S ahgal, N ayantara

Abstract

Nayantara Sahgal was born on May 10, 1927 in Allahabad, then in British India. At the time of Sahgal's birth, her maternal uncle, Jawaharlal Nehru, was already a well‐known nationalist leader, writer, and activist. Twenty years later, he would become independent India's first prime minister. Given her family background, it should be no surprise that Sahgal's writing, both fiction and non‐fiction, demonstrates a strong interest in the Indian nation, nationalist history, and national politics. Indeed, she published two autobiographies early in her writing career – From Fear Set Free (1962) and Prison and Chocolate Cake (1966) – which document life with the first family of Indian politics and reveal her great admiration and respect for Nehru. Sahgal went on to edit the letters of Nehru and his sister Vijayalakshmi, who enjoyed a close relationship and also wrote two biographies of Indira Gandhi, her first cousin and prime minister of India from 1971 to 1977 and again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984: Indira Gandhi's Emergence and Style (1978) and Indira Gandhi: Her Road to Power (1982). Highly critical of the state of emergency declared by then Prime Minister Gandhi between 1975 and 1977, Sahgal resigned her presidency of India's national literary academy in protest and, for her outspoken views, had a promised diplomatic appointment to Italy revoked. She then lived in the United States and in Britain for a time.