Mahadev Desai: Gandhi’s Secretary for 25 Years

For twenty-five years, one man woke before Gandhi and slept long after him. He wrote down almost everything that happened in between. That man was Mahadev Desai.

His diary grew into twenty-two volumes. It is one of the best records we have of Gandhi’s daily life. Desai himself died in detention in 1942, only six days after his arrest.

1Who was Mahadev Desai?

Mahadev Desai was born on 1 January 1892 in Saras village, in the Surat district of Gujarat. His father, Haribhai, was a school teacher. His mother died when he was seven.

He studied at Surat High School and then at Elphinstone College, Bombay. He earned his law degree in 1913. Then he worked as an inspector at the central co-operative bank in Bombay.

In college he began to translate. He turned John Morley’s book On Compromise into Gujarati. The work won a prize of one thousand rupees from the Gujarati Sabha. In 1915 he went to meet Gandhi to ask how best to publish it.

• Born 1 January 1892 at Saras, Surat district.
• Earned a law degree in 1913; worked in a Bombay bank.
• Translated Morley’s On Compromise into Gujarati.
• First met Gandhi in 1915.

2What did a secretary to Gandhi do?

Desai joined Gandhi’s ashram in 1917. He went with Gandhi to Champaran the same year. There he began the diary he would keep for the rest of his life.

The diary runs from 13 November 1917 to 14 August 1942. He wrote his last entry the day before he died. A gap in the surviving record covers the early 1920s.

He was much more than a clerk. The writer Verrier Elwin said he was like Home and Foreign Secretary together. He ran the office, the guest house and the kitchen. He also kept away visitors Gandhi had no time to see.

Gandhi trusted him deeply. In 1919, when Gandhi was arrested in Punjab, he named Desai his heir to carry on the work.

• Joined the ashram in 1917; went to Champaran.
• Diary began 13 November 1917.
• Served as personal secretary for about 25 years.
• Named by Gandhi as his heir in 1919.
• Read about Gandhi’s philosophy and Champaran.

3How did journalism lead him to jail?

In 1920 Motilal Nehru asked for Desai’s help. He wanted him to run the newspaper The Independent from Allahabad. The British soon confiscated its printing press.

Desai did not stop. He brought out a hand-written, cyclostyled paper instead. For his writings he was sentenced in 1921 to a year of rigorous imprisonment. It was his first jail term.

Inside jail he saw prisoners being flogged. He wrote a report on prison life for Young India and Navajivan. It pushed the British to make some jail reforms.

He took over as editor of Navajivan in 1924. He later edited Harijan too. He joined the Bardoli Satyagraha with Sardar Patel. He was jailed again during the Salt Satyagraha, and in 1932 and 1933.

• Ran The Independent for Motilal Nehru, 1920.
• First jailed in 1921 for one year.
• Became editor of Navajivan in 1924.
• Took part in the Bardoli and Salt satyagrahas.
• Read about Civil Disobedience and Sardar Patel.

4What did he write and translate?

Desai wrote easily in Gujarati, Bengali and English. From Bengali he translated Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s stories. He also put Rabindranath Tagore’s works into Gujarati. He translated Nehru’s autobiography into Gujarati too.

His most famous translation went the other way. He turned Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, from Gujarati into English. It first ran in Young India from 1925.

He wrote his own books as well. These included Vir Vallabhbhai, a life of Patel. His English history of the Bardoli campaign was called The Story of Bardoli, and appeared in 1929.

In 1931 Gandhi travelled to London for the Second Round Table Conference. Desai went with him. He was the only person who accompanied Gandhi when he met King George V.

• Wrote in Gujarati, Bengali and English.
• Translated Gandhi’s autobiography into English.
• Wrote The Story of Bardoli in 1929.
• Only aide with Gandhi at the meeting with King George V, 1931.

5How did his life end?

On 8 August 1942 Congress passed the Quit India resolution. Desai was arrested on the morning of 9 August. He was held with Gandhi at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune.

Six days later, on 15 August 1942, he died of a heart attack. He was only fifty. Accounts say Gandhi called out his name in alarm and later washed his body himself.

His diaries were edited and published as Mahadevbhaini Dayari, in 22 volumes. They appeared between 1948 and 1997. In 1955 the work won a Sahitya Akademi Award, after his death.

His son, Narayan Desai, became a well-known Gandhian writer. Pyarelal Nayyar took up the role of Gandhi’s secretary after him.

• Arrested 9 August 1942; held at the Aga Khan Palace.
• Died of a heart attack on 15 August 1942, aged 50.
• 22 volumes of diaries; Sahitya Akademi Award, 1955.
• Succeeded by Pyarelal Nayyar.
• Read about the Quit India Movement and Pyarelal Nayyar.

6What are the exam traps?

Do not mix up his own books with his translations.

• He died six days after his arrest, not one day after.
• The Story of Bardoli is his book; Story of My Experiments with Truth is Gandhi’s, translated by him.
• He served before Pyarelal Nayyar, not after.
• The diary award came after death, in 1955.