मीनू मसानी

मीनू मसानी

Summary

Minoo Masani (मीनू मसानी) is the National Book Trust’s Hindi edition, in its ‘राष्ट्रीय जीवनचरित’ (National Biography) series, of S. V. Raju’s biography of Minoo Masani (1905-1998); the work is a translation of an English original, rendered into Hindi by the poet Saumitra Mohan (सौमित्र मोहन), and the copyright page identifies it as ‘Minoo Masani (Hindi)’. Masani is the subject, not the author. The preface opens by calling the book a life of ‘a politician of principle’ (सिद्धांतवादी राजनीतिज्ञ), and the twelve chapters follow his life in order: a Parsi family background and legal education at the London School of Economics; the Gandhian civil-disobedience years, with three jail terms (1932, 1933, 1943) and the Quit India underground; a decade as a Marxist and a founder of the Congress Socialist Party; the break with Soviet communism after his 1937 visit and his resignation from the CSP in 1939; his 1934 padyatra with Gandhi and the essay Socialism Reconsidered (1944); and sixteen years as a Tata executive. The later chapters take up his membership of the Indian Legislative Assembly and Constituent Assembly, his widening rift with Nehru, the founding of the Swatantra Party with C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) in 1959, its rise and its dissolution in 1974, his conduct as a parliamentarian, and his last phase, which covers J. P. Narayan’s movement, the Emergency, the Minorities Commission and the final books.