Maurice Frydman

Maurice Frydman, aka Swami Bharatananda (born 1900, Poland - died 1976, India), was an engineer and humanitarian who spent the later part of his life in India—living at the ashram of Mahatma Gandhi and taking an active part in India's fight for independence—notably in helping to draft a new constitution for the State of Aundh that became the Aundh Experiment.

Frydman came to India in the late 1930s as a refugee from Warsaw. A successful capitalist, he was managing director of the Mysore State Government Electrical Factory in Bangalore. Eventually he was won over by Hindu philosophy and became a sannyasi. Frydman was instrumental, along with Gandhi and the Raja of Aundh, in helping to draft the November Declaration, which handed over rule of the state of Aundh from the Raja to the residents in 1938-9.

He became acquainted with one of the sons of the Raja of Aundh, and was well-regarded by the Raja himself. According to the Raja's son, Apa Pant, "Frydman had great influence with my father, and on his seventy-fifth birthday he said, 'Raja Saheb, why don't you go and make a declaration to Mahatma Gandhi that you are giving all power to the people because it will help in the freedom struggle.'"

As a sympathiser with the Indian independence movement, the Raja accepted this idea. Frydman wrote a draft declaration, and the Raja and his son, Apa Pant, travelled to see Gandhi in Wardha, where the Mahatma drew up a new constitution for the state. The constitution, which gave full responsible government to the people of Aundh, was adopted on 21 January 1939. This "Aundh Experiment" was a rare event in pre-independence India, where the rulers of princely states were generally reluctant to give up their power. After some initial hesitation among the populace of the state it proved to be very successful, lasting until the merger of the princely states into India in 1948.

While in India, Frydman became a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and lived in his ashram, where he made the spinning wheel that Gandhi himself used. Frydman used his engineering skill to create several new types of spinning wheels for Gandhi, which piqued his interest in finding the most efficient and economical spinning wheel for India.

He was close to Nehru, and was associated with Sri Ramana Maharshi and J. Krishnamurti.

A longtime friend to Advaita guru, Nisargadatta Maharaj, who considered him a Jnani, Maurice Frydman died in 1976 in India, with Sri Nisargadatta by his bedside. Frydman edited and translated Nisargadatta Maharaj's tape-recorded conversations into the English-language book I Am That, published in 1973.

Further reading

• Allen, Charles; Dwivedi, Sharada. Lives of the Indian Princes. London: Century Publishing (1984). ISBN 0 7126 0910 5.
• Alter, Joseph S. Gandhi's Body. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. ISBN 9780812235562.
• Ballhatchet, Kenneth, and David D. Taylor. Changing South Asia. Published for the Centre of South Asian Studies in the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, by Asian Research Service, 1984.
• Frydman, Maurice. Gandhiji, His Life and Work. Bombay: Karnatak Publishing House, 1944.
• Frydman, Maurice. I Am That, Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Chetana Publishing, Bombay, 1973. ISBN 0-89386-022-0.
• Gandhi, Mahatma. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi "A Discussion with Maurice Frydman", p. 320.[1]
• Pant, Apa. An Unusual Raja: Mahatma Gandhi and the Aundh Experiment. Sangam Books, 1989. ISBN 978-0861317523.
• Rothermund, Indira. The Aundh Experiment: A Gandhian Grass-roots Democracy. Somaiya, 1983. ISBN 978-0836411942.