Nayantara Sahgal

Nayantara Sahgal ( nee' Pandit) (born 10 May 1927)

is an Indian writer who writes in English. She is a Nayantara Sahgal
member of the Nehru–Gandhi family, the second of the
three daughters born to Jawaharlal Nehru's sister,
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.

She was awarded the 1986 Sahitya Akademi Award for

her English novel Rich Like Us (1985).[1]

Early life Sahgal at a press meeting in 2016

Born Nayantara Pandit
Sahgal's father Ranjit Sitaram Pandit was a barrister 10 May 1927
from Kathiawad. Pandit was also a classical scholar Allahabad, United Provinces,
who had translated Kalhana's epic history British India
Rajatarangini into English from Sanskrit. He was Occupation Writer
arrested for his support of Indian independence and Nationality Indian
died in Lucknow prison jail in 1944, leaving behind his Alma mater Wellesley College
wife (Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit) and their three daughters
Period 20th century
Chandralekha Mehta, Nayantara Sehgal and Rita Dar.
Genre Politics, feminism
Sahgal's mother, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, was the Notable Sahitya Akademi Award
daughter of Motilal Nehru and sister of India's first awards (1985)
prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Vijaya Lakshmi had Spouse Gautam Sahgal
been active in the Indian freedom struggle, had been to ​​(m. 1949; div. 1967)​
jail for this cause and in 1946, was part of the first Edward Nirmal Mangat Rai
team representing newly formed India that went to the ​​(m. 1979; died 2003)​
then newly formed United Nations, along with Children 2, including Gita Sahgal
M.C.Chagla.[2] After India achieved independence,
Parents Ranjit Sitaram Pandit (father)
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit served as a member of India's
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
Constituent Assembly, the governor of several Indian (mother)
states, and as India's ambassador to the Soviet Union,
Relatives Jawaharlal Nehru (uncle)
the United States, Mexico, the Court of St. James,
Indira Gandhi (cousin)
Ireland, and the United Nations.

Sahgal attended a number of schools as a girl, given the turmoil in the Nehru family during the last years
(1935–47) of the Indian freedom struggle. Ultimately, she graduated from Woodstock School in the
Himalayan hill station of Mussoorie in 1943 and later in the United States from Wellesley College (BA,
1947), which she attended along with her sister Chandralekha, who graduated 2 years earlier in 1945. She
has made her home for decades in Dehradun, a town close to Mussoorie where she had attended boarding
school (at Woodstock).[4]
Marriage and career
Sahgal has been married twice, first to Gautam Sehgal and later to
Edward Nirmal Mangat Rai, a Punjabi Christian who was an
Indian Civil Service officer.[5][6] Though part of the Nehru family,
Sahgal developed a reputation for maintaining her independent
critical sense.[7] Her independent tone, and her mother's, led to
both falling out with her cousin Indira Gandhi during the most
autocratic phases of the latter's time in office in the late 1960s and
throughout the 1970s. Gandhi cancelled Sahgal's scheduled
Sahgal (right) with Frida Kahlo
appointment as India's Ambassador to Italy within days of her
(centre) in Mexico City (1947)[3]
return to power. Not one to be intimidated, Sahgal in 1982 wrote
Indira Gandhi: Her Road to Power , a scathing, insightful account
of Gandhi's rise to power.[8][9][10]

Gita Sahgal, the writer and journalist on issues of feminism,

fundamentalism, and racism, director of prize-winning documentary
films, and human rights activist, is her daughter.[11]

On 6 October 2015, Sahgal returned her Sahitya Akademi Award to

protest what she called "increasing intolerance and supporting right to Nayantara Sahgal speaking at
dissent in the country", following the murders of rationalists Govind the launch of Mistaken Identity
Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar and M. M. Kalburgi, and the Dadri mob by HarperPerennial in Delhi,
lynching incident;[12] for this she was praised in 2017 by Karima November 2007
Bennoune, United Nations monitor for cultural rights.[13] In
September 2018 she was elected as a Vice President of PEN
International.[14]

Bibliography
Prison and Chocolate Cake (memoir; 1954)[15]
A Time to Be Happy (novel; 1958)
From Fear Set Free (memoir; 1963)
This Time of Morning (novel; 1965)
Storm in Chandigarh (novel; 1969)
The Freedom Movement in India (1970)
Sunlight Surrounds You (novel; 1970) (with Chandralekha Mehta and Rita Dar i.e. her two
sisters; this was the daughters' tribute to their mother)
The Day in Shadow (novel; 1971)
A Voice for Freedom (1977)
Indira Gandhi's Emergence and Style (1978)
Indira Gandhi: Her Road to Power (novel; 1982)
Plans for Departure (novel; 1985)
Rich Like Us (novel; 1985)
 Mistaken Identity (novel; 1988)
A Situation in New Delhi (novel; 1989)
Point of View: A Personal Response to Life, Literature, and Politics (1997)
Lesser Breeds (novel; 2003)
Relationship (collection of letters exchanged between Nayantara Sahgal and E.N.Mangat
Rai;1994)[16][17]
Before freedom: Nehru's letters to his sister 1909-1947 (edited by Nayantara Sahgal)
When the Moon Shines by Day (novel, 2017)
The Fate of Butterflies (novella; 2019)

See also
Nehru-Gandhi family
Political families of India

References
1. "Sahitya Akademi Awards listings" (https://web.archive.org/web/20100925203857/http://sahit
ya-akademi.gov.in/sahitya-akademi/awards/akademi_awards.jsp). Sahitya Akademi, Official
website. Archived from the original (http://sahitya-akademi.gov.in/sahitya-akademi/awards/a
kademi_awards.jsp) on 25 September 2010. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
2. Chagla, M.C. (1 January 1974). Roses in December - an autobiography (1 ed.). Bombay:
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan., Tenth Edition, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 2000, ISBN 81-7276-203-
8
3. Prashad, Vijay. "Flashback: How Mexican artist Frida Kahlo came to be photographed in a
sari" (https://scroll.in/article/837352/flashback-how-mexican-artist-frida-kahlo-came-to-photo
graphed-in-a-sari). Scroll.in. Retrieved 24 November 2017.
4. Sahgal, Nayantara (13 October 2014). "At home in Dehradun: From Hindus to Muslims and
Christians to Buddhists--revelling in the multi-cultural hues of the Doon Valley" (https://www.
outlookindia.com/outlooktraveller/travelnews/story/45394/at-home-in-dehradun).
www.outlookindia.com. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
5. Choudhury, Sonya Dutta (2 November 2014). "Snippets from a rich life" (https://www.thehind
u.com/books/literary-review/biography-of-nayantara-sahgal-by-ritu-menon/article6555161.ec
e). The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0971-751X). Retrieved
25 May 2019.
6. Invitation card of the marriage ceremony of Km. Nayan Tara Pandit D/o Vijay Lakshmi
Pandit from J.L. Nehru on 2nd Jan 1949 (https://www.abhilekh-patal.in/jspui/handle/1234567
89/2689949) (in Hindi). New Delhi. 1949. Retrieved 12 September 2022 – via National
Archives of India.
7. "Nayantara Sahgal | Jaipur Literature Festival" (https://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/archive/jlfsp
eakers/nayantara-sahgal-2/). jaipurliteraturefestival.org. 17 September 2013. Retrieved
25 May 2019.
8. "Nayantara Sahgal -- English writer: The South Asian Literary Recordings Project" (https://w
ww.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/nayantarasahgal.html). Library of Congress. Library of
Congress New Delhi Office.
9. Choubey, Asha. "Food Metaphor. A Champion's Cause: A Feminist Study of Nayantara
Sahgal's Fiction with Special Reference to Her Last Three Novels" (http://www.postcolonialw
eb.org/india/literature/choubey2.html). Postcolonial Web.
10. "Bookshelf: Nayantara Sahgal" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160406093305/http://www.sa
wnet.org/books/authors.php?Sahgal+Nayantara). South Asian Women's NETwork. Archived
from the original (http://www.sawnet.org/books/authors.php?Sahgal+Nayantara) on 6 April
2016.
11. "Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit" (https://web.archive.org/web/20191222092019/http://allahabaddekh
o.com/Home/Vijaya_lakshmi_pandit). www.allahabaddekho.com. Archived from the original
(http://allahabaddekho.com/Home/Vijaya_lakshmi_pandit) on 22 December 2019. Retrieved
24 December 2019.
12. Ramachandran, Smriti Kak; Raman, Anuradha (6 October 2015). "Nayantara Sahgal
protests Dadri lynching, returns Akademi award" (http://www.thehindu.com/news/nayantara-
sahgal-to-return-her-sahitya-akademi-award/article7730676.ece). The Hindu. Retrieved
7 October 2015.
13. "UN Body Praises Author Nayantara Sahgal For Returning Sahitya Akademi Award After
Dadri Lynching" (https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/un-body-praises-author-nayant
ara-sahgal-for-returning-sahitya-akademi-award-afte/303482). Outlook India. 26 October
2017. Retrieved 28 October 2017.
14. "The 84th PEN International Congress closes in India with a focus on free expression and
women writers" (https://pen-international.org/news/the-84th-pen-international-congress-clos
es-in-india-with-a-focus-on-free-expression-and-women-writers). peninternational.org. 8
October 2018. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
15. Sage, Lorna; Greer, Germaine; Showalter, Elaine (30 September 1999). The Cambridge
Guide to Women's Writing in English (https://books.google.com/books?id=NB59uc9_ss8C&
dq=%22Prison+and+Chocolate+Cake%22&pg=PA551). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. p. 551. ISBN 0-521-49525-3.
16. Alok Rai (30 June 1994). "Lost labour" (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/book-review-nayant
ara-sahgal-and-e-n-mangat-rai-relationship-extracts-from-a-correspondence/1/293578.htm
l). India Today. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
17. Nayantara Sahgal, E.N.Mangat Rai (25 August 2008). Relationship. Harper Collins. p. 336.
ISBN 9788172236823.

Further reading
Ritu Menon, "Out of line: A literary and political biography of Nayantara Sahgal. 2014".
Asha Choubey, "The Fictional Milieu of Nayantara Sahgal: A Feminist Perspective. New
Delhi: Classical. 2002."
Asha Choubey, "A Champion's Cause: A Feminist Study of Nayantara Sahgal's Fiction with
Special Reference to Her Last Three Novels".

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