Pyarelal Nayyar (1899–1982) was the personal secretary of
Mahatma Gandhi in his later years. His sister
Sushila Nayyar
Sushila Nayyar, also spelled 'Nayar' (1914 – 2001), was an Indian physician, veteran Gandhian and politician. She played a leading role in several programmes for public health, medical education and social and rural reconstruction in her ...
was the personal physician to Mahatma Gandhi.
He received his
B. A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
from
University of Punjab and quit his
M.A. studies during the
Non-cooperation movement of 1920.
Freedom Struggle
Pyarelal was active in the freedom struggle, in the footsteps of Gandhi. He participated in the
Salt March to Dandi in 1930.
Pyarelal was portrayed by
Pankaj Kapur in the
Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, (; 29 August 192324 August 2014) was an English actor, filmmaker, and entrepreneur. He was the president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Academy of Film and Televisio ...
film ''
Gandhi'' (1982). Then personal secretary to Pyarelal, Dewan Vasdev Khanna (1923–2010), played a key role with Richard Attenborough in completing a script for film "Gandhi", which attained world fame.
Post Gandhi
Nayyar continued his literary work on Gandhi until his last days. Nayyar held privately a large cache of personal papers that belonged to Gandhi which were only brought in to public domain only in 2007.
Writings
He has biographical books on Mahatma Gandhi, on which he was assisted by Dewan Vasdev Khanna(1923-2010). Dewan Vasdev Khanna assisted Pyarelal Nayyar till 1980, before moving to United States of America. Following is a partial list:
#The Early Phase, (Vol. I)
#Mahatma Gandhi : The Discovery of Satyagraha – On the Threshold, (Vol. II)
#Mahatma Gandhi : The Birth of Satyagraha, (Vol. III)
#Mahatma Gandhi : Satyagraha at Work, (Vol. IV)
#Mahatma Gandhi : India Awakened, (Vol. V)
#Mahatma Gandhi : Salt Satyagraha – The Watershed, (Vol. VI)
#Mahatma Gandhi : Preparing For Swaraj, (Vol. VII)
#Mahatma Gandhi : Final Fight For Freedom, (Vol. VIII)
#Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, (Vol. IX)
#Mahatma Gandhi : The Last Phase, (Vol. X)
Note: Vol. IV to VII were competed by Sushila Nayyar.
References
A picture of Pyarelal with Gandhi
1982 deaths
Gandhians
1899 births
Panjab University alumni
Indian independence activists
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