‘Sushila Nayar devoted life to Gandhian ideals’

WARDHA: Various programmes were organized to celebrate the birth centenary of Dr Sushila Nayar, personal physician of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Science, Sevagram, on Friday.
A prarthana sabha was organized at her samadhi and a photo exhibition held. Speaking on the occasion, Shobhana Ranade, one of her colleagues at Aga Khan Palace, recalled her fond memories.Nayar was practising Gandhian ideology to the extent that when Manu Gandhi was filtering juice with an ordinary cloth, she immediately stopped her and asked her to use only khadi. Such was her devotion, said Ranade.
Nayar, who set up Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Science in 1969, confined her energies to developing and extending the body. In 1944, she set up a small dispensary at Sevagram, but it soon grew so big that it disturbed the peace of the ashram. Subsequently she shifted it to a guesthouse donated by Birla in Wardha. In 1945, this little clinic formally became the Kasturba Hospital.
Nayar also headed the Gandhi Memorial Leprosy Foundation.
Born in 1914 at Kunjah in Punjab (now in Pakistan), she studied medicine at Lady Harding Medical College. She came to Sevagram in 1939 to join her brother and soon became a close associate of the Mahatma. Cholera broke out shortly after her arrival and she tackled it almost single-handedly which won praise from Gandhi. She was later appointed as personal physician to the Mahatma.
Nayar took part in Quit India movement in 1942 for which she was imprisoned at Aga Khan Palace in Pune.
Nayar entered politics in 1952 and was health minister in Pandit Nehru’s cabinet. Later in life, she retired from active politics to devote herself to the Gandhian ideals. She died on January 3, 2000.