Valji Govindji Desai was born on 4 December 1892 in Jetpur of Saurashtra. He passed B.A. with Sanskrit from the Elphinstone College of Mumbai in the first rank and received the Bhau Daji prize. Valji was appointed a professor of English at the Gujarat College of Ahmedabad and served as a professor in the Gujarat Vidyapith. In 1915, he resigned from the Gujarat College to attend the Congress session in Mumbai. In 1921, he joined the editorial department of ‘Young India’, an English weekly by Gandhiji. He was accused of writing anti-national articles in ‘Navjivan’ and ‘Young India’ and imprisoned for one and a half years. He was one of the 79 satyagrahis selected by Gandhi for the Dandi March started on 12 March 1930. Valji was arrested for delivering a speech and imprisoned for three months. In the second phase of the movement in 1932, he was imprisoned for six months in the Sabarmati Jail and the Visapur Camp Jail. In 1933, he was again arrested and imprisoned. He joined Gandhi in the Harijanyatra in 1934. He was in charge of publicity for the Haripura Congress session in 1938. He translated some of the books written by Gandhiji into English. He died on 22nd December 1982 in Pune, Maharashtra.
Source: Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust (https://gandhiashramsabarmati.org/), Ahmedabad
Desai, Hitendra (Compiler) (1969) ‘Swatantrya Sangramnaladvaiya, Gujarat Rajya’, Ahmedabad. Ministry of Information, Gujarat Government Secretariat