Gulzarilal Nanda

Infobox Prime Minister
name = Gulzarilal Nanda


imagesize = 160px
birth_date = birth date|df=yes|1898|7|4
birth_place = Sialkot, Punjab, British India
death_date = death date and age|df=yes|1998|01|15|1898|07|04
death_place = New Delhi, India
office = 2^nd and 4^th Prime Minister of India
Minister for Foreign Affairs of India
term_start = 11 January 1966
term_end = 24 January 1966
president = Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
predecessor = Lal Bahadur Shastri
successor = Indira Gandhi
term_start2 = 27 May 1964
term_end2 = 9 June 1964
predecessor2 = Jawaharlal Nehru
successor2 = Lal Bahadur Shastri
profession = Academic, Activist
religion = Hindu- Swaminarayan
party = Indian National Congress

Gulzārilāl Nandā ( _hi. गुलजारीलाल नन्दा) (4 July 1898 - 15 January 1998) was an Indian politician and an economist with specialization in labor problems. He was the interim Prime Minister of India twice for thirteen days each: the first time after the death of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964, and the second time after the death of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966. (His both terms had ended after the ruling Indian National Congress party procedurally elected a new prime minister.)

Nanda was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi's principles.

The Government of India honored Nanda with a Bharat Ratna award in 1997.

Early life

Nanda was born on 4 July 1898 in Sialkot in the Punjab Province of British India. (After the partition of British India into India and Pakistan in 1947, Sialkot became a part of the Punjab Province of Pakistan.) Nanda received his education in Lahore, Agra, and Allahabad.

Nanda worked as a research scholar on labor problems at Allahabad University (1920-1921), and became a Professor of Economics at "National College" in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1921. The same year, he joined the Indian Non-Cooperation Movement against the British Raj. In 1922, he became secretary of the "Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association" where he worked until 1946. He was imprisoned for Satyagraha in 1932, and again from 1942 to 1944.

Member of Bombay Legislative Assembly

In the British Raj, Nanda was elected to the "Bombay Legislative Assembly" in 1937, and served as parliamentary secretary (for "Labor and Excise") to the Government of Bombay from 1937 to 1939. As Labour Minister of the Bombay Government during 1946-50, he successfully piloted the "Labor Disputes Bill" in the state assembly. He served as a Trustee of the "Kasturba Memorial Trust". ("Kasturba" was the wife of Mahatma Gandhi.) He served as secretary of the "Hindustan Mazdoor Sevak Sangh" (Indian Labor Welfare Organization), and Chairman of the "Bombay Housing Board". He was a member of the "National Planning Committee". He was largely instrumental in organizing the Indian National Trade Union Congress, and later became its president.

In 1947, Nanda went to Geneva, Switzerland as a government delegate to the "International Labor Conference". He worked on "The Freedom of Association Committee" of the Conference, and visited Sweden, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and the UK to study labor and housing conditions in those countries.

In March 1950, Nanda joined the "Indian Planning Commission" as its vice-chairman. In September 1951, he was appointed "Planning Minister" in the Indian Government. He was also given charge of the portfolios of "Irrigation and Power". He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bombay in the general elections of 1952, and was reappointed "Minister for Planning, Irrigation, and Power". He led the Indian Delegation to the "Plan Consultative Committee" held in Singapore in 1955, and the "International Labor Conference" held in Geneva in 1959.

Nanda was elected to the Lok Sabha in the 1957 elections, and was appointed "Union Minister for Labour, Employment and Planning", and later, as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. He visited the Federal Republic of Germany, Yugoslavia, and Austria in 1959.

Nanda was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in the 1962 elections from the "Sabarkantha" constituency in Gujarat. He initiated the "Congress Forum for Socialist Action" in 1962. He was Union Minister for Labour and Employment during 1962 - 1963, and Minister for Home Affairs during 1963 - 1966.

Interim Prime Minister

Nanda was the interim Prime Minister of India twice for thirteen days each: the first time after the death of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964, and the second time after the death of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966. Both his terms were uneventful, yet they were important because of the potential danger to the country following Nehru's death soon after a war with China in 1962, and Shastri's death after a war with Pakistan in 1965.

Trivia

Nanda is the only prime minister of India who did not have a house of his own.

s-aft|after=Lal Bahadur Shastris-aft|after=Lal Bahadur Shastris-aft|after=Indira Gandhi

Notes

External links

* [http://pmindia.nic.in/pm_nanda.htm Gulzarilal Nanda Bio]