Manubhai Mehta


Sir Manubhai Nandshankar Mehta CSI was the Dewan of Baroda state from 9 May 1916 to 1927. From 1927 to 1934 he was the Prime Minister of Bikanir.

Life

He was born on 22 July 1868 to Nandshankar Mehta. He was educated at Elphinstone College, Bombay. He served as Professor of Logic and Philosophy and Lecturer in Law at Baroda College during 1891-1899. He was the Private Secretary to HH Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda state during 1899-1906 and Revenue Minister and First Councillor during 1914-1916. He has also served as Dewan of Baroda state from 9 May 1916 to 1927. Then Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner state brought Manu Bhai Mehta from the Baroda state and made him the first prime minister of the Bikaner state and Chief Councillor of Bikaner State in 1927. He worked there till 1934 and till 1940 continued as Councillor of Bikaner State. He fixed the retirement age at 58 years for the employees of the Bikaner state from 55 years. He delegates on behalf of Indian States to the three Round Table Conferences in London. Sir Manubhai Mehta acted as substitute in the absence of the Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner. Similarly he attended the World Hygiene Conference in 1933 and was in Indian States' Delegate to the Joint Parliamentary Committee in 1933. He has been appointed as Home Minister of the Gwalior state in 1937.
He was considered one of the major architects of Baroda’s reforms. He led an effort to proselytize constitutional, democratic reforms throughout princely India through the organ of the Chamber of Princes beginning in the 1920s. This was called as "Mehta strategy" by Copland. By the late 1940s, virtually all major states had adopted some measure of reform like Bikaner, Kotah, Jaipur, Alwar, Dholpur and Gwalior.
Manubhai Mehta died on 14 October 1946. He was the father of Hansa Mehta.