Purushottamdas Tandon (1882-1962) was a freedom fighter from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. He was arrested for participating in the Non-Cooperation movement and Salt Satyagraha and was popularly known as UP Gandhi.
He is widely remembered for his opposition to the partition of India, as well as for his efforts in achieving the Official Language of India status for Hindi. Despite Gandhi and other leaders advocating the adoption of Hindustani, a mixture of Hindi and Urdu, as the National language, he insisted on the usage of Devanagari script and the rejection of the Urdu script as well as words with Arabic-Persian roots.
As a staunch believer in ahimsa, he started using rubber chappals to avoid usage of leather.
He donated his Member-of-Parliament allowance to the "Public Service Fund". It was because of this natural austerity and detachment from selfish possessions that he was called a "Rajarishi" (Royal Saint).
Purushottam Das Tandon was born in Allahabad in a middle class Khatri family & was associated with the moderate Radha Soami sect. After obtaining a degree in law and an MA in history, he started practicing in 1906 and joined the bar of Allahabad High Court in 1908 while being an active Congress Party leader.