Career
He is remembered as the manager of Gandhi"s publications such as Navajivan and Young India and for having inspired Gandhi to pen his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Swami Anand was brought up and educated at Bombay. Anand"s entry into the freedom movement was through his association with the revolutionaries of Bengal in 1907.
Later, he worked in the Kesari, the Marathi newspaper founded by Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
Gandhi first met Anand in Bombay on 10 January 1915 the day after he had returned from South Africa for good. Gandhi launched his weekly, the Navjeevan from Ahmedabad four years later.
Its inaugural issue came out in September 1919 and soon the workload increased. lieutenant was at this juncture that Gandhi sent for Anand to become the manager of the publication.
Swami Anand took over its management in late 1919.
He proved to be a good editor and manager and when the Young India was launched, he moved the publication to larger premises and with printing equipment donated by Maulana Mohammed Ali, its publication began. Gandhi"s autobiography was serialised in the Navjeevan from 1925 – 1928. lieutenant was written by Gandhi at Swami Anand"s insistence and an English translation of these chapters appeared in instalments in the Young India as well.
Later, The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi was published based on the talks Gandhi gave at the Satyagraha Ashram in Ahmedabad in 1926.
Swami Anand played a role in inspiring Gandhi to write this work as well. He was Vallabhai Patel"s secretary during the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928.
He also worked with the adivasis of Bordi in Gujarat and, following Partition in 1947, amongst refugees from Sialkot and Hardwar. At Bordi, Swami Anand founded the Gandhi Ashram in 1931.
lieutenant soon became a centre of Gandhian activities in the region and was, during the Non Cooperation Movement, confiscated by the British authorities.
After Independence, Swami Anand took an active interest in agriculture and agrarian issues. He was concerned about agricultural productivity and livelihoods in India but had deep respect for the practical wisdom of small farmers across India. He was inspired by George Washington Carver and Robert Oppenheimer, whose biography he wrote.
From 1957 till his death in 1976, he made the Kosbad Agricultural Institute at Dahanu, near Mumbai his home.
