Bhai Parmanand was born into a prominent family of the Punjab, Mohyal Brahmins. His father, Tara Chand Mohyal, came from Kariala, Jhelum District and was an active religious missionary with the Arya Samaj movement.
Following the British announcement of the partition of Bengal (1905), he demanded that 'the territory beyond Sindh should be united with North-West Frontier Province into a great Musulman Kingdom. The Hindus of the region should be expelled, while at the same time the Musulmans in the rest of the country should go and settle in this territory'. This preceded the Muslim League's Pakistan Resolution by over three decades.
He was arrested in connection with the First Lahore Conspiracy Case and was sentenced to death in 1915. The sentence was later commuted to one of transportation for life: he was imprisoned in the Andaman Islands until 1920 and subjected to hard labour. In protest against such harsh treatment of political prisoners, Bhai Parmanand went on hunger strike for two months. The King-Emperor, George V, released him in 1920 as the result of a general amnesty order.
In 1930, he was the chair of the Sind Provincial Hindu Conference, where he expressed concern that Muslim creation of Pakistan would divide India. He met Gandhi again in 1933 where he analysed India as being composed of three elements: Hindus, Muslims and the British. He suggested that Gandhi had tried to bring the first two together to drive out the British, but that the British had succeeded in gaining the support of the Muslims. Gandhi replied that he was an optimist, and look forward to the day when Muslims would join with Hindus. Parmanand suggested that only if Hindus organised amongst themselves would Muslims join them as nobody associates with the weak.
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