 1924, Desai became the editor of Navajivan and started working on an English translation of Gandhi’s autobiography.
After receiving recognition from the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad for an article he published in Navajivan that same year (1925), he was elected head of the Satyagraha Ashram’s executive committee. Desai took part in the Bardoli Satyagraha and afterwards authored a Gujarati account of it, The Story of Bardoli.
Gandhi relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement after the failure of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the failure to reach an agreement at the Round Table Conference. The Indian National Congress and its supporters were the targets of a crackdown launched by the colonial authority. In 1932, Desai was taken into custody once more and thrown in jail with Gandhi and Sardar Patel. After being re-arrested, he spent time in Belgaum Jail, where he composed the posthumously published Gita According to Gandhi in 1946.
After the Quit India Declaration on August 8, 1942, Desai served out the remainder of his sentence. Together with Gandhi, he was seized on August 9th, 1942, and held at the Aga Khan Palace.
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Death
On the morning of August 15, 1942, while imprisoned at the Aga Khan Palace alongside Gandhi, Mahadev Desai, 50, died of a heart attack. Gandhi became agitated and shouted, “Mahadev! Mahadev!” as Desai stopped breathing. If Mahadev opened his eyes and looked at me, I would tell him to get up,” Gandhi explained when asked why he had done it. He has never in his life disobeyed me before. Even death couldn’t keep him down after hearing those words, I was sure. Desai was cremated on the Palace grounds, where his samadhi may still be found today. Gandhi was the one to cleanse his body.
A stamp honouring him was issued by the Indian Postal Service in 1983.[14] His son, Gandhian activist and author Narayan Desai, penned the memoir The Fire and the Rose about his father. In homage of Mahadev Desai, Gujarat Vidyapith’s faculty of social sciences, arts, and humanities is known as the Mahadev Desai Samajseva Mahavidyalaya.
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