Krishna Hutheesing

Krishna Nehru Hutheesing (2 November 1907 – 9 November 1967) was an Indian writer, the youngest sister of Jawaharlal Nehru^[1][2] and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, and part of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Krishna Hutheesing
Born	Krishna Nehru (1907-11-02)2 November 1907 Allahabad, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, British India (present-day Prayagraj, India)
Died	9 November 1967(1967-11-09) (aged 60) London, England
Nationality	Indian
Occupation	writer
Spouse	Gunottam (Raja) Hutheesing
Children	Harsha Hutheesing Ajit Hutheesing
Parent(s)	Motilal Nehru (father) Swarup Rani Nehru (mother)
Relatives	See Nehru–Gandhi family and Hutheesing family

Biography

 

The family of Motilal Nehru, who is seated in the center. Standing (L to R) Jawaharlal Nehru, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Krishna Hutheesing, Indira Gandhi and Ranjit Sitaram Pandit; Seated: Swarup Rani, Motilal Nehru and Kamala Nehru (circa 1927).

Born Krishna Nehru, in Mirganj, Allahabad to Motilal Nehru, an Indian independence activist and leader of the Indian National Congress, and Swarup Rani, she was married to Gunottam (Raja) Hutheesing, who belonged to an Ahmedabad Jain family that built the Hutheesing Jain Temple.^[3] During the later 1950s, he became critic of Nehru and in 1959, supported former Governor General C. Rajagopalachari, to form a conservative market liberal political party known as the Swatantra Party.^[4]

 

Krishna Hutheesing meeting David Ben-Gurion (the first Prime Minister of Israel) in Israel, 1958

She and her husband fought for India's independence and spent a great deal of time in jail.^[5] Raja's terms in jail came while they were raising their two young sons, Harsha Hutheesing and Ajit Hutheesing.^{[citation needed]}

In 1950, Krishna and her husband toured the United States on a lecture tour.^[6] In late May 1958 Krishna spent three days in Israel. Her host was Yigal Alon, who a year earlier founded 'The Israel-India Friendship League' as a tool to circumvent the then Indian government policy to avoid direct diplomatic relations between the two states.

Mrs. Hutheesing documented her life as well as the lives of her brother, Jawaharlal and her niece, Indira Gandhi, in a series of books that intertwine history with personal anecdotes including We Nehrus, With No Regrets- An Autobiography, and Dear to Behold: An Intimate Portrait of Indira Gandhi

Her husband, Raja Hutheesing, also wrote books: The Great Peace: An Asian's Candid Report on Red China (1953), Window on China (1953), and Tibet fights for freedom : the story of the March 1959 uprising (1960).

Mrs. Hutheesing was associated with the 'Voice of America' and gave several talks. She died in London in 1967.^[7]

Bibliography

• Shadows On the Wall, J. Day Co., 1948.
• The Story of Gandhiji, Kutub Pub., 1949.
• We Nehrus, by Krishna (Nehru) Hutheesing with Alden Hatch. Holt, Rinehart and Winston; 1967.^[8]
• Dear to Behold: An Intimate Portrait of Indira Gandhi, Published by Macmillan, 1969.
• With No Regrets - An Autobiography, by Krishna Nehru Hutheesing, Published by READ BOOKS, 2007. ISBN 1-4067-7661-0. (Online text, 1945 edition)

References

1. Sister of Nehru Arrives For U.S. Lecture Tour New York Times, 14 January 1947.
2. "Foreign News: Clear-Eyed Sister". TIME Magazine. 3 January 1955. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
3. Time, 19 May 1958.
4. Time, 6 July 1959.
5. "When Stone Walls Cry". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
6. . TIME Magazine. 10 April 1950. Archived from the original on 31 January 2011. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
7. "Mrs. Krishna Hutheesing, an Author and a Sister of Nehru, Dies". The New York Times. 10 November 1967. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
8. "WE NEHRUS". Kirkus Reviews. 1 September 1967. Retrieved 2 July 2021.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Krishna Hutheesing.

• Krishna Nehru Hutheesing materials in the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)