Nityanand Swami (born Nityanand Sharma, 27 December 1927 – 12 December 2012) was the chief minister of the Indian state of

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

, named Uttaranchal during his administration. He was the first

chief minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

of the state, serving from 9 November 2000 to 29 October 2001.

Early life and education

Swami was born in

Narnaul Narnaul is a city, a Municipal Council, and location of headquarters of the Mahendragarh district in the Indian state of Haryana. It is located in the National Capital Region of India. History Narnaul is built on a prominent tell, but th ...

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...

and spent almost all his life in

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative As ...

where his father served in Forest Research Institute. He entered the Freedom Struggle at an early age, under the umbrella of

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family" ...

, and contributed in the local resistances at Dehradun. Swami, as he was known among his friends was not only an intellectual but also a debater and spokesman. He was declared all round student of Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College, Dehradun in year 1949-52. In the 1950s and 1960s he was a worker of

Bharatiya Jan Sangh The Bharatiya Jana Sangh ( BJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh, full name: Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh; ) (ISO 15919: '' Akhila Bhāratīya Jana Saṅgha '' ) was an Indian right wing political party that existed from 1951 to 1977 and was the pol ...

and president of various trade unions; he preferred the non violent hunger strike ''

Satyagraha Satyagraha ( sa, सत्याग्रह; ''satya'': "truth", ''āgraha'': "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), or "holding firmly to truth",' or "truth force", is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone w ...

'' in contrast to violent strikes of ''

Bandh Bandh (Devanagari: बंद) (literally: shutting down) is a form of protest used by political activists in South Asian countries such as India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the s ...

''.

Political career

Lawyer by profession, Swami entered active politics under the Bharatiya Jan Sangh. He had switched to the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

for a brief period of time and to the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

since then. As many as 18 times he was put in prison by the establishment when he supported the cause of struggling labourers. He participated in a number of hunger strikes. In 1969 Swami was first elected as a member of

Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly The Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly (Hindi: ''Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha'') is the lower house of the bicameral legislature of Uttar Pradesh. There are 403 seats in the house filled by direct election using a single-member first-past-the-p ...

from the Dehradun constituency. In 1984, he was elected into the

Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council The Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council (Hindi: ''Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Parishad'') is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of Uttar Pradesh, a state in India. Uttar Pradesh is one of the six states in India, where the state legislature is ...

from the graduate constituency of

Garhwal Garhwal may refer to the following topics associated with Uttarakhand, India: Places *Garhwal Himalaya, a sub-range of the Himalayas *Garhwal Kingdom, a former kingdom * Garhwal District (British Garhwal), a former district of British India *Gar ...

and

Kumaon Kumaon or Kumaun may refer to: * Kumaon division, a region in Uttarakhand, India * Kumaon Kingdom, a former country in Uttarakhand, India * Kumaon, Iran, a village in Isfahan Province, Iran * , a ship of the Royal Indian Navy during WWII See also ...

. Swami represented the constituency of Garhwal and Kumaon for three years. He became Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council of Uttar Pradesh in 1991 and was unanimously elected the Chairman of the same in 1992. Swami was elected the chairman of the U.P. legislative council in 1992. Swami worked behind the scenes in the struggle for a separate Uttaranchal state. As the chairman of the council, he pursued matter and policies to uplift the qualities in these fields through various umbrella

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

s. He was honoured with the "Pride of the Doon" Award from Doon Citizen Council,

, in recognition of distinguished contributions to the region. The soft-spoken Swami was honoured with the Uttar Pradesh Ratna in 2000 for the dedicated public work on "Rashtrabhasha"

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

. He was awarded the ''Sahitya Bharati'' by Hindi Prachar Samiti in 1994.

Chief Minister

On 9 November 2000, Nityanand Swami took the oath as the first chief minister of the new state of Uttaranchal (now Uttarakhand). He was asked by the

leadership to acquire the newly created office of Chief Minister. He served from 9 November 2000 to 29 October 2001 in the office and then resigned voluntarily in favor of

Bhagat Singh Koshyari Bhagat Singh Koshyari (born 17 June 1942) is an Indian politician serving as the 22nd and current Governor of Maharashtra from 5 September 2019. An RSS veteran, Koshyari served as National Vice-President of BJP and party's 1st State president fo ...

when asked by the BJP leadership.

Personal life

He was married to Chandrakanta Swami and had four daughters.

Death

He died at the age of 84, at the Combined Medical Institute (CMI), Dehradun on 12 December 2012.

References

External links

* http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=61&page=17 * http://www.expressindia.com/news/ie/daily/20001109/ifr09012.html * http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/02feb09/national.htm * http://hinduvoice.net/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?flavor=archive;list=NL;id=20050126151537 {{DEFAULTSORT:Swami, Nityanand 1927 births 2012 deaths Chief ministers from Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Ministers of Uttarakhand Members of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly Uttar Pradesh MLAs 1969–1974 Uttar Pradesh MLAs 1997–2002 Uttarakhand MLAs 2000–2002 Chairs of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Uttarakhand Uttarakhand politicians