Feroze Gandhi was an Indian Freedom Fighter, Politician, Journalist and Staunch Anti-Corruption Activist. He was the publisher of the dailies National Herald in Delhi and Navjeevan in Lucknow. He was a member of the Lok Sabha and constantly opposed Nehru’s politics and governance in the House.
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| Feroze and Indira |
Feroze was born on 12 September 1912 in a Parsi family at the Tehmulji Nariman Hospital in the Fort district of Bombay. His father’s name was Jehangir Faredoon Gandhy and mothers name was Ratimai (née Commissariat). They lived in Nauroji Natakwala Bhawan in Khetwadi Mohalla in Bombay. His father Jehangir was a Marine Engineer working for Killick Nixon and was later promoted as a Warrant Engineer. Feroze was the youngest of the five children with two brothers Dorab and Faridun Jehangir and two sisters Tehmina Kershasp and Aloo Dastur. The family had migrated to Bombay from Bharuch in South Gujarat where their ancestral home which belonged to his grandfather still exists in Kotpariwad.
Feroze lost his father when he was hardly six years old. After the death of his father the family moved to Allahabad to live with his unmarried aunt Shirin Commissariat a surgeon at the city’s Lady Dufferin Hospital. Feroze attended the Vidya Mandir High School and then graduated from the British-staffed Ewing Christian College. Much later after completing his graduation from Allahabad, he went to study at The London School of Economics and Political Science.
By the 1930s, his surname came to be spelled as "Gandhi"
In 1930, the wing of Congress Freedom fighters, The Vanar Sena was formed. Kamala Nehru and Indira among the women demonstrators picketing outside Ewing Christian College. Kamala fainted from the sun's heat and Feroze who was witnessing the demonstration with his classmates on a wall in the campus jumped down immediately and helped carry Kamala Nehru under the shade of a tree and nursed her to recovery. The next day Feroze abandoned his studies to join the Indian Independence movement.
In 1930, Feroze joined the independence movement which was then passing through the phase of civil disobedience led by Mahatma Gandhi whose Satyagraha also included the boycott of English education. During the civil disobedience movement Firoze was imprisoned for the first time along with Lal Bahadur Shastri, head of Allahabad District Congress Committee and lodged in Faizabad jail for nineteen months. They developed an intimate friendship and often visited Anand Bhavan together after their release.
Motilal Nehru, who was sentenced to six months in jail along with his son Jawaharlal, died on February 6, 1931, soon after he was released. At his funeral in Allahabad, Feroze Gandhi’s mother Ratimai met Mahatma Gandhi and begged him to tell Feroze to give up political activities and resume his studies. Gandhiji replied in Gujarati to Ratimai who was also a Gujarati, “Oh bahen, if I get seven boys like Feroze to work for me, I will get swaraj within seven days. In the India of the future, nobody will ask whether your son passed his BA or MA but they will like to know how many times your son has been interned for national activities.” The words of Gandhiji didn’t impress Ratimai but she decided not to interfere in Feroze’s chosen path.
In 1932 and 1933, Feroze imprisoned twice for his involvement in agrarian no-rent campaign in United Province (Now Uttar Pradesh). During this time he worked closely with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
- Feroze The Forgotten Gandhi – Bertil Falk
- Indira Gandhi a biography – Pupul Jayakar
- The rich life feroze Gandhi lived before his untimely death - Article written by Praveen Davar
- Feroze Gandhi Wikipedia Page