Nayantara Sahgal (born 10 May 1927) is an Indian writer who writes in English. She is a member of the

Nehru–Gandhi family The Nehru–Gandhi family is an Indian political family that has occupied a prominent place in the politics of India. The involvement of the family has traditionally revolved around the Indian National Congress, as various members have traditi ...

, the second of the three daughters born to

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India du ...

's sister,

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (''née'' Swarup Nehru; 18 August 1900 – 1 December 1990) was an Indian diplomat and politician who was the 6th Governor of Maharashtra from 1962 to 1964 and 8th President of the United Nations General Assembly from 19 ...

. She was awarded the 1986

Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

for her English novel '' Rich Like Us'' (1985).

Early life

Sahgal's father Ranjit Sitaram Pandit was a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and givin ...

from

Kathiawad Kathiawar () is a peninsula, near the far north of India's west coast, of about bordering the Arabian Sea. It is bounded by the Gulf of Kutch in the northwest and by the Gulf of Khambhat (Gulf of Cambay) in the east. In the northeast, it is ...

. Pandit was also a classical scholar who had translated

Kalhana Kalhana ( sa, कल्हण, translit=kalhaṇa) was the author of ''Rajatarangini'' (''River of Kings''), an account of the history of Kashmir. He wrote the work in Sanskrit between 1148 and 1149. All information regarding his life has to be ...

's epic history ''

Rajatarangini ''Rajatarangini'' ("The River of Kings") is a metrical legendary and historical chronicle of the north-western part of India, particularly the kings of Kashmir. It was written in Sanskrit by Kashmiri historian Kalhana in the 12th century CE. Th ...

'' into English from

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

. He was arrested for his support of Indian independence and died in

Lucknow Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and divis ...

prison jail in 1944, leaving behind his wife (Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit) and their three daughters Chandralekha Mehta, Nayantara Sehgal and Rita Dar. Sahgal's mother,

, was the daughter of

Motilal Nehru Motilal Nehru (6 May 1861 – 6 February 1931) was an Indian lawyer, activist and politician belonging to the Indian National Congress. He also served as the Congress President twice, 1919–1920 and 1928–1929. He was a patriarch of the Neh ...

and sister of India's first prime minister,

. Vijaya Lakshmi had been active in the

Indian freedom struggle The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged from Bengal. ...

, had been to jail for this cause and in 1946, was part of the first team representing newly formed India that went to the then newly formed

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

, along with M.C.Chagla., Tenth Edition, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 2000, After India achieved independence, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit served as a member of India's

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

, the

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

of several Indian states, and as India's ambassador to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, the United States, Mexico, the Court of St. James, Ireland, and the United Nations. Frida Kahlo in Sari

Sahgal attended a number of schools as a girl, given the turmoil in the Nehru family during the last years (1935–47) of the Indian freedom struggle. Ultimately, she graduated from

Woodstock School Woodstock School is an international coeducational residential school located in Landour, a small hill station contiguous with the town of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Woodstock is one of the oldest residen ...

in the Himalayan hill station of

Landour Landour, a small cantonment town contiguous with Mussoorie, is about from the city of Dehradun in the northern state of Uttarakhand in India. The twin towns of Mussoorie and Landour, together, are a well-known British Raj-era hill station in nor ...

in 1943 and later in the United States from

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial ...

(BA, 1947), which she attended along with her sister Chandralekha, who graduated 2 years earlier in 1945. She has made her home for decades in

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the List of cities in Uttarakhand by population, most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous Dehradun district, district and is governed by the Dehr ...

, a town close to

where she had attended boarding school (at

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aq ...

Marriage and career

Sahgal has been married twice, first to Gautam Sehgal and later to E.N. Mangat Rai, a Punjabi Christian who was an

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...

officer. Though part of the Nehru family, Sahgal developed a reputation for maintaining her independent critical sense. Her independent tone, and her mother's, led to both falling out with her cousin

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 and was al ...

during the most

autocratic Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except per ...

phases of the latter's time in office in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Gandhi cancelled Sahgal's scheduled appointment as India's Ambassador to Italy within days of her return to power. Not one to be intimidated, Sahgal in 1982 wrote a scathing, insightful account of Gandhi's rise to power.

Gita Sahgal Gita Sahgal (born 1956/1957) is an Indian writer, journalist, film director, and women's rights and human rights activist, whose work focusses on the issues of feminism, fundamentalism and racism. She has been a co-founder and active member of ...

, the writer and journalist on issues of feminism, fundamentalism, and racism, director of prize-winning documentary films, and

human rights activist A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing cam ...

, is her daughter. On 6 October 2015, Sahgal returned her

to protest what she called "increasing intolerance and supporting right to dissent in the country", following the murders of rationalists

Govind Pansare Govind Pansare (26 November 1933 – 20 February 2015) was a left-wing Indian politician of the Communist Party of India (CPI). He was also the author of the best selling Marathi language biography of 17th century ruler Shivaji, ''Shivaji Kon ...

Narendra Dabholkar Narendra Achyut Dabholkar (1 November 1945 – 20 August 2013) was an Indian physician, social activist, rationalist and author from Maharashtra, India. In 1989 he founded and became president of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti ...

and M. M. Kalburgi, and the Dadri mob lynching incident; for this she was praised in 2017 by Karima Bennoune,

monitor for cultural rights. In September 2018 she was elected as a Vice President of

PEN International PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internatio ...

Bibliography

*'' Prison and Chocolate Cake'' (memoir; 1954) *''From Fear Set Free'' (memoir; 1963) *''A Time to Be Happy'' (novel; 1963) *''This Time of Morning'' (novel; 1965) *''Storm in Chandigarh'' (novel; 1969) *''The Freedom Movement in India'' (1970) *''Sunlight Surrounds You'' (novel; 1970) (with Chandralekha Mehta and Rita Dar i.e. her two sisters; this was the daughters' tribute to their mother) *''The Day in Shadow'' (novel; 1971) *''A Voice for Freedom'' (1977) *''Indira Gandhi's Emergence and Style'' (1978) *''Indira Gandhi: Her Road to Power'' (novel; 1982) *''Plans for Departure'' (novel; 1985) *'' Rich Like Us'' (novel; 1985) *''Mistaken Identity'' (novel; 1988) *''A Situation in New Delhi'' (novel; 1989) *''Lesser Breeds'' (novel; 2003) * ''Relationship'' (collection of letters exchanged between Nayantara Sahgal and E.N.Mangat Rai;1994) * '' Before freedom: Nehru's letters to his sister 1909-1947'' (edited by Nayantara Sahgal) *''The Fate of Butterflies'' (novella; 2019)

Early life

Marriage and career

Bibliography

See also

References

Further reading