Gulzarilal Nanda

Gulzarilal Nanda was born on 4 July 1898 in Sialkot, then in Punjab. According to the Prime Minister’s Office biography he was educated at Lahore, Agra and Allahabad. He worked as a research scholar on labour problems at the University of Allahabad in 1920 and 1921, and in 1921 became Professor of Economics at the National College in Bombay. Some press accounts give a different village of birth; this profile follows the official biography.

Nanda joined the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1921 and in 1922 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. Elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly in 1937, he was Parliamentary Secretary for Labour and Excise from 1937 to 1939 and later Labour Minister of the Bombay Government from 1946 to 1950, during which he piloted the Labour Disputes Bill. He helped organise the Indian National Trade Union Congress, later serving as its President, and represented the Government at the International Labour Conference in Geneva in 1947.

Nanda became Vice-Chairman of the Planning Commission in March 1950 and in September 1951 was appointed Planning Minister in the Union Government, also holding Irrigation and Power. He was elected to the House of the People from Bombay in 1952 and to the Lok Sabha in 1957, when he served as Union Minister for Labour and Employment and Planning and later as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. Re-elected in 1962 from Sabarkantha in Gujarat, he was Minister for Labour and Employment in 1962 and 1963 and Minister for Home Affairs from 1963 to 1966. He initiated the Congress Forum for Socialist Action in 1962.

Nanda was sworn in as Prime Minister on 27 May 1964, following the death of Jawaharlal Nehru, and served until 9 June 1964, when Lal Bahadur Shastri took office. After Shastri died at Tashkent, he was sworn in again on 11 January 1966 and served until 24 January 1966. Press reports record that he then continued in the Cabinet formed by Indira Gandhi. Some press accounts give 11 June 1964 as the end of his first term; the dates here follow the Prime Minister’s Office.

Nanda retired from active politics in 1971, saying he felt out of tune with the changed circumstances, and turned to social and religious work, guiding organisations including the Navjeevan Sangh and the Manav Dharm mission. He spent his last years in Ahmedabad, where he lived with his daughter, and died there on 15 January 1998. He received the Padma Vibhushan in 1991, and the Bharat Ratna was notified on 1 March 1998 as part of the 1997 awards. The Times of India reported that he had no property in his own name at the time of his death.