He has written and lectured relentlessly. His famous book ‘Our India’ was a bestseller and it was prescribed textbook in the schools. He had studied at Elphistone College, Bombay, London School of Economics and Lincoln’s Inn. He joined the freedom struggle and went to jail in 1932-33. Later, he joined Jayaprakash Narayan, Achyut Patwardhan, Yusuf Meherally and others and formed the Congress Socialist Party (CSP). He was elected to the Bombay Municipal Corporation in 1943 and, at 38 became its youngest Mayor.
In the beginning of his political life, he was an admirer of the Soviet Union and he had visited the country in late twenties. He was working with TATA when Gandhiji launched the ‘Quit India Movement.’ He resigned from his job and volunteered himself as a satyagrahi, courted imprisonment and found himself with other Congress leaders in Nasik jail. On his release from jail, Masani entered legislative politics and was elected to Indian Legislative Assembly.
He had played a vital role in the drafting of the Indian Constitution as a member of the Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee and Union-Powers Committee.
Minoo and Nehru were friends. However, they parted ways when, as a nominated member of the UN Sub-Commission on Minorities, he refused to turn a blind eye to the persecution of the minorities in the Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe. He was recalled and sent off in 1948 as India’s Ambassador to Brazil.
He was elected to the Lok Sabha as an Independent from Ranchi in Bihar in 1957. It signaled the beginning of his efforts to implement his thesis of a mixed economy and to combat the policies Nehruvian Socialism. In 1959, he joined C. Rajagopalachari to found the Swatantra Party which could broadly be described as a liberal-conservative party.
He was an outstanding performer in Lok Sabha between 1957 and 1971. He was chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. His bold advocacy of disparaging the ‘liberation’ of Goa' and terming it as an effort to ensure the communist Krishna Menon’s return to Parliament, his resistance to the abolition of Privy Purses made him unpopular and isolated him.
It was again in 1978 when the Janata Party was elected to power. He was appointed Chairman of the Minorities Commission. However, he soon resigned over differences on principles and approach.
He had also founded the Society for the Right to Die with Dignity and enjoyed being in the centre of a minor storm when he campaigned for passive euthanasia for the terminally ill.
The last page of his autobiography written in 1981 says:
“Since our politicians are by and large beyond repair, if India is to be saved, it will have to be saved by the small man, particularly the middle class of the cities and the landed farmers of the countryside who are the backbone of the nation. These classes have suffered cruelly under the so called ‘socialist pattern’ that Nehru imposed on the country and which is still rampant, but their back is still not broken. It is to these that I would look to save this country.”
