Pandit J Nehru

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Why Jawaharlal Nehru is the root cause of India's economictroubles

Arvind Kumar & Arun Narendhranath| Agency: DNA | Monday, July 11, 2011

This is the second of the eight part series in which the authors track the contemporary history of the Indian economy. This part

deals with the various steps taken by the Indian government that overcame the opposition and put India on the path of

socialism.

In the early 1950s, India commanded great prestige around the world and there was anticipation that India would take its place

among the leaders of the world. It was against this background that Jawaharlal Nehru set about putting in place an economic

policy for India.

By this time, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had passed away and Rajendra Prasad had been elevated to President.

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Rajagopalachari, once a supporter of socialism, had not yet transformed himself into a supporter of laissez faire. Syama Prasad

Mookerjee, Nehrus fiercest critic in Parliament and who had been instrumental in excluding trade, commerce, and the

production and distribution of goods from the purview of the executive, was now more concerned about the problems created by

Pakistan.

Thus, Nehru had a free reign and one of his first steps was to set up the Planning Commission on the lines of the Gosplan of the

Soviet Union. He would also imitate the Soviet Union by drawing up Five Year Plans. At the time of drafting the first Five Year

Plan, Nehru was ambivalent and talked of a mixed economy that would accommodate the private sector.

However, as his power grew, he imposed controls on the press while progressively decreasing the economic freedoms of the

people. As a result, the voices of dissent got muffled, and even some opponents of socialism, who were Nehrus colleagues,

defended the nationalisation of industries in order to be in Nehrus good books.

As part of his plan to usher in an era of socialism, Nehru amended the Indian Constitution to dilute the property rights of

citizens and allow for the nationalisation of any industry.

New laws in the name of land reform imposed limits on the amount of land one could own and gave the government sweeping

powers to acquire private, industrial, and agricultural land. The resulting fragmentation of land contributed to the destruction of

the agriculture industry.

By 1954, Nehru got Parliament to accept the socialist pattern of society as the aim of economic development, and in early

1955, at the Avadi session of the Indian National Congress, the resolution now known as the Avadi Resolution was passed.

This resolution used communist language and called for the establishment of a socialistic pattern of society where the principal

means of production are under social ownership or control and there is equitable distribution of the national wealth.

While the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1948 made it seem that India would have a mixed economy, the 1956 version

permitted only the government to undertake new ventures in several sectors such as textiles, automobiles, and defence.

The government would also exercise exclusive control over many other sectors. As for the rest of private enterprise, the state

would progressively participate and would not hesitate to intervene if it found progress to be unsatisfactory.

Just months before Sardar Patel passed away, he had stated, A government which engages itself in trading activities will come

to grief, but the industrial resolution of 1956 also called for the state to increasingly participate in trading.

The Second Five Year Plan was based on the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 and reasserted the economic goal as the

socialist pattern of society. Clearly, Nehru had become bolder and no longer sought shelter behind the claim of favouring a

mixed economy. The economy was now modelled after that of the Soviet Union, and citizens were stripped of the right to

indulge in many forms of commercial activities.

In response to the Second Plan, a new organisation named the Forum of Free Enterprise announced itself through the

publication of a manifesto in major newspapers. This manifesto pointed out that free enterprise was an essential part of a

democratic setup and attributed the development of the steel, sugar, textile, cement, shipping, banking and insurance industries

to the qualities of free enterprise. It described free enterprise as the life breath of a free society and a way of life which all
http://www.dnaindia.com/authors/arvind-kumar-arun-narendhranathhttp://www.dnaindia.com/authors/arvind-kumar-arun-narendhranathhttp://www.dnaindia.com/authors/arvind-kumar-arun-narendhranath


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Education of Jawaharlal Nehru

Celebrating the 118th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of India. He was also a major persona in the IndianIndependence movement. The early education of Jawaharlal Nehru played a major role in his political viewsand economic policies.

Jawaharlal Nehru was the son of Motilal Nehru. Motilal Nehru was a wealthy barrister by profession. Hepracticed English law in the colonial Indian courts. The family belonged to the educated genteel class. It wasalso to a large extent anglicized. Jawaharlal Nehru received primary education under the guidance of anEnglish governess. Young Jawaharlal was taught to converse in English from an early age. He also learnt theappropriate customs of the British Raj.

Motilal Nehru wanted his son to get a proper English education. He wished his son to qualify for and serve theIndian Civil Services or I.C.S. He sent his son Jawaharlal to Harrow, the elite Public school in England.Jawaharlal Nehru was to spend the next six years of his life by studying at the hallowed portals of Harrow andCambridge.

The young Jawaharlal did not enjoy his schooling at Harrow. He found the school syllabus stifling and thestandard of residency conditions unbearable. All students of the school were forced to condition themselves tothe daily specter of bathing and washing themselves in cold water. After completing school, Nehru took theUniversity of Cambridge entrance examinations in 1907. The same year, he got admission into the University.

Jawaharlal Nehru studied natural sciences at Cambridge University. His chosen subjects were physics,

chemistry and geology. Jawaharlal Nehru was weak in mathematics. For this reason, Physics was latersubstituted by botany.

The tripos subjects taken up at Cambridge University were not voluntarily chosen by Nehru. He studied thethree natural science subjects with only one aim, to pass the Indian Civil Services examination. Nevertheless,Jawaharlal Nehru enjoyed his stay at Cambridge. The liberal atmosphere of the University encouraged him todo a host of non-academic activities. Jawaharlal Nehru passed the final Cambridge degree examinationssuccessfully, where he stood second.

Jawaharlal Nehru joined the Inner Temple for his legal studies in October 1910. This decision, again, was nottaken due to Nehru's fascination with the law. The event merely marked a career move as charted by hisbarrister father Motilal Nehru. Jawaharlal Nehru passed the Bar final examination in 1912. After clearing theexamination, he was called to the bar later that year.

Nehru's education years at England fostered in him the Indian nationalist movement. He believed that the

colonial English administration willfully discriminated against Indians. This thinking was further fueled by theabrasive attitude of the British Imperial order against Indians. Jawaharlal was attracted by the socialism of theBritish Fabians. The forte of equality in socialism acted as a magnet for the impressionable Jawaharlal Nehru.

Jawaharlal Nehru was very much influenced by the socialist and liberal political atmosphere prevalent inEurope in those days. The 1900s heralded the culmination of the Western Age of Enlightenment. Theatmosphere of liberalism prevalent in that era emphasized the importance of the rights of the individual. Italso emphasized on the rights of the equality of opportunity. This liberal viewpoint came to prominence duringNehru's later years. His British sojourn also instilled in him a secular ethos that was far ahead of his time. Thismoral uprightness would help him to dream of a new India that would accommodate citizens of all religions.

London was a hotbed of political movements in the early part of the 20th century. The student JawaharlalNehru liked to visit the cultural attractions of the capital city of the British Empire. He frequented themuseums, opera houses and the theaters of London. Nehru was influenced by the deep social cauldron of pre-World War I London. Socialism was one of the prominent influences affecting the English political class at that

time.

The early education of Jawaharlal Nehru influenced him in his later life. The influence was clearly visible on theeconomic policies adopted by the Indian state after its independence in 1947. Nehru clearly favored a moresocialist approach when compared to other South Asian economies. The first Prime Minister was clearlythinking about his heady educational period in London when he promulgated the socialist ideology thatinfluenced Indian government of the 1950's. The economy was treated with a mixed control. The Indiangovernment was in control of the primary industries like electricity, mining and heavy engineering workshops.

The socialist leaning of Jawaharlal Nehru was apparent in the land redistribution program announced by theIndian government in the middle of the 20th century. The rural sector was given importance. Nehru correctlythought that since the majority of the Indian population lived in its villages, the rural sector should also get alion's share of the country's economic resources. Dams were built. Canals were dug. The British education ofNehru is starkly visible in the promotion of fertilizers to increase the crop yield of the land.


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The British education of Jawaharlal Nehru is also displayed in the Prime Minister's quest for independentenergy sufficiency. Nehru actively promoted the acquiring and development of Nuclear Energy. Hydro-electricpower projects were also enthusiastically taken. The License Raj was also his creation.

Childhood and Family of Jawaharlal Nehru


Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, had a strong and influential lineage. Born on the 14th ofNovember, 1889 at Allahabad, Jawaharlal Nehru was the eldest child of Motilal Nehru and Swarup Rani. Hisfamily was from Kashimiri heritage and belonged to a high Hindu caste. They were Saraswat Brahmins, who

were revered greatly in Allahabad in those days. Originally part of the Kashmiri Pandit community, the Nehrushad to shift to what was called United Provinces. But the family gelled well with the people there and MotilalNehru, Jawaharlal's father, started practicing law in Allahabad. He was also a highly influential man, bothsocially as well as politically. He was a learned scholar too. He excelled in several languages that includedPersian, Urdu, Arabic, English and many more.

Jawaharlal Nehru and his entire family lived in a large house called 'Anand Bhawan' in Allahabad. The house isstill there. Motilal Nehru was a successful man, who was also well known in the society. He was a barrister byprofession and won several accolades for his legal works from different spheres. All these brought him lot ofname and fame. As a result, he could give his children the best of everything in life. Jawaharlal Nehru was hisonly son, while he also had two beautiful daughters named Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and Krishna Pandit. Nodiscrimination was made between the son and daughters in the family. All of them were provided qualityeducation and privileges. All the children were brought amidst immense luxury and comfort. With a swimmingpool and a tennis court in the house premises, Jawaharlal Nehru led a lavish life.

Motilal Nehru never compromised on the education and other facilities that are required to make a happyupbringing for children. He emphasized on English and western education for his children. Jawaharlal Nehrureceived his initial education at home under an English governess. Hindi and Sanskrit were also taught to thechildren at the Nehru House. Training was also provided to converse in English fluently. Apart from formaleducation, various English mannerisms and customs were also taught to Jawaharlal Nehru in his childhooddays. The dresses that were adorned by the Nehru family also reflected English style. After some formaleducation at home, Jawaharlal Nehru also went to a local convent school in Allahabad. At the age of fifteen, hewent to England to study at Harrow.

The illustrious family of the Nehrus had a deep impact on the life and childhood of Jawaharlal Nehru. At home,his mother practiced several staunch Hindu customs and even tried to influence young Nehru by them. But shewas not much successful in it. Motilal was not a very strong follower of religion, but he was not an absoluteatheist too. Motilal Nehru was concerned about very minute details regarding his son. He corresponded withhis son, even when he was abroad and enquired about every small detail regarding his stay, studies and all

the other curricular activities. Even after coming back from abroad, Jawaharlal Nehru began a firm and solidcareer with the help of his father. He attained instant fame and glory in his profession and made himself andhis family proud.

Motilal Nehru was an active member of the Indian National Congress, which had also influenced and helped inshaping the political life of Jawaharlal Nehru. Motilal Nehru shared extremely good and cordial relation with theBritish officials. He had a strong belief on British justice and British promises. Several incidents have beensited when Motilal Nehru had been in support of the British officers. His home was also open to various Britishofficers. British officers also respected him and his family and welcomed them to their homes. As a result ofthis intermingling, Jawaharlal Nehru and his two sisters also got opportunities to have a glimpse of Britishlifestyle. Some of the British officers could also fluently speak Urdu and Hindi.

Motilal Nehru was a stylish man and he loved to live life luxuriously. He was a follower of beauty and beautifulthings. He had the passion of collecting various beautiful articles from various parts of India as well as fromforeign countries. He had made a huge collection of artifacts that were considered as masterpieces and rare

articles. One of the most important facts that were seen in the family of Jawaharlal Nehru was that, therewere no class restrictions or class distinctions. People of all castes and religions were accepted and welcomedin 'Anand Bhawan'. There were many servants in the Nehru household, who belonged to different castes andreligions. The doors of 'Anand Bhawan' remained open for all people irrespective of differences in caste andreligion.

Another important part of the family of Jawaharlal Nehru was the active participation of his two sisters, VijayaLakshmi Pandit and Krishna Pandit in various matters of the family as well as in politics. They supported himand he had a great influence on their lives. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit mentioned in one of her lectures about thechildhood they had spent together. She also emphasized on the influence that Jawaharlal Nehru had on herpolitical career and personal life.

Jawaharlal Nehru did not have a blissful married life. He was married at a young age in the year 1916. Whenhe was at Harrow, Motilal Nehru and his wife decided to find a perfect match for Jawaharlal Nehru. Theystarted their search and found Kamala Kaul, a girl from a middle-class Kashmiri Brahmin family in 1912. She
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was a thirteen year old girl, well-educated at home and knew Hindu and Urdu. They waited till 1916, whenKamala attained the age of seventeen years. Kamala was finally married to Jawaharlal Nehru in February,1916.

The initial years of marriage were not very happy for Kamala as Nehru was then basking in glory and paidlittle importance to the home front. Kamala Nehru was a strong woman and she endured all this without anyprotest. She also had to endure several blunt remarks from her husband's relatives regarding her inferiorsocial origins. But she did not retaliate to any of these. She began to involve herself in the Indian freedomstruggle and even went to the prison. This event also helped her to come closer to her husband. JawaharlalNehru and Kamala Nehru also had a beautiful daughter in 1917, who was called Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi.Kamala Nehru also gave birth to a pre-matured baby boy, who died in 1924. After that she underwent amiscarriage after three years.

Kamala Nehru could not bear this trauma and fell seriously ill. She was diagnosed of tuberculosis andunderwent treatment in various hospitals in the country as well as abroad. It was during this time thatJawaharlal Nehru realized his love and passion for her. He used to visit her regularly and even took her abroadfor treatment. They also spent few days in Switzerland. Finally she breathed her last in 1936.

To summarize, it has been observed that childhood of Jawaharlal Nehru had a great influence on the later lifeof this great Indian personality. Though he was brought up amidst immense luxury and glory, it did notrestrict him from mingling with general masses and feeling their pulse. His family also had a great influence onhis social and political career.


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Born: 14 November 1889

Passed Away: 27 May 1964

Contributions

Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of independent India. He was a member theCongress Party that led the freedom movement against British Empire. Nehru was one ofthe architects who had the opportunity to steer the newly freed-nation. He was also thechief framer of domestic and international policies between 1947 and 1964. It was underNehru's supervision that India launched its first Five-Year Plan in 1951. Nehru'spredominant roles in substantiating India's role in the foundation of institutions like NAMhad surprised the then stalwarts of international politics. He advocated the policy of Non-Alignment during the cold war and India, subsequently, kept itself aloof from being in theprocess of "global bifurcation".

Life

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889, to a wealthy Kashmiri Brahmin family inAllahabad, Uttar Pradesh. His father Motilal Nehru was a renowned advocate and also aninfluential politician.

The atmosphere in the Nehru family was different from that of other prominent families of thatsociety. English was spoken and encouraged. His father, Motilal Nehru had appointed

some English and Scottish teachers at home.

For higher education, young Nehru was sent to Harrow school and then later to CambridgeUniversity in England. After spending two years at the Inner Temple, London, he qualifiedas a barrister. During his stay in London, Nehru was attracted by the ideas of liberalism,socialism and nationalism. In 1912, he had returned to India and joined the Allahabad HighCourt Bar.

Kamala, his wife

Upon his return to India, Nehru's marriage was arranged with Kamala on 8 February, 1916.Brought up in a traditional Hindu Brahmin family, Kamala felt alienated amongst theprogressive Nehrus. During the Non Cooperation movement of 1921, Kamala played a vitalrole. In Allahabad, she organized groups of women and picketed shops selling foreigncloth and liquor. On19 November, 1917 she gave birth to Indira Priyadarshini, popularlyknown as Indira Gandhi. Kamala died from tuberculosis in Switzerland while JawaharlalNehru was languishing in Indian prison.


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Freedom Struggle

In 1916, Nehru participated in the Lucknow Session of the Congress. There, after a very longtime, member of both the extremist and moderate factions of the Congress party hadcome. All the members equivocally agreed to the demand for "swaraj" (self rule). Althoughthe 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 asgeneral secretary of the United Provinces Congress Committee. The life in the jail helpedhim in understanding the philosophy followed by Gandhi and others associated with themovement. He was moved by Gandhi's approach of dealing with caste and"untouchablity". With the passing of every minute, Nehru was emerging as a popularleader, particularly in Northern India.

In 1922, some of the prominent members including his father Motilal Nehru had left thecongress and launched the "Swaraj Party". The decision, no doubt upset Jawahar but herejected the possibility of leaving the Congress party. He was also elected as the president

of the Allahabad municipal corporation in 1920.

European Tour

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

Imperialism created in Brussels, the capital city of Belgium.

During the Guwahati Session in 1928, Mahatma Gandhi announced that the Congress wouldlaunch a massive movement if the British authority did not grant dominion status of Indiawithin next two years. It was believed that under the pressure of Nehru and SubhashChandra Bose, the deadline was reduced to one year. Jawaharlal Nehru criticized thefamous "Nehru Report" prepared by his father Motilal Nehru in 1928 that favored theconcept of a "dominion status for India within the British rule".

In 1930 Mahatma Gandhi advocated Nehru as the next president of the Congress. The decisionwas also an attempt to abate the intensity of "communism" in the Congress. The sameyear, Nehru was arrested for the violation of the Salt Law.

In 1936, Nehru was re-elected as the president of the Indian National Congress. Sourcessuggest that a heated argument between the classical and young leaders had taken placein the Lucknow Session of the party. The young and "new-gen" leaders of the party hadadvocated for an ideology, based on the concepts of Socialism.


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Nehru as PM

Fifteen years after the Guwahati Session, on 15 August, 1947, the congress succeeded tooverthrow the influential British Empire. Nehru was recognized as the first Prime Ministerof independent India. He was the first PM to hoist the national flag and make a speechfrom the ramparts of Lal Quila (Red Fort). The time had come to implement his ideas andconstruct a healthy nation.

Following Gandhi's assassination in 1948, Jawaharlal Nehru felt very much alone. All the timehe would contemplate over the issues pertaining to the economic sector of the country. Inthe year 1949, Jawaharlal Nehru made his first visit to the United States, seeking a solutionto India's urgent food shortage. In 1951, Jawaharlal Nehru launched the country's "FirstFive-Year Plan" emphasizing on the increase in the agricultural output.

Nehru's Foreign Policy

Jawaharlal Nehru was supporter of the anti-imperialist policy. He extended his support for theliberation of small and colonized nations of the world. He was also one of the prominentarchitects of the Non-Aligment Movement. Following the policies of NAM, India decidedstay away from being a part of the global bifurcation.

Controvery

In 1957, despite of the major victory attained the elections, the Nehru led central governmentfaced rising problems and criticism. The election of his daughter Indira as Congress

President in 1959 was viewed by many, as Nepotism.

Death

In 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru suffered a stroke and a heart attack. On 27 May 1964, Nehru passedaway. Nehru was cremated at the Shantivana on the banks of the Yamuna River, Delhi.


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Jawaharlal NehruHow to CiteFAMOUS AS: Former PM of India & Freedom FighterBORN ON: 14 November 1889BORN IN:Allahabad, IndiaDIED ON: 27 May 1964NATIONALITY: IndiaWORKS & ACHIEVEMENTS:Authored the Discovery of India, Played an Important Role in Freedom Struggle

Jawaharlal Nehru

Born in an aristocratic family of Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru emerged as one of the greatest political leadersof the world, ever. Jawaharlal Nehru was an active member of the Indian National Congress Party and laterelected as the first Prime Minister of independent India. Nehru was at the helm of the political craft and one of thekey leaders to frame and execute the initial policies. Nehru was greatly influenced by the Stalinist form ofsocialism and wanted to follow the same in India and introduced the first Five-Year Plan in 1951. Nehru'scontribution and role also changed the political equation during the cold war. He, along with world leaders likeGamal Abdel Nasser and Sukarno founded the Non Aligned Movement. The institution was formed to maintainequidistance from the power-blocs. This undoubtedly managed to create ripples in the centre of world politics. In1944, during his stay in Ahmadnagar prison, Nehru wrote, "The Discovery of India". The book tells about the

History of India - from ancient times, to the formation of British India and the Indian Independence Movement.ChildhoodJawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889 in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Motilal Nehru was anoted advocate and an influential political leader. His mother Swarup Rani was a religious lady. Though, the Nehrufamily descended from Kashmiri Brahmin heritage their lifestyle was different from that of other Indian well-to-dofamily. The Nehrus followed a pro-western culture and lifestyle. At that time, when English was considered as theofficial language of the elite and spoken only at the professional area Motilal Nehru encouraged the familymembers to speak English at home.In an attempt to take a proper care, Motilal Nehru had appointed teachers of English and Scottish origin at homeJawaharlal Nehru was first sent to Harrow school and then to Cambridge University in England for further educationThere Nehru qualified as a barrister. Nehru, during his stay in London, was attracted by the ideas of liberalismsocialism and nationalism. This was the period, when his interest to join the nationalist movement developed. Hereturned to India in 1912, and joined the Allahabad High Court Bar.

Marriage

After his return from London, Nehru was married to Kamala on 8 February, 1916. Nehru reportedly was not happywith the marriage. The huge differences in terms of lifestyle and perspective of Nehru and Kamala could be one ofthe reasons for his annoyance. Kamala was brought up in a traditional Hindu Brahmin family and was more focusedon the family affairs. Kamala found her life in a completely different platform. It hardly had any resemblance. She, asa result, almost isolated herself from the rest of the family. On 19 November, 1917 Indira Gandhi was born. Hergrandfather Motilal Nehru would call Indira as Priyadarshini.

Freedom Movement


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Nehrus political career started at the Lucknow Session of the Indian National Congress Party in 1916. Interestingly,members of both moderate and extremist factions had come to attend the Session and moreover all themembers unanimously called for Swaraj (self rule).

It is believed that Nehrus interest and enthusiasm in politics developed more during Gandhis period. In 1920Mahatma Gandhi called for the non-cooperation movement against the oppressive tax policies levied by the British.Nehru faced imprisonment for the first time in 1921. Nehru later said that the imprisonment helped him in realizingthe importance of freedom. He used his time in jail in understanding the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and otherpolitical leaders. The imprisonment also increased Nehrus popularity among the local leaders and grass roopeople.Nehru started delivering political speeches to deal with the issues like Hindu-Muslim unity, self-reliance and povertyand employment. Nehru emerged as a popular political leader among the masses in northern India. His passion forsocial justice and equality attracted India's Muslims, women and other minorities. His popularity gained importancefollowing the arrest of senior leaders like Gandhi, Motilal Nehru. Few days later, Jawaharlal Nehru was alsoimprisoned along with his mother and sisters. After a serious differences in the party, some prominent Congressleaders, including his father Motilal Nehru left to join the newly formed, Swaraj Party in 1923. The decisionundoubtedly led to Nehrus disappointment but he negated the possibility of leaving Congress and Gandhi.In 1924, Nehru was elected as the president of the Allahabad municipal corporation. He served there for two years.During his office, Nehru launched various schemes to promote education, water and electricity supply and reduceunemployment. Discontented with the corruption amongst the civil servants, Nehru resigned from his post. Thisfurther assisted in consolidating his acceptance as a leader. In 1926, Nehru took his wife and daughter to European

nations. The visit actually meant for the treatment of Kamala Nehru, who was suffering from tuberculosis. Thetraveling included the developed European nations like Germany, France and the Soviet Union. There, JawaharlalNehru met various leaders from Communists, Socialists, and radical background. Though he was critical of theStalinist autocracy Nehru was impressed with the socialistic form of economy. In 1927, he became a member of theLeague against Imperialism created in Brussels, the capital city of Belgium.In the Guwahati Session of the Indian National Congress Party in 1928, Mahatma Gandhi sent an ultimatum to theBritish government asking it to grant dominion status to India within next two years. The time-period was laterreduced to one year, reportedly under the pressure of Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose. Meanwhile, Motilal Nehruframed, what came to be known as Nehru Report in 1928, favoring the concept of a dominion status for Indiawithin the British rule. Congress leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru rejected the report and its recommendationsThe dialogue with the British government over the dominion status of India failed. This increased the anti-Britishsentiment among the Congress leaders. In the Lahore session of the Indian National Congress Party in December

1929, Mahatma Gandhi advocated Nehru as the next president of the Congress. The decision of supporting Nehruwas reportedly dome to abate the intensity of communism in the Congress.Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the flag of independence along the banks of the River Ravi on 31 December 1929. In1931, Motilal Nehru passed away. Despite his death, Nehru family remained at the forefront of the nationalistmovement. Nehru was arrested in 1931 and was imprisoned for four months. However, his popularity grewenormously and in 1936, Nehru was re-elected as the president of the Indian National Congress. Nehru as PM: In1946, the Indian National Congress Party held a presidential election. The importance of the election's stemmedfrom the fact that the chosen President would become the Prime Minister of independent India.On 15 August, 1947, Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India to hoist the national flag and make a speechfrom the ramparts of Red Fort.In 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse. The incident left Jawaharlal Nehru disappointedand alone. Acting towards the concept of socialism, Nehru in 1951, launched the countrys First Five-Year Planemphasizing on the increase in the agricultural output. Nehru, being a follower of anti-imperialist policy, declared tosupport the efforts of small and colonized nations, in their liberation. Nehru was one of the founder members of theNon-Alignment Movement and kept India away from being a part of the global bifurcation.

DeathIn 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru suffered a stroke and a heart attack. On 27 May 1964, Nehru passed away. Nehru wascremated at the Shantivana on the banks of the Yamuna River, Delhi. In 1951, he was nominated for the NobelPeace Prize by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).


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JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TIMELINE1889 :Birth of Jawaharlal Nehru, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh

1912 :Nehru joined Allahabad High Court Bar

1916 :8 FebruaryMarried to Kamala

1917 :19 NovemberBirth of Indira Gandhi1921 :Nehrus first imprisonment

1923 :Motilal Nehru, his father, left the Congress Party

1924 :Elected as president of the Allahabad Municipal Corporation

1926 :Visit European Nations

1929 :Elected as Congress President

1931 :

Death of Motilal Nehru1944 :He authored The Discovery of India.

1947 :Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India

1948 :Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi1951 :Nehru launched the first Five Year Plan

1964 :27 MayJawaharlal Nehru passed away.


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Jawaharlal Nehru

Last modified 15 September 2011.

First published 3 January 2001. Updated 19 November 2006

Photo source: Wikimedia CommonsJAWAHARLAL NEHRU

countrycausebackgroundmini biographycommentmore information
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reflections on heroes

AKA 'Pandit' (Pundit or Teacher).

Country: India.

Cause: Liberation of India from British colonial rule.

Background: British occupation of India begins at the start of the 17th Century, with the 'Raj' reaching

its zenith at the end of the 19th Century. Indian opposition to colonial rule gains focus in the early 20th

Century as the nation unites to expel the British. More background.

Mini biography: Born of 14 November 1889 at Allahabad in northern India, into a wealthy Kashmiri

Brahman family. His father is a member of the self-rule movement and a leader of the Indian National

Congress Party.

1905 - Nehru studies at Harrow school in England, staying there for two years before entering Trinity

College at the University of Cambridge, where he spends three years earning an honours degree in natura

science. He qualifies as a barrister after two years at the Inner Temple, London.

1912 - Nehru returns to India and practices law in the Allahabad High Court.

1916 - He marries Kamala Kaul. Their only child, Indira Priyadarshini (Indira Gandhi), is also destined to

serve as prime minister of India. Nehru meetsMahatma Gandhi for the first time at the annual meeting of

the Indian National Congress Party in Lucknow.

1917 - The British Parliament announces that Indians will be allowed greater participation in the colonial

administration and that self-governing institutions will be gradually developed.

1919 - The promise of self-governing institutions is realised with the passing of the Government of India

Act by the British Parliament. The Act introduces a dual administration in which both elected Indian

legislators and appointed British officials share power, although the British retain control of critical

portfolios like finance, taxation and law and order.

However, the goodwill created by the move is undermined in March by the passing of the Rowlatt Acts.

These acts empower the Indian authorities to suppress sedition by censoring the press, detaining political

activists without trial, and arresting suspects without a warrant. Nehru now becomes closely involved in

the Congress Party.

Gandhi begins a campaign of resistance or 'Satyagraha' (the devotion to truth, or truth force) against the

Rowlatt Acts and British rule. The Satyagraha movement spreads through India, gaining millions of

followers.

The movement is temporarily halted on 13 April when British troops fire at point-blank range into a crowd

of 10,000 unarmed and unsuspecting Indians gathered at Amritsar in the Punjab to celebrate a Hindu

festival. A total of 1,650 rounds are fired, killing 379 and wounding 1,137. The incident galvanises Nehru,

who becomes a staunch nationalist.
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1920 - Gandhi proclaims an organised campaign of noncooperation and advocates 'Ahimsa' (nonviolence)

and 'Swaraj' (self-rule), particularly in the economic sphere. Nehru joins the campaign. During the year,

Gandhi refashions the Congress Party from an elite organisation into an effective political instrument with

widespread grassroots support. Nehru supports the reforms.

1921 - Nehru is arrested by the British and imprisoned for the first time. Over the next 24 years he will

spend more than nine years in jail, with the longest of his nine detentions lasting for three years.

Nehru will occupy much of his time in prison writing. His major works will include 'Glimpses of World

History' (1934), his 'Autobiography' (1936, and 'The Discovery of India' (1946).

Meanwhile, the Congress Party gives Gandhi complete executive authority. However, after a series of

violent confrontations between Indian demonstrators and the British authorities, Gandhi ends the

campaign of civil disobedience.

1923 - Nehru becomes general secretary of the Congress for a period of two years, attaining the position

again in 1927 for another two years.

1926 - He tours Europe and the Soviet Union, where he develops an interest in Marxism.

1927 - The British set up a commission to recommend further constitutional steps towards greater self-

rule but fail to appoint an Indian to the panel. In response, the Congress boycotts the commission

throughout India and drafts its own constitution demanding full independence by 1930.

1929 - Under Gandhi's patronage, Nehru is elected president of the Congress at the party's Lahore

session. Nehru is to serve as party president six times.

1930 - Nehru is arrested during a new campaign of civil disobedience orchestrated by Gandhi. Thecampaign calls upon the Indian population to refuse to pay taxes, particularly the tax on salt, and centres

on a 400 km march to the sea between 12 March and 6 April.

Thousands follow Gandhi as he walks south from his commune at Ahmedabad (the capital of Gujarat) to

Dandi (near Surat on the Gulf of Cambay). When they arrive they illegally make salt by evaporating

seawater. In May Gandhi is arrested and held in custody for the rest of the year. About 30,000 other

members of the independence movement are also held in jail.

1931- Gandhi accepts a truce with the British, calls off civil disobedience, and travels to London to attend

a 'Round Table Conference' on the future of India. On his return to India he finds that the situation has

deteriorated.

1932 - Hopes that calm will prevail following the negotiations between the Indians and the British are

dashed when Gandhi and Nehru are arrested. Nehru is sentenced to two years imprisonment.

1934 - When Gandhi formally resigns from politics, Nehru becomes leader of the Congress Party.
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1935 - Limited self-rule is achieved when the British Parliament passes the Government of India Act

(1935). The Act gives Indian provinces a system of democratic, autonomous government. However, it is

only implemented after Gandhi gives his approval.

1937 - In February, after elections under the Government of India Act bring the Congress to power in

seven of 11 provinces, Nehru is faced with a dilemma. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the leader of the defeated

Muslim League, asks for the formation of coalition Congress-Muslim League governments in some of the

provinces. His request is denied.

The subsequent clash between the Congress and the Muslim League hardens into a conflict between

Hindus and Muslims that will ultimately lead to the partition of India and the creation ofPakistan.

1939 - When the Second World War breaks out in September Britain unilaterally declares India's

participation on the side of the Allies. Nehru argues that India's place is alongside the democracies but

insists that India can only fight as a free country. The Congress withdraws from government and decides it

will not support the British war effort unless India is granted complete and immediate independence. The

Muslim League, however, supports the British during the war.

1940 - Nehru is arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment but is released after little more than a

year, along with other Congress prisoners, three days before the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.

Meanwhile, the Muslim League adopts the 'Pakistan Resolution' calling for areas with a Muslim majority in

India's northwest and northeast to be partitioned from the Hindu core.

1942 - With Japanese forces reaching the eastern borders of India, the British attempt to negotiate with

the Indians. However, Gandhi and Nehru will accept nothing less than independence and call on the British

to leave the subcontinent.

When the Congress Party passes its 'Quit India' resolution in Bombay on 8 August the entire Congress

Working Committee, including Gandhi and Nehru, is arrested and imprisoned. Nehru is not released from

this, his ninth, last and longest period of detention, until 15 June 1945.

Also during 1942 Gandhi officially designates Nehru as his political heir.

1944 - The British Government agrees to independence for India on condition that the two contending

nationalist groups, the Muslim League and the Congress Party, resolve their differences.

1946 - Nehru, with Gandhi's blessing, is invited by the British to form an interim government to organisethe transition to independence. Fearing it will be excluded from power, the Muslim League declares 16

August 'Direct Action Day'. When communal rioting breaks out in the north, partition comes to be seen as

a valid alternative to the possibility of civil war. Nehru attempts to prevent partition but is unsuccessful.

1947 - On 3 June British Prime Minister Clement Attlee introduces a bill to the House of Commons calling

for the independence and partition of the British Indian Empire into the separate nations of India and

Pakistan. On 14 July the House of Commons passes the India Independence Act. Under the Act Pakistan is

further divided into east and west wings on either side of India.
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On 14 August Pakistan is declared to be independent. India formally attains its sovereignty at midnight on

the same day. Amid the celebrations Nehru delivers a famous speech on India's "tryst with destiny."

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world sleeps, India will awaken to life and freedom," Nehru

says. "A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new,

when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance."

However, the initial jubilation is soon tempered by violence.

Sectarian riots erupt as Muslims in India flee to Pakistan while Hindus in Pakistan flee the opposite way. As

many as two million die in north India, at least 12 million become refugees, and a limited war over the

incorporation of Kashmir into India breaks out between the two nation states.

Nehru becomes the first prime minister of independent India and introduces a mix of socialist planning and

free enterprise measures to repair and build the country's ravaged economy. He also takes the external

affairs portfolio, serving as foreign minister throughout his tenure as prime minister.

1950 - India becomes a republic with Nehru as its prime minister. He is deeply involved in thedevelopment and implementation of the country's five-year plans that over the course of the 1950s and

1960s see India become one of the most industrialised nations in the world.

Industrial complexes are established around the country, while innovations are encouraged by an

expansion of scientific research. In the decade between 1951 and 1961, the national income of India rises

42%.

Nehru also pursues reforms to improve the social condition of women and the poor. The minimum

marriageable age is increased from 12 to 15, women are given the right to divorce their husbands and

inherit property, and the dowry system is made illegal. Absentee landlords are stripped of their land,

which is then transferred to tenant farmers who can document their right to occupancy.

In foreign affairs, Nehru advocates policies of nationalism, anticolonialism, internationalism, and

nonalignment or "positive neutrality." He founds the nonaligned movement with Yugoslavia's Josip Broz

Tito and Egypt's Gamal Abdel-Nasser and becomes one of the key spokesmen of the nonaligned nations of

Asia and Africa.

Nehru argues for the admission ofChina to the United Nations (UN) and calls for dtente between the

United States and the Soviet Union. Acting as a mediator, he also helps to end the Korean War of 1950-53.

1956 - India under Nehru is the only nonaligned country in the UN to vote with the Soviet Union on the

invasion of Hungary, calling into question the country's nonaligned status.

1961 - Indian troops occupy the Portuguese enclave at Goa on the west coast of the country in December,

removing the last remaining colonial administration on the subcontinent and ending six years of

unsuccessful negotiations.
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1962 - A long-standing border dispute with China breaks out into war, despite Nehru's efforts to improve

relations between the two countries. When the Chinese threaten to overrun the Brahmaputra River valley

on India's northern border, Nehru calls for aid from the West. China withdraws but Nehru's nonalignment

policy is further discredited.

1963 - He suffers a slight stroke, followed by a more debilitating attack in January 1964.

1964 - Nehru dies in office on 27 May in New Delhi from a third and fatal stroke.

Comment: The secular and practical balance to Gandhi's spiritual idealism, Nehru was no less

passionate in his pursuit of independence for India. Though often overshadowed by the Mahatma, he was

no less admired. He had the cultural and intellectual credibility necessary to first attract the younger

intelligentsia to Gandhi's campaigns and then rally them after independence had been gained.

Nehru's tenure as prime minister has, however, come under critical analysis. Always a democratic

socialist, his five-year plans helped to establish the economic independence that Gandhi had advocated.

Nehru's domestic policies were centred on democracy, socialism, unity, and secularism. Today India is one

of the strongest democracies in the world and is beginning to take off as an economic power. Nehru's onlychild, Indira Gandhi, served as India's prime minister from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1984. Her son,

Rajiv Gandhi, was prime minister from 1984 to 1989.
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Jawaharlal Nehru, byname Pandit (Hindi: Pundit, or Teacher) Nehru (born Nov. 14, 1889, Allahabad,

Indiadied May 27, 1964, New Delhi), first prime minister of independent India (194764), who establishedparliamentary government and became noted for his neutralist policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of

the principal leaders of Indias independence movement in the 1930s and 40s.

Table Of Contents

Early years

Nehru was born to a family of Kashmiri Brahmans, noted for their administrative aptitude and scholarship, thathad migrated to India early in the 18th century. He was the son of Motilal Nehru, a renowned lawyer and one

ofMahatma Gandhis prominent lieutenants. Jawaharlal was the eldest of four children, two of whom were

girls. A sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, later became the first woman president of the United Nations General

Assembly.

Until the age of 16, Nehru was educated at home by a series of English governesses and tutors. Only one of

these, a part-Irish, part-Belgian theosophist, Ferdinand Brooks, appears to have made any impression on him.

Jawaharlal also had a venerable Indian tutor who taught him Hindi and Sanskrit. In 1905 he went toHarrow, aleading English school, where he stayed for two years. Nehrus academic career was in no way outstanding.

From Harrow he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he spent three years earning an honours degree in

natural science. On leaving Cambridge he qualified as a barrister after two years at the Inner Temple, London,where in his own words he passed his examinations with neither glory nor ignominy.

Four years after his return to India, in March 1916, Nehru married Kamala Kaul, who came from a Kashmirifamily settled in Delhi. Their only child, Indira Priyadarshini, was born in 1917; she would later (under her

married name ofIndira Gandhi) also serve as prime minister of India.

Table Of Contents

Political apprenticeship

On his return to India, Nehru at first tried to settle down as a lawyer. But, unlike his father, he had only adesultory 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 itcould be achieved.

Nehrus autobiography discloses his lively interest in Indian politics. His letters to his father over the same

period reveal their common interest in Indias freedom. But not until father and son met Mahatma Gandhi and

were persuaded to follow in his political footsteps did either of them develop any definite ideas on how freedomwas to be attained. The quality in Gandhi that impressed the two Nehrus was his insistence on action. A wrong,

Gandhi argued, should not only be condemned, it should be resisted. Earlier, Nehru and his father had been

contemptuous of the run of contemporary Indian politicians, whose nationalism, with a few notable exceptions,consisted of interminable speeches and long-winded resolutions. Jawaharlal was also attracted by Gandhis

insistence on fighting Great Britain without fear or hate.

Nehru met Gandhi for the first time in 1916 at the annual meeting of theIndian National Congress(Congress

Party) in Lucknow. Gandhi was 20 years his senior. Neither seems to have made any initially strong impression

on the other. Nehru did not assume a leadership role in Indian politics, however, until his election as Congresspresident in 1929, when he presided over the historic session atLahore (now in Pakistan) that proclaimed

complete independence as Indias political goal. Until then the objective had been dominion status.
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Nehrus close association with the Congress Party dates from 1919 in the immediate aftermath of World War I.

This period saw a wave of nationalist activity and governmental repression culminating in the Massacre of

Amritsarin April 1919; 379 persons were reported killed and at least 1,200 wounded when the local Britishmilitary commander ordered his troops to fire on a crowd of unarmed Indians assembled for a meeting.

When, late in 1921, the prominent leaders and workers of the Congress Party were outlawed in some provinces,

Nehru went to prison for the first time. Over the next 24 years he was to serve another eight periods of

detention, the last and longest ending in June 1945, after an imprisonment of almost three years. In all, Nehruspent more than nine years in jail. Characteristically, he described his terms of incarceration as normal

interludes in a life of abnormal political activity.

His political apprenticeship with the Congress lasted from 1919 to 1929. In 1923 he became general secretary of

the party for two years and again, in 1927, for another two years. His interests and duties took him on journeysover wide areas of India, particularly in his native United Provinces, where his first exposure to the

overwhelming poverty and degradation of the peasantry had a profound influence on his basic ideas for solving

these vital problems. Though vaguely inclined toward socialism, Nehrus radicalism had set in no definite mold.The watershed in his political and economic thinking was his tour of Europe and the Soviet Union during 1926

27. Nehrus real interest in Marxism and his socialist pattern of thought stem from that tour, even though it did

not appreciably increase his knowledge of communist theory and practice. His subsequent sojourns in prison

enabled him to study Marxism in more depth. Interested in its ideas but repelled by some of its methods, hecould never bring himself to accept Karl Marxs writings as revealed scripture. Yet from then on, the yardstick

of his economic thinking remained Marxist, adjusted, where necessary, to Indian conditions.

Struggle for Indian independence

After the Lahore session of 1929, Nehru emerged as the leader of the countrys intellectuals and youth. Hoping

that Nehru would draw Indias youth, at that time gravitating toward extreme leftist causes, into the mainstream

of the Congress movement, Gandhi had shrewdly elevated him to the presidency of the Congress Party over theheads of some of his seniors. Gandhi also correctly calculated that, with added responsibility, Nehru himself

would be inclined to keep to the middle way.

After his fathers death in 1931, Jawaharlal moved into the inner councils of the Congress Party and became

closer to Gandhi. Although Gandhi did not officially designate Nehru his political heir until 1942, the country

as early as the mid-1930s saw in Nehru the natural successor to Gandhi. TheGandhi-Irwin pact of March 1931,signed between Gandhi and the British viceroy, Lord Irwin (laterLord Halifax), signalized a truce between the

two principal protagonists in India. It climaxed one of Gandhis more effective civil disobedience movements,launched the year before, in the course of which Nehru had been arrested.

Hopes that the Gandhi-Irwin pact would be the prelude to a more relaxed period of Indo-British relations werenot borne out; Lord Willingdon (who replaced Irwin as viceroy in 1931) jailed Gandhi in January 1932, shortly

after Gandhis return from the second Round Table Conference in London. He was charged with attempting to

mount another civil disobedience movement; Nehru was also arrested and sentenced to two yearsimprisonment.

The three Round Table Conferences in London, held to advance Indias progress to self-government, eventually

resulted in the Government of India Act of 1935, giving the Indian provinces a system of popular autonomousgovernment. Ultimately, it provided for a federal system composed of the autonomous provinces and princely

states. Although federation never came into being, provincial autonomy was implemented. During the mid-

1930s Nehru was much concerned with developments in Europe, which seemed to be drifting toward another

world war. He was in Europe early in 1936, visiting his ailing wife, shortly before she died in a sanitarium inSwitzerland. Even at this time he emphasized that in the event of war Indias place was alongside the

democracies, though he insisted that India could only fight in support of Great Britain and France as a free

country.

When the elections following the introduction of provincial autonomy brought the Congress Party to power in amajority of the provinces, Nehru was faced with a dilemma. The Muslim League underMohammed Ali

Jinnah (who was to become the creator ofPakistan) had fared badly at the polls. Congress, therefore, unwisely

rejected Jinnahs plea for the formation of coalition Congress-Muslim League governments in some of the
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provinces, a decision on which Nehru had not a little influence. The subsequent clash between the Congress and

the Muslim League hardened into a conflict between Hindus and Muslims that was ultimately to lead to the

partition of India and the creation of Pakistan.

Table Of Contents

Imprisonment during World War II

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 theMuslim League. Nehrus views on the war differed from those of Gandhi. Initially, Gandhi believed that

whatever support was given to the British should be given unconditionally and that it should be of a nonviolent

character. Nehru held thatnonviolencehad no place in defense against aggression and that India should supportGreat Britain in a war against Nazism, but only as a free nation. If it could not help, it should not hinder.

In October 1940, Gandhi, abandoning his original stand, decided to launch a limited civil disobedience

campaign in which leading advocates of Indian independence were selected to participate one by one. Nehru

was arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment. After spending a little more than a year in jail, he wasreleased, along with other Congress prisoners, three days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. When

the Japanese carried their attack through Burma (now Myanmar) to the borders of India in the spring of 1942,

the British government, faced by this new military threat, decided to make some overtures to India. PrimeMinisterWinston Churchill dispatched Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the war Cabinet who was politically

close to Nehru and also knew Jinnah, with proposals for a settlement of the constitutional problem. Crippss

mission failed, however, for Gandhi would accept nothing less than independence.

The initiative in the Congress Party now passed to Gandhi, who called on the British to leave India; Nehru,

though reluctant to embarrass the war effort, had no alternative but to join Gandhi. Following the Quit Indiaresolution passed by the Congress Party in Bombay (now Mumbai) on Aug. 8, 1942, the entire Congress

working committee, including Gandhi and Nehru, was arrested and imprisoned. Nehru emerged from thishis

ninth and last detentiononly on June 15, 1945.

Within two years India was to be partitioned and free. A final attempt by the viceroy, Lord Wavell, to bring the

Congress Party and the Muslim League together failed. The Labour government that had meanwhile displaced

Churchills wartime administration dispatched, as one of its first acts, a Cabinet mission to India and later also

replaced Lord Wavell with Lord Mountbatten. The question was no longer whether India was to be independentbut whether it was to consist of one or more independent states. While Gandhi refused to accept partition, Nehru

reluctantly but realistically acquiesced. On Aug. 15, 1947, India and Pakistan emerged as two separate,

independent countries. Nehru became independent Indias first prime minister.

Achievements as prime minister

In the 35 years from 1929, when Gandhi chose Nehru as president of the Congress session atLahore, until his death as prime minister in 1964, Nehru remaineddespite the debacle of the brief conflict

with China in 1962the 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 castmisleadingly so, for, although Gandhi might have appeared to be a religious conservative, he was actually a

social nonconformist trying to secularize Hinduism. The real difference between Nehru and Gandhi was not in

their attitude to religion but in their attitude to civilization. While Nehru talked in an increasingly modernidiom, Gandhi was harking back to the glories of ancient India.

The importance of Nehru in the perspective of Indian history is that he imported and imparted modern values

and ways of thinking, which he adapted to Indian conditions. Apart from his stress on secularism and on thebasic unity of India, despite its ethnic and religious diversities, Nehru was deeply concerned with carrying India

forward into the modern age of scientific discovery and technological development. In addition, he aroused in
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his people an awareness of the necessity of social concern with the poor and the outcast and of respect for

democratic values. One of the achievements of which he was particularly proud was the reform of the ancient

Hindu civil code that finally enabled Hinduwidows to enjoy equality with men in matters of inheritance andproperty.

Internationally, Nehrus star was in the ascendant until October 1956, when Indias attitude on the Hungarian

revolt against the Soviets brought his policy ofnonalignmentunder sharp scrutiny. In the United Nations, India

was the only nonaligned country to vote with the Soviet Union on the invasion of Hungary, and thereafter it wasdifficult for Nehru to command credence in his calls for nonalignment. In the early years after

independence, anticolonialism had been the cornerstone of his foreign policy, but, by the time of the Belgrade

conference of nonaligned countries in 1961, Nehru had substituted nonalignment for anticolonialism as his mostpressing concern. In 1962, however, the Chinese threatened to overrun the Brahmaputra Rivervalley as a result

of a long-standing border dispute. Nehru called for Western aid, making virtual nonsense of his nonalignment

policy, and China withdrew.

The Kashmirregionclaimed by both India and Pakistanremained a perennial problem throughout Nehrusterm as prime minister. His tentative efforts to settle the dispute by adjustments along the cease-fire lines having

failed, Pakistan, in 1948, made an unsuccessful attempt to seize Kashmir by force. In solving the problem of

the Portuguese colony ofGoathe last remaining colony in IndiaNehru was more fortunate. Although its

military occupation by Indian troops in December 1961 raised a furor in many Western countries, in thehindsight of history, Nehrus action is justifiable. With the withdrawal of the British and the French, the

Portuguese colonial presence in India had become an anachronism. Both the British and the French hadwithdrawn peacefully. If the Portuguese were not prepared to follow suit, Nehru had to find ways to dislodgethem. After first trying persuasion, in August 1955 he had permitted a group of unarmed Indians to march into

Portuguese territory in a nonviolent demonstration. Even though the Portuguese opened fire on the

demonstrators, killing nearly 30, Nehru stayed his hand for six years, appealing meanwhile to PortugalsWestern friends to persuade its government to cede the colony. When India finally struck, Nehru could claim

that neither he nor the government of India had ever been committed to nonviolence as a policy.

Nehrus health showed signs of deteriorating not long after the clash with China. He suffered a slight stroke in

1963, followed by a more debilitating attack in January 1964. He died a few months later from a third and fatalstroke.

AssessmentWhile assertive in his Indianness, Nehru never exuded the Hindu aura and atmosphere clinging to Gandhispersonality. 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 acclimatized him to Western ways of thinking. Throughout his 17 years in office, he held updemocratic socialism as the guiding star. With the help of the overwhelming majority that the Congress Party

maintained in Parliament during his term of office, he advanced toward that goal. The four pillars of his

domestic policies were democracy, socialism, unity, and secularism. He succeeded to a large extent inmaintaining the edifice supported by these four pillars during his lifetime.

Nehrus only child, Indira Gandhi, served as Indias prime minister from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1984.Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, was prime minister from 1984 to 1989.

BibliographyTable Of Contents

Biographies of Nehru include MICHAEL BRECHER,Nehru (1959); V.B. KULKARNI, The Indian Triumvirate: A

Political Biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, and Pandit Nehru (1969);SARVEPALLI GOPAL,Jawaharlal

Nehru, 3 vol. (197584), a sympathetic account; and M.J. AKBAR,Nehru: The Making of India (1988). WALTER

CROCKER,Nehru: A Contemporarys Estimate(1966); and GEOFFREY TYSON,Nehru: The Years of Power(1966),

are also useful. BIMLA PRASAD, The Origins of Indian Foreign Policy, 2nd ed. (1962), contains a wealth of
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material on Nehrus views on foreign affairs before 1947. H.V. HODSON, The Great Divide: Britain, India,

Pakistan (1969, reissued with an updated epilogue, 1985), examines Nehrus relations with Lord Mountbatten,

the last viceroy of India. V.T. PATIL (ed.), Studies on Nehru (1987), contains scholarly critical

assessments.SARVEPALLI GOPAL and UMA IYENGAR(eds.), The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru, 2 vol.

(2003), illuminates Nehrus views on India, policy, science, religion, and more through his writings,

correspondences, and interviews.VINOD TAGRA,Jawaharlal Nehru and the Status of Women in India: An

Analytical Study (2006), examines Nehrus role in the socioeconomic development of women in India.

Frank R. MoraesEd.

Jawaharlal Nehru as a Social Reformer


Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of independent India. He was a key figure in the Indianindependence movement. Nehru also initiated the process of social reform in the independent Indian Republic.

The importance of Jawaharlal Nehru as a social reformer in Indian history cannot be denied.

India gained independence on 15 August, 1947. The India that existed in the 1940's was a cauldron of socialunrest. The age-old problem of caste had reared its ugly head and was threatening to tear the social fabricapart. Religious tensions were also a reigning problem in India during those days. The partition of pre-independent India had divided the Indian sub-continent into two countries, India and Pakistan. Pakistanbecame an Islamic Republic as envisaged by its creator Mohamed Ali Jinnah. India became a secular republicby choice.

Jawaharlal Nehru inherited from the British a country that was bereft of social and economic stability. Heinherited a mish-mash of people speaking as many as 16 different languages with different cultural moorings.

The genius of Jawaharlal Nehru as a social reformer shone through in this post-independence period. He tookdecisive steps to eradicate the evils of the all pervasive caste system. Nehru undertook corrective measuresby changing existing Indian legal laws. Legal procedures were enacted to make caste discrimination illegal and

punishable by law. The enacted laws were strictly enforced.

Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the few Indian statesmen at that time who understood the need of properintellectual development of the Indian populace. He had exposure to European educational ideals during hisstay at England, where he received education. Nehru also knew that British stress on proper education to runtheir colonial empire. He understood the importance of proper and healthy intellectual development to run thenascent Indian state. Jawaharlal Nehru wished to combine the best of both worlds, the winning combination ofwestern scientific prowess and Indian civilization wisdom.

Nehru realized that the only way the Indian Republic can reestablish its presence in the world stage is throughthe intellectual power of its citizens. Jawaharlal stressed on the teaching of science and its practical applicationfields. He took cognizance of the need of learning vocational science. The teaching of vocational scienceattracted him. Special focus was put on the development of technology. The famed Indian Institutes ofTechnology or IIT's were conceived and established during his Prime Minister-ship.

The Indian Institutes of Technology are now regarded as one of the premier scientific institutes of highertechnological learning throughout the world. IIT graduates are much in demand among the corporate sector.The establishment of such learning centers also indirectly contributed to the emergence of the Indian Republicas a pharmaceutical major in the late 1980's. The cheapest medicines in the world are produced and sold inIndia. The capabilities of the Indian software industry have also amazed the world.

Jawaharlal Nehru was born in an era when the principal mode of communication was the postal service.Telephones were affordable only by the minuscule economically empowered Indian populace. There were fewgovernment hospitals. The rural Indian population lived in pitiable conditions amidst abject poverty.

Nehru was acutely aware of the rural situation of India. He had contested and won democratic elections inPratapgarh district of Uttar Pradesh. Jawaharlal Nehru knew the many problems faced by the rural populace.The rural environment was feudal at that time. Literacy was low and social tensions were simmering below thesocietal surface. Nehru initiated the construction and functioning of a number of schools. The schools provided

primary and secondary education to the rural population. The schools are spread throughout India. Primary
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education was provided free of cost.

The government schools also provided free meals to its students. This scheme was the trump card ofJawaharlal Nehru. The great statesmen understood the importance of food to attract students to schools. Thepurchasing power of the rural Indian population at that time was very low. A majority of the rural populationsubsisted on one meal a day. All members of the family were required to work to keep the home-fires burning.The children were also roped in to earn for the family. Jawaharlal Nehru knew the importance of food in theeducational scheme. The food acts as a magnet for the impoverished hungry child. The family of theprospective student was also happy with the subsequent tangible cost savings.

The food given in the primary education programs included milk in addition to pulses for a healthy meal. Thespecter of malnutrition in the 1950's and 1960's India were fought in this way. Jawaharlal Nehru also

established vocational schools for adults. Adult education centers were created both in rural and urban areas.Higher technical schools were also established.

The Indian Republic has a substantial population. Almost half of the population is women. Jawaharlal Nehruenacted laws to guarantee practical universal suffrage to the women population of the country. The lawsaimed to secure the social freedoms of Indian women. Female legal rights were also increased under Nehru'sable Prime Minister-ship.

Jawaharlal Nehru was a highly educated man. His western education catalyzed his aspirations for equality ofthe Indian populace. Nehru actively promoted and brought about the system of reservations in the Indian jobsector. A certain percentage of government jobs were reserved for persons born into scheduled castes andscheduled tribes. This was done to ensure the participation of the less privileged Indian population to themainstream.

Jawaharlal Nehru had many social successes to his credit. He was responsible for promoting the rights of

religious minorities. His swift judgment along with his mentor Mahatma Gandhi at the time of independenceensured that the Indian Republic became a secular state. He understood the basic social nature of the Indianpopulation. The Indian population is largely secular, plural and civil and has a number of practicing religions.Nehru fostered the need for tolerance of all religions and respect for people unlike own.

The success of Jawaharlal Nehru's reforms is apparent throughout the modern Indian Republic. The boomingeconomy of contemporary India underscores this fact.

Nehru: A Political LifeBy Judith M. Brown(Yale University Press, 407 pp., $35)

Nehru: The Invention of IndiaBy Shashi Tharoor(Arcade, 282 pp., $24.95)

Early in 2003, the website Samachar.com, which digests Indian newspapers for foreignIndiaphiles, conducted a poll that asked, "Which Prime Minister has contributed most to

India's development?" When I checked the numbers in February, incumbent primeminister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was holding a huge lead with 596 votes, threetimes the number of his nearest rival. As for Jawaharlal Nehru, the chief architect ofIndia's political system and its transition from colony to independent democracyand the author of the speech about India's "tryst with destiny," which is as well known inIndia as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is in the United States, a speech that similarlydefines a nation in terms of the capacity for sacrifice and service--Nehru came in third,with a mere seventy-five votes. To judge from the expatriate community at leastNehru's ideas had been roundly repudiated--though it was hard to say whether voterswere applauding Vajpayee's record on foreign investment or his preference for a Hindustate. Coming less than a year after the mass killings of innocent Muslims in Gujarat,


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virtually condoned by Vajpayee and surely not protested, the vote did not express arobust commitment to minority civil rights.

Three months later, the voters of India expressed themselves very differently. Theyreturned Nehru's Congress Party to power and roundly defeated Vajpayee's BharatiyaJanata Party, the party of Hindu nationalism. Sonia Gandhi, the widow of Nehru'sgrandson Rajiv Gandhi, declined the prime ministership in order to prevent the politicalprocess from being hijacked by the controversy over her foreign birth, but she stilruns the party, and she has repeatedly stated that the electoral victory is a triumph for

two central aspects of Nehru's vision of thestate: the idea of equal respect for citizens ofall religions, and the idea of a basic commitment to eradicating desperate conditionsfor thepoor. It is clear that the votes for Nehru's legacy came in large numbers from poorrural areas, where voters, many of them illiterate (literacy rates are not much above 50percent in the nation as a whole), vote with great commitment, overcoming manyobstacles to get to the polls.Voter turnout in general elections in India is almost twicewhat it normally is in the United States; and this, too, is Nehru's legacy.

The biography of this extraordinary and controversial man is thus of more than historicainterest. But what a difficult task it is to write his biography! Nehru lived for seventy-four

years, from 1889 to 1964, and his life spanned the tumultuous period of resistanceagainst British rule, the founding of the new nation, and the first fifteen years of itsexistence. In all these events he played a leading role, interacting with figures of his timewho were as complex and historically significant as himself (notably MahatmaGandhi, the Muslim leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and his own daughter Indira Gandhi,who succeeded him in power). The biography of Nehru must be at the same time ahistory ofthe nation and its leaders. And American readers know little about India'shistory, so a good biography of Nehru for the American public must be also a powerfunarrative of largely unfamiliar historical events.

The difficulty of writing about Nehru is compounded by the fact that he himself was

astoundingly prolific, which is not completely surprising, given that he spent more or lesstwenty years of his adult life in various British-run prisons, where reading and writingwas virtually all there was to do. In particular, he is the author of a huge autobiography,first published in 1936, and thus including only the early portions of his political life, andof the monumental The Discovery of India (1945), with its sweeping coverage of Indianhistory, culture, and religion and its detailed commentary on British ruleand the resistance to it. He also wrote thousands of letters, ranging from intimate loveletters to paternal advice, political debate, and analysis of every kind. Even to read althat he wrote is a challenge to the biographer; but how to integrate it into a narrativeunity?

And then there is the fact that Nehru is one of the supreme prose stylists of the Englishlanguage in the twentieth century. What biographer's sentences would not lookpedestrian by comparison to the serene yet deep emotion expressed in Nehru's will, ashe asks that his ashes be thrown into the river Ganges:

Smiling and dancing in the morning sunlight, and dark and gloomy and full of mystery asthe evening shadows fall, a narrow, slow and graceful stream in winter and a vast,roaring thing during the monsoon, broad-bosomed almost as the sea, and withsomething of the seas power to destroy, the Ganga has been to me a symbol and amemory of the past of India, running into the present, and flowing on to the great ocean

of the future.


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Or flat by comparison to the wit of the man who wrote of prison life, "This closeassociation in a barrack has most of the disadvantages of married life with none of itsadvantages." Or humdrum by comparison to the political rhetoric of the end of the "trystwith destiny" speech:

And so we have to labour and to work, and to work hard, to give reality to our dreamsThose dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations andpeoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can liveapart. Peace is said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and also is

disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

Even the apparent awkwardness of "and also is disaster" works: the sentence, whichbegins like a trumpet call, modulates to a darker, more mysterious sound.

Nor was Nehru a simple man psychologically, as you can begin to see from thesescattered fragments. He was painfully self-scrutinizing, yet with an ungovernabletemper; a famously urbane and delightful guest, yet rightly described by Gandhi as one

of the loneliest men in India; unreservedly given to the service of others, yet aware of apowerful egotism in himself; hungry for love and connection, but aware that "I had been,and was, a most unsatisfactory person to marry." The writer who would convey thispersonality to the public must be possessed both of human insight and a powerfunarrative gift. And he or she would have to be able to add something to the alreadyextensive self-analysis of Nehru himself, who criticized his own hunger for power in ananonymous article published in the Modern Review in 1937 that called Nehru a modernCaesar who has "all the makings of a dictator in him," and who wrote so pointedly of hisown strange mixture of emotion and detachment: "I have loved life and it attractsme stiland, in my own way, I seek to experience it, though many invisible barriers have grownup which surround me; but that very desire leads me to play with life, to peep over its

edges, not to be a slave to it, so that we may value each other all the more." (And didhe, noticing so much, see the egotism in that conclusion, which sets him on a par withlife itself?)

Not surprisingly, even the most gifted writers of his own era hardly knew what to say of,or to, him. Consider this peculiar public tribute fromthe poet Sarojini Naidu, the firstfemale president of the Congress, on the occasion of Nehru's fiftieth birthday: "I do notthink that personal happiness, comfort, leisure, wealth ... can have much place in yourlife.... Sorrow, suffering, anguish, strife, yes, these are thepredestined gifts of life foryou.... You are a man of destiny born to be alone in the midst of crowds--deeply loved,but little understood." Well, thank you very much. Naidu's statements are undoubtedly

true in a way, but the biographer had better be able to do at least somewhat better thanthat.

It is clearly not impossib

Pandit J Nehru

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