Who served as Mahatma Gandhi’s longtime personal secretary and close associate?

Mahadev Desai served as Mahatma Gandhi’s longtime personal secretary and close associate.

Desai joined Gandhi’s work in the 1910s and became one of his most trusted assistants. He handled correspondence, translated material, recorded conversations, organized schedules, and helped communicate Gandhi’s political and social ideas to a wide audience.

His diaries and writings are important sources for understanding Gandhi’s campaigns and daily life. Desai accompanied Gandhi during major phases of the Indian independence movement, including periods of imprisonment and negotiations with British officials. His role was much broader than clerical work: he was also a writer, translator, editor, and political aide.

Desai died in 1942 while detained with Gandhi at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune, where the British government held several leaders after the Quit India Movement began. Pyarelal Nayyar later became another prominent secretary and chronicler of Gandhi, which sometimes causes the two men to be confused.