Personalities & Biographies (Set 1)

Ravishankar Maharaj died on 1 July 1984, at Borsad, Gujarat, at the age of 100.

An enduring tradition arose in which newly appointed Chief Ministers of Gujarat would visit Ravishankar Maharaj for blessings after their oath of office.

Cunha founded the Goa Congress Committee in Margao in 1928, later affiliating it with the Indian National Congress.

Cunha was court-martialled and sentenced to eight years at the Peniche Fortress in Portugal, becoming the first civilian tried by a military tribunal there.

Cunha obtained a tourist visa to France and escaped from there to Bombay in 1953, where he later formed the Goa Action Committee and published the newspaper Free Goa.

The Church denied Cunha funeral rites and burial due to his atheism. His remains were later moved to a memorial at Azad Maidan, Panaji, in 1986.

Across his decades of activism, he spent roughly 2,200 days, over six years of his life, in British prisons.

He served as a Rajya Sabha member representing Punjab, from 1952 until his death in 1956.

Wajid Ali Shah was a major patron of Kathak, giving it a more artistic, definite form as a court dance.

Wajid Ali Shah granted Mirza Ghalib an annual stipend from 1854, alongside his better-known patronage of Kathak dance.

Dutta suffered repeated torture, including a week-long chained suspension in 1912, said to have permanently affected his mental balance.

Dutta married Lila, daughter of nationalist leader Bipin Chandra Pal, in 1957, connecting Bengal’s revolutionary and moderate nationalist strands.

After independence, Biswambhar Parida became a journalist, working for more than 40 years at leading Odia newspapers including Samaja and Prajatantra.

Biswambhar Parida wrote ‘Mukti Sangramare Odisha,’ a book tracing the independence movement from Odisha’s own perspective.

Gandhi nicknamed Mohanlal Pandya “Dungli Chor,” or Onion Thief, for harvesting onions from a government-attached field during the 1918 Kheda Satyagraha.

He led Lucknow University from 1947 to 1951, then served as Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University until 1954.

Pyarelal Nayyar became Gandhi’s secretary in August 1942, succeeding Mahadev Desai, who died in British custody.

Pyarelal Nayyar is best known as Gandhi’s biographer, having written a multi-volume life of Gandhi including “Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase.”

Volumes IX and X of Pyarelal’s biography, titled “The Last Phase,” cover Gandhi’s final years, including Partition and his assassination.

Pyarelal’s sister, Dr. Sushila Nayyar, was Gandhi’s personal physician and later served as India’s Union Health Minister from 1962 to 1967.