Anand was born Dharamdev Pishorimal Anand on 26 September 1923 in the Shakargarh Tehsil of the Gurdaspur district in Punjab, British India (now Narowal District, Punjab, Pakistan).
His father Pishori Lal Anand was a prominent lawyer in Gurdaspur District Court. Pishori Lal Anand was also a freedom fighter and scholar affiliated with the Arya Samaj organisation, who would study world religions in different languages (the Bhagavad-Gita in Sanskrit, the Bible in Hebrew, the Qur'an in Arabic while he also knew Persian). His mother was Indravati.
Dev was the third of four sons born to Pishori Lal Anand. One of Dev's younger sisters Sheel Kanta Kapur, is the mother of film director Shekhar Kapur. His older brothers included Manmohan Anand (Advocate, Gurdaspur Dist. Court) and Chetan Anand, while Vijay Anand was his younger brother.
Anand did his schooling till matriculation from Sacred Heart School, Dalhousie (then in Punjab), and went to Government College Dharamshala before going to Lahore to study. Later Dev completed a B.A. degree in English Literature from the Government College, Lahore in British India. Part of the Anand family, he co-founded Navketan Films in 1949 with his elder brother Chetan Anand.
