Dhirendra Brahmachari

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Dhirendra Brahmachari was the yogic mentor of Indira Gandhi- a former Prime Minister of India. He ran ashrams in Delhi, Jammu, Katra and Mantalai (J & K) and has written some books on yoga. He was born in Bihar in 1924 and died in 1994 when his private plane crashed, an event still shrouded in mystery. He was a controversial yogi, who ran an armaments manufacturing factory and is alleged to have had an affair with Indira Gandhi according to M.O. Mathai in his book.

In 1982-83, during the tenure of Indira Gandhi, Dhirendra Brahmachari ran an immensely popular weekly yoga program on Doordarshan, India's state-owned television network.

Dhirendra Brahmachari wrote very few books on Yoga in Hindi and English. The most famous books are "Yogic Sukshma Vyayama" and "Yogasana Vijnana". His Ashram in Delhi now is called Morarji Desai National Yoga Institute. His Ashram in Mantalai, Kashmir, was closed after his death and is still not open. In the 1960's he was invited and travelled to the U.S.S.R. as a Hatha Yoga expert to train Soviet cosmonauts.