Born in 1924 to Durgaben and Mahadev Desai, Narayan Desai chose not to have a formal education. He had father’s and Gandhiji’s blessings for the decision. He worked in Gandhiji’s secretariat with his father from 1936–46, and participated in freedom movement. Later, he was a very active participant and leader in Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement from 1952–60, and with Jayaprakash Narayan from 1960–76. He walked 12,000 km, received 3000 acres of land as gift and distributed it. He was National Secretary of the Shanti Sena, the All India People’s Committee, Chairman of the War Resistors International, and Founder Member and Director of the World Peace Brigade. An accomplished author and editor, he has written over 50 books in Gujarati, Hindi and English and has edited Bhoomiputra, Yaqueen, Buniyadi Yaqueen, Tarun Mun and Sarvodaya Jagat. He has won many awards that include the Bharatiya Gyaanpeeth Murtidevi Award, the Sahitya Academy Award and the Ranajitram Gold medal (highest literary award in Gujarati). In addition he received the Jamnalal Bajaj Award for constructive work and UNESCO Award for Non-Violence and Tolerance. Currently, he is Chancellor of the Gujarat Vidyapeeth, founded by Gandhiji in 1920, President of the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad. He is currently engaged in rendering Gandhi katha in India and abroad and taking Gandhiji’s message to the youth.
The Translator
Tridip Suhrud is a political scientist and a cultural historian, working on the Gandhian intellectual tradition and the social history of Gujarat of the 19th and 20th centuries. He has translated the works of Ashis Nandy and Ganesh Devy into Gujarati and novelist Suresh Joshi into English. He translated and edited C.B. Dalal’s
Harilal Gandhi: A Life ( Orient Blackswan, 2007). His other books imclude
Writing Life: Three Gujarati Thinkers (Orient Blackswan, 2008),
Hind Swaraj Vishe and
An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth: A Table of Concordance. He has worked (with Suresh Sharma) on a bilingual critical edition of
Hind Swaraj (forthcoming, Orient Blackswan). At present he is working on the English translation of Govardhamram Tripathi’s four-part novel n. He is a Professor at Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, Gandhinagar.