Jawaharlal Nehru

1. Born: November 14, 1889Died: May 27, 1964Achievements: Took active part in NonCooperation Movement, elected President of the Allahabad Municipal Corporation in 1924, and served for two years as the citys chief executive, Presided over Congress annual session in Lahore in 1929 and passed a resolution demanding Indias independence, elected as Congress President in 1936, 1937, and 1946, became first Prime Minister of independent India, was one of th .....

Early years

2. Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889, to a wealthy Kashmiri Brahmin family in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. His father Motilal Nehru was a renowned advocate and also an influential politician.The atmosphere in the Nehru family was different from that of other prominent families of that society. English was spoken and encouraged. His father, Motilal Nehru had appointed some English and Scottish teachers at home.For higher education, young Neh .....

Education

3. At the age of 16, Nehru went to England to study at the prestigious Harrow School (Winston Churchills alma mater). Two years later, in 1907, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where in 1910 he took an honors degree in natural sciences botany, chemistry and geology. The young Indian nationalist also dabbled in history, literature and politics, as well as Keynesian economics, during his university days.In October of 1910, Nehru joined the Inne .....

Kamala his wife

4. Upon his return to India, Nehrus marriage was arranged with Kamala on 8 February, 1916. Brought up in a traditional Hindu Brahmin family, Kamala felt alienated amongst the progressive Nehrus. During the Non Cooperation movement of 1921, Kamala played a vital role. In Allahabad, she organized groups of women and picketed shops selling foreign cloth and liquor. On19 November, 1917 she gave birth to Indira Priyadarshini, popularly known as Indira Ga .....

Freedom Struggle

5. In 1916, Nehru participated in the Lucknow Session of the Congress. There, after a very long time, member of both the extremist and moderate factions of the Congress party had come. All the members equivocally agreed to the demand for swaraj (self rule). Although the means of the two sections were different, the motive was common freedom.In 1921 Nehru was imprisoned for participating in the first civil disobedience campaign as general secretary .....

European Tour

6. In 1926, he along with his wife Kamala and daughter India, traveled to the flourished European nations like Germany, France and the Soviet Union. Here, Nehru got an opportunity to meet various Communists, Socialists, and radical leaders from Asia and Africa. Nehru was also impressed with the economic system of the communist Soviet Union and wished to apply the same in his own country. In 1927, he became a member of the League against Imperialism .....

Nehru as PM

7. Fifteen years after the Guwahati Session, on 15 August, 1947, the congress succeeded to overthrow the influential British Empire. Nehru was recognized as the first Prime Minister of independent India. He was the first PM to hoist the national flag and make a speech from the ramparts of Lal Quila (Red Fort). The time had come to implement his ideas and construct a healthy nation.Following Gandhis assassination in 1948, Jawaharlal Nehru felt very m .....

Nehrus Foreign Policy

8. Jawaharlal Nehru was supporter of the antiimperialist policy. He extended his support for the liberation of small and colonized nations of the world. He was also one of the prominent architects of the NonAligment Movement. Following the policies of NAM, India decided stay away from being a part of the global bifurcation. .....

Controvery

9. In 1957, despite of the major victory attained the elections, the Nehru led central government faced rising problems and criticism. The election of his daughter Indira as Congress President in 1959 was viewed by many, as Nepotism. .....

Political apprenticeship

10. On his return to India, Nehru at first tried to settle down as a lawyer. But, unlike his father, he had only a desultory interest in his profession and did not relish either the practice of law or the company of lawyers. At this time he might be described, like many of his generation, as an instinctive nationalist who yearned for his countrys freedom, but, like most of his contemporaries, he had not formulated any precise ideas on how it could be .....

Imprisonment during World War II

11. When, at the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, committed India to war without consulting the autonomous provincial ministries, the Congress Partys high command withdrew its provincial ministries as a protest. Congresss action left the political field virtually open to Jinnah and the Muslim League. Nehrus views on the war differed from those of Gandhi. Initially, Gandhi believed that whatever support was giv .....

Achievements as prime minister

12. In the 35 years from 1929, when Gandhi chose Nehru as president of the Congress session at Lahore, until his death as prime minister in 1964, Nehru remained despite the debacle of the brief conflict with China in 1962 the idol of his people. His secular approach to politics contrasted with Gandhis religious and traditionalist attitude, which during Gandhis lifetime had given Indian politics a religious cast misleadingly so, for, although Gandhi m .....

Assessment

13. While assertive in his Indianness, Nehru never exuded the Hindu aura and atmosphere clinging to Gandhis personality. Because of his modern political and economic outlook, he was able to attract the younger intelligentsia of India to Gandhis movement of nonviolent resistance against the British and later to rally them around him after independence had been gained. Nehrus Western upbringing and his visits to Europe before independence had acclimati .....

Politics and the Independence Struggle

14. Jawaharlal Nehru returned to India in August of 1912, where he began a halfhearted practice of law in the Allahabad High Court. Young Nehru disliked the legal profession, finding it stultifying and insipid.He was much more inspired by the 1912 annual session of the Indian National Congress (INC), however, the INC dismayed him with its elitism. Nehru joined a 1913 campaign led by Mohandas Gandhi, in the start of a decadeslong collaboration. Over t .....

Call for Home Rule

15. Even during the war, as early as 1915, Jawaharlal Nehru began to call for Home Rule for India. This meant that India would be a selfgoverning Dominion, yet still considered a part of the United Kingdom, much like Canada or Australia.Nehru joined the All India Home Rule League, founded by family friend Annie Besant, a British liberal and advocate for Irish and Indian selfrule. The 70yearold Besant was such a powerful force that the British governm .....

Declaration of Independence

16. The Indian nationalist movement leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru, hardened their stance against British rule in wake of the horrific Amritsar Massacre in 1919. Nehru was jailed for the first time in 1921 for his advocacy of the noncooperation movement. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Nehru and Gandhi collaborated ever more closely in the Indian National Congress, each going to prison more than once for civil disobedience actions.In 1927, Nehru .....

Nehrus Vision for India

17. During the early 1930s, Nehru emerged as the political leader of the Indian National Congress, while Gandhi moved into a more spiritual role. Nehru drafted a set of core principles for India between 1929 and 1931, called the Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy, which was adopted by the All India Congress Committee. Among the rights enumerated were freedom of expression, freedom of religion, protection of regional cultures and languages, abolit .....

Partition and Prime Ministership

18. The British released Nehru from prison after the war was over in Europe, and he immediately began to play a key role in negotiations over the future of India. Initially, he vigorously opposed plans to divide the country along sectarian lines into a predominantlyHindu India and a predominantlyMuslim Pakistan, but when bloody fighting broke out between members of the two religions, he reluctantly agreed to the split.After the Partition of India, Pa .....

Sino Indian War of 1962

19. In 1959, Prime Minister Nehru granted asylum to the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan refugees from Chinas 1959 Invasion of Tibet. This sparked tensions between the two Asian superpowers, which already had unsettled claims to the Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh areas in the Himalaya Mountain range. Nehru responded with his Forward Policy, placing military outposts along the disputed border with China, beginning in 1959.On October 20, 1962, China laun .....

The Pandits Legacy

20. Many observers expected Parliament member Indira Gandhi to succeed her father, even though he had voiced opposition to her serving as Prime Minister for fear of dynastism. Indira turned down the post at that time, however, and Lal Bahadur Shastri took over as the second prime minister of India.Indira would later become the third prime minister, and her son Rajiv was the sixth to hold that title. Jawaharlal Nehru left behind the worlds largest dem .....

Death

21. Nehrus party was reelected to the majority in 1962, but with smaller percentages of the vote than before. His health began to fail, and he spent a number of months in Kashmir during 1963 and 1964, trying to recuperate.Nehru returned to Delhi in May of 1964, where he suffered a stroke and then a heart attack on the morning of May 27. He died that afternoon. .....