Two-time Acting Prime Minister of India
Gulzarilal Nanda (4 July 1898 – 15 January 1998)[1][2] was an Indian politician and economist who specialized in labour issues. He was the Prime Minister of India for two short periods following the deaths of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964 and Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966 respectively. Both his terms ended after the ruling Indian National Congress's parliamentary party elected a new prime minister. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in 1997.
Early life
Born
Nanda was born on 4 July 1898 in Sialkot in the Punjab Province of India into a Punjabi Hindu Khatri family. Sialkot became a part of the Punjab Province of Pakistan in 1947, after the partition of India and creation of Pakistan. Nanda received his education in Lahore, Amritsar, Agra, and Prayagraj.[citation needed]
Research worker
Nanda worked as a research scholar on labour problems at Allahabad University (1920–1921), and became a professor of economics at National College in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1921.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]. He was honored with "Proud Past Alumni" in the list of 42 members, from "Allahabad University Alumni Association", NCR, Ghaziabad (Greater Noida) Chapter 2007–2008 registered under society act 1860 with registration no. 407/2000.[3][4][5]
He married Lakshmi, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.[6]
Members of Assembly and Parliament
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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 1946–1950, 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 organising 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 United Kingdom to study labour and housing conditions in those countries.
Indian Planning Commission
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.
Lok Sabha member
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 in 1962–1963, and Minister for Home Affairs in 1963–1966.
Nanda was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in the 1967 and 1971 elections from the Kaithal (Lok Sabha Constituency) in Haryana.[7]
Prime Minister
Nanda was the 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.[8] He was the Home Minister of India during both these periods, and this is the reason why he was chosen as Prime Minister. The Indian Constitution has no provision of Acting Prime Minister as is widely circulated but incorrectly. Both his terms were uneventful, yet they came at sensitive times 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.[9] Nanda died on 15 January 1998 at the age of 99; from 25 November 1997 when former Malawian President Hastings Banda died, until his own death Nanda was the oldest living former State Leader.[10] At his death, Nanda was the last surviving member of the second and third Nehru cabinets and the last living state leader to have been born in the 19th century.
In popular culture
A Dedicated Worker - Shri Gulzarilal Nanda is a 1999 short documentary film directed by A. K. Goorha and produced by the Films Division of India which covers Nanda's work towards labourers and others as the PM and otherwise.[11]
