page_title: Ranjit Sitaram Pandit
section_title: Non-cooperation movement
hierarchical_section_title: Ranjit Sitaram Pandit / Non-cooperation movement
caption_attribution_description: English: A Family group, from left seated: Swarup Rani Nehru, Motilal Nehru, Kamala Nehru. Standing: Jawaharlal Nehru, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Krishna Kumari (Krishna Hutheesingh), Indira and R.S. Pandit
context_page_description: Ranjit Sitaram Pandit was an Indian barrister, Congressman, linguist and scholar from Rajkot in the Kathiawar district of British India. He is known for his role in the Indian non-cooperation movement, and for translating the Sanskrit texts Mudrarakshasa, Ṛtusaṃhāra and Kalhana's Rajatarangini into English.
  He was the husband of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, the son-in-law of Motilal Nehru, brother-in-law of Jawaharlal Nehru and father of Nayantara Sahgal.
  Until 1926, he was a barrister in Calcutta, a position he resigned to join the Indian non-cooperation movement. In 1930, he was the Secretary of the Peshawar Enquiry Committee, which investigated the troubles in the North West Frontier Province. Later, he was appointed a Member of the Legislative Assembly of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.
  Pandit died in 1944, shortly after being released from his fourth imprisonment by the British.
context_section_description: On 1 March 1926, Pandit, together with his wife Vijaya Lakshmi, his brother-in-law Jawaharlal Nehru, sister-in-law Kamala Nehru and niece Indira, sailed to Europe on the Lloyd liner Triestino. He returned with Vijaya Lakshmi the following November. Until this European trip, Pandit was a successful lawyer who practiced in what was then called Calcutta with Sir B. L. Mitter. Against the wishes of his family in Rajkot, he became a Satyagrahi and joined Mahatma Gandhi and Motilal Nehru in the Indian non-cooperation movement and settled in Allahabad, where he took up cases in the courts. Later, they moved to Khali, in the hills near Almora.
  When the Indian National Congress's 1928 proposal for Dominion status was rejected by the British, the party took a pledge of non-cooperation and demanded "complete independence". Vijaya Lakshmi later recorded in her autobiography, that on 29 December 1929, upon the declaration of independence by the Congress's then president Jawaharlal Nehru, Pandit joined him in the celebrations.
  In 1930, Motilal Nehru appointed Pandit the Secretary of the Peshawar Enquiry Committee, to investigate troubles in the North West Frontier Province. Its report was published by Allahabad's Law Journal Press. In 1937, he was listed in The Indian Annual Register as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of United Provinces of Agra and Oudh (UP), to which he was elected along with Vijaya Lakshmi.
  He served several prison terms, including two prison sentences with Jawaharlal Nehru, one in Naini Central Jail in 1931 and another at Dehradun. His daughter, Nayantara, later described how she ate chocolate cake the day her father first went to prison. She later became a writer, and associating chocolate cake with prison, wrote a book titled Prison and Chocolate Cake.
caption: Nehru-Gandhi family group photo. R. S. Pandit is standing at the far right.[20]
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