Piloo Mody (14 November 1926 – 29 January 1983) was an Indian

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and politician and one of the founding members of the

Swatantra Party The Swatantra Party was an Indian classical liberal political party that existed from 1959 to 1974. It was founded by C. Rajagopalachari in reaction to what he felt was the Jawaharlal Nehru-dominated Indian National Congress's increasingly so ...

. Elected to the

4th Fourth or the fourth may refer to: * the ordinal form of the number 4 * ''Fourth'' (album), by Soft Machine, 1971 * Fourth (angle), an ancient astronomical subdivision * Fourth (music), a musical interval * ''The Fourth'', a 1972 Soviet drama ...

and 5th

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament of India which is Bicameralism, bicameral, where the upper house is Rajya Sabha. Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by a ...

s, he served in the

Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha (Council of States) is the upper house of the Parliament of India and functions as the institutional representation of India’s federal units — the states and union territories.https://rajyasabha.nic.in/ It is a key component o ...

from 1978 until his death.

Personal life

A member of the

Parsi The Parsis or Parsees () are a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Persian refugees who migrated to the Indian subcontinent during and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, w ...

community Piloo Mody was one of the sons of Sir Homi Mody. He was educated at

The Doon School The Doon School (informally Doon School or Doon) is a Selective school, selective all-boys Private school, private boarding school in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, which was established in 1935. It was envisioned by Satish Ranjan Das, a lawyer ...

Dehradun Dehradun (), also known as Dehra Doon, is the winter capital and the List of cities in Uttarakhand by population, most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous Dehradun district, d ...

. After School he attended Sir J. J. College of Architecture and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, from where he graduated with a master's degree in

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) was a Pakistani barrister and politician who served as the fourth president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and later as the ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan, prime minister of Pakistan from 19 ...

, who went on to become

Prime Minister of Pakistan The prime minister of Pakistan (, Roman Urdu, romanized: Wazīr ē Aʿẓam , ) is the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen Cabinet of Pakistan, cabinet, desp ...

in the 1970s, was his college roommate and the two were close friends. He was married to an American, Lavina Colgan Mody, who was a fellow architect student at Berkeley on 3 January 1953. He had 2 brothers, Kali Mody, a pioneer of credit card operations in India and

Russi Mody Rustomji Homusji Mody, known to most as Russi Mody (17 January 1918 – 16 May 2014), was a chairman and managing director of Tata Steel and a leading member of the Tata Group. Early years Russi was born on 17 January 1918 in Bombay (now ...

, a former chairman of the Tata Iron and Steel company Limited.

Work as architect

After his stint at Berkeley he returned to India. He worked for two years spent on the Chandigarh Capital Project. He also designed the Chennai headquarters of Engineering Construction Corporation, a former subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Ltd. It won the ''Federation Internationale de la Precontrainte'' prize for excellence in pre-stressed concrete from India. Piloo and Vina set up an architecture firm Mody and Colgan in 1953 at Stadium House, Churchgate.Their first project was a residential apartment at Marine Lines for senior officials of TISCO. They also designed the front casing of one model of Voltas Air conditioner. Piloo's other projects include residential project Olympus, three TELCO offices, the headquarters of Bharat Bijlee, Mukand Iron and Steel, Sandoz, Voltas and Diners Club and Business Service centres.

Political life

In political life Mody was an advocate of

liberalism Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. ...

and freedom. He was associated with Swatantra Party at its founding. According to his wife Vina, So he became a founding member of Swatantra Party. At the 1967 general election he was elected to the

4th Lok Sabha The 4th Lok Sabha was in session from 4 March 1967 to 27 December 1970. Its members were elected in February and March 1967. 13 sitting members from the Rajya Sabha were elected to the 4th Lok Sabha in the general election.Indira Gandhi was th ...

, representing the Godhra constituency in

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

. In 1971 he was re-elected and served in the

5th Lok Sabha The 5th Lok Sabha (15 March 1971 — 18 January 1977) was elected during February–March 1971.The term of the House was extended two times by one year at a time. However, the House was dissolved after having been in existence for a period of ...

until March 1977. In 1972 he was instrumental in promoting the Architects' Act. In 1975, at the time of the Emergency in India, Mody was arrested on the orders of the

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and stateswoman who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 un ...

government, using the controversial powers granted by the

Maintenance of Internal Security Act The Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was a controversial law passed by the Indian parliament in 1971 giving the administration of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Indian law enforcement agencies very broad powers – indefinite pr ...

.Modi was arrested
/ref> After an absence of a year from parliament, on 10 April 1978 Mody joined the

and served there until his death in 1983. The Piloo Mody College of Architecture, at Cuttack, Orissa, and a

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

chess tournament are named in his honour.

Works

* ''Zulfi, My Friend'' (1973) * ''Democracy Means Bread and Freedom'' (1979)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mody, Piloo Parsi people University of California, Berkeley alumni India MPs 1967–1970 India MPs 1971–1977 1926 births 1983 deaths Rajya Sabha members from Gujarat The Doon School alumni English-language writers from India Swatantra Party politicians Indian people imprisoned during the Emergency (India) 20th-century Indian architects Artists from Gujarat Indian political writers 20th-century Indian writers Writers from Gujarat Lok Sabha members from Gujarat Indian expatriates in the United States