Gulzarilal Nanda

Gulzarilal Nanda Biography

Gulzarilal Nanda was an Indian politician who focused on labor problems. He served as the interim Prime Minister of India two times with thirteen days each time. He was made the Prime Minister for the first time when the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru died in 1964 and when the Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri died in 1966. He received Bharat Ratna award for his works in the year 1997.

He was born on 4^th July 1898 in Sialkot in Punjab in a Punjabi Hindu Khatri family. After the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, Sialkot became a part of Pakistan. He studied at Lahore, Amritsar and Agra. He enrolled as a research scholar at Allahabad University and started his career as the Professor of Economics at National College in Mumbai in the year 1921. He joined the Indian Non-Cooperation Movement to fight against British government. From 1922 to 1946 he was the Secretary of the Ahmadabad Textile Labor Association. He was imprisoned many times for his freedom struggle.

He was elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly in the year 1937 and served as parliamentary secretary from 1937 to 1939. From 1946 to 1959 he was the Labor Minister of Bombay. He also served as a Trustee of the Kasturba Memorial Trust and as a secretary of the Hindustan Mazdoor Sevak Sangh, Chairman of the Bombay Housing Board, and as a member of the National Planning Committee.

He organized Indian National Trade Union Congress for which he became the president later on. He went to Geneva in 1947 to take part in International Labor Conference. He was appointed as the Planning Minister of Indian Government. He was elected to Lok Sabha in 1957 elections and became the Union Minister of Labor, Employment and Planning. He was again elected from the Sabarkantha constituency in Gujarat to the Lok Sabha in 1962. He served as the Minister for Home Affairs from 1963 to 1966. He died on 14^th November 1966. 

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Updated: August 24, 2011