This day 100 years ago

19 April 1920

On this day 100 years ago, Gandhi wrote a letter to his close friend and personal secretary Mahadev Desai, asking him to take care of his health. Desai is often described as “Gandhi’s Boswell, a Plato to Gandhi’s Socrates, as well as Ananda to Gandhi’s Buddha.”

British anthropologist Verrier Elwin, who worked closely with Gandhi, has written that Desai was much more than just a personal secretary for Gandhi. Elwin has pointed out that Desai “was in fact Home and Foreign Secretary combined. He managed everything. He made all the arrangements. He was equally at home in the office, the guest-house and the kitchen. He looked after many guests and must have saved 10 years of Gandhi’s life by diverting from him unwanted visitors.” And Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi wrote the following about Desai — “waking up before Gandhi in pre-dawn darkness, and going to sleep long after his Master, Desai lived Gandhi’s day thrice over — first in an attempt to anticipate it, next in spending it alongside Gandhi, and finally in recording it into his diary.”