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Morarji Desai (1896-1995)
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Morarji Desai established
his leadership in Gujarat on the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhiji and Sardar
Patel. He was born in Bhadeli village of Valsad district and obtained his
secondary education in Valsad and higher education in Bombay. He skipped
under the influence of Gandhiji at the very first instance when he heard
Gandhiji speaking during the convention of the National Assembly in Bombay
in 1915. He started his career as a District Collector but later left his
job and plunged into public service. |
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Imprisoned for the first time in 1930, Morarji Desai contested for the
election of the Legislative Assembly of Bombay state in 1936 and became a
minister. He was elected Chief Minister of Bombay state in 1946 and
established the Home Guard which was developed in the later years and
proved its utility.
Morarji Desai became Vice Chancellor of Gujarat
Vidyapith in 1950 and served as a Chancellor since 1963. Once
again, he became the Chief Minister of Bombay state in 1952, this time
after independence. He was invited in central cabinet and became deputy
Prime Minister in Indira Gandhi's Government. He
rose to the Prime Ministership of India in 1977. His staunch allegiance to
Gandhian values and his self-righteous nature made Morarji Desai, an
immensely famous and successful leader. |
Following article was written by
Bertil Falk on November 17, 1996
for a Swedish Newsmagazine-
In 1995, a former Prime
minister of India died. His name was Morarji Desai and he was 99 years
old. Soon after his death, I visited friends in Valsad (Bulsar), Gujarat.
Morarji Desai came from Valsad and the Rotary-club in the city was
going to held a memorial meeting. Since I am a rotarian, I use to go to Rotary
every week. I do so, wherever I am in the world. So I went to the meeting. Two
speakers were invited, but none of them materialized. It turned out that I was
the only one at the meeting, who actually had met Morarji Desai. (I
interviewed him on tape in 1980, only a few days after he had been jockeyed
out of his post as Prime Minister by Charan Singh.) Anyhow, I jumped
into medias res and spoke about the deceased former Prime Minister.
He was in many ways a remarkable man. He probably became most wellknown
outside India because of his peculiar habit of drinking one litre of his own
urine every day. He even wrote a book about this "splendid remedy", as he put
it. The title is Nature Cure. While I assumed a sceptical attitude
towards the excellent qualities of urine therapy, Morarji Desai eloquently
spoke about the merits of the drink. Maybe I will be able to put his voice
praising the Shivambu (auto-urine) cure on the Net sometime in the
future. However, I want to underline, that I have never ever met an Indian,
who shares Morarji Desai´s preference for Urine Cola.
Morarji Desai was a strict Gandhian. Many people in India regarded him to be a
too too rigid preacher of moral. And it´s true that he was a great moralizer.
In his prime, his voice was powerful and melodic and he spoke English
beautifully. He was easy to interview, in contrast to his rival and political
enemy Indira Gandhi. Unfortunately, India did not function that well
during his Prime Ministership. High inflation and a lot of rivalry between
different factions of his coalition government - to mention a few things - led
to him being outmanoevred. The coalition fell apart and elections were held.
Indira Gandhi returned to power.
In 1974 Morarji Desai´s very readable autobiography The Story of My Life
was published. Three years later he became (at the age of 81) the Prime
Minister of the biggest Democracy in the world, a post he had been "cheated
of" two times. At first he had to step aside for Lal Bahadur Shastri
and later for Indira Gandhi. He survived his own autobiography by 21 years.
This picture is from the 40 taperecorded minutes I spent with him. Another
picture from the same session can be seen on the
Swedish version of this
page.
Click
Here to read Shyam Bhatia's article on how Morarji Desai almost brought
peace between India and Pakistan...
