Jawaharlal Nehru
|
| Date of Birth |
: |
Nov 14, 1889 |
| Date of Death |
: |
May 27, 1964 |
| Place of Birth |
: |
Uttar Pradesh |
| Political party |
: |
Indian National Congress |
| Took Office |
: |
Aug 15, 1947 |
| Left Office |
: |
May 27, 1964 |
| Successor |
: |
Lal Bahadur Shastri |
Jawaharlal Nehru also called Pandit Nehru, was an important leader of
the Indian Independence Movement and the Indian National Congress, and
became the first Prime Minister of India when India won its independence
on August 15, 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, to
Swaroop Rani, the wife of Motilal Nehru, a wealthy Allahabad based
barrister and political leader himself. He was Nehru's only son amongst
three younger daughters. The Nehru family is of Kashmiri lineage and of
the Saraswat Brahmin caste. Educated in the finest Indian schools of the
time, Nehru returned from education in England at Harrow, Trinity
College, Cambridge and the Inner Temple to practice law before following
his father into politics. By his parents' arrangement, Nehru married
Kamala Nehru, then seventeen in 1916. At the time of his wedding on 8
February 1916, Jawaharlal was twenty-six, a British-educated barrister.
Kamala came from a well-known business family of Kashmiris in Delhi.
His father Motilal Nehru was already a prominent figure in the Indian
National Congress and had served as its president. Nehru did not share
Motilal's moderate-liberal line.
He began to draw closer to the rising leadership of
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a former barrister who had won battles for
equality and political rights for Indians in South Africa, and had
emerged a national hero with the successful struggles in Champaran,
Bihar and Kheda in Gujarat. Nehru was instantly attracted to Gandhi's
commitment for active but peaceful, civil disobedience. Gandhi himself
saw promise and India's future in the young Jawaharl Nehru. The Nehru
family transformed their lifestyle according to Gandhi's teachings.
Jawaharlal and Motilal Nehru abandoned western clothes and tastes for
expensive possessions and pastimes, and adopted Hindi, or Hindustani as
their common language of use.Young Jawaharlal now wore a khadi kurta
and a Gandhi cap, all white - the new uniform of the Indian nationalist.
Nehru was first arrested by the British during the Non-Cooperation
Movement (1920-1922), but released after a few months. After Gandhi
suspended civil resistance in 1922 as a result of the killing of
policemen in Chauri Chaura, thousands of Congressmen were disillusioned.
When Gandhi opposed participation in the newly created legislative
councils, many followed leaders like Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru
to form the Swaraj Party, which advocated entry but only to sabotage
government from within, as a tool to extracting concessions from the
British to ensure stability. But Nehru did not join his father and
stayed with Gandhi and the Congress. Jawaharlal was elected President of
the Allahabad Municipal Corporation in 1924, and served for two years
as the city's chief executive. Upon his release from prison in 1924,
Gandhi succeeded in re-uniting the Congress Party and increasing
discipline of Congressmen by expanding activities for social reform and
the alleviation of India's poor. From 1926 to 1928, Jawaharlal served as
the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee, an important
step in his rise to Congress national leadership. With the Bardoli
Satyagraha of 1928, led by the rising nationalist leader Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel, the Congress was back in the business of revolution.
In 1928-29, the Congress's annual session under President Motilal Nehru
considered the next step. Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose backed a call
for full political independence, while Motilal Nehru and others wanted
dominion status within the British Empire.
To resolve the point, Gandhi said that the British would be given two
years to grant India dominion status. If they did not, the Congress
would launch a national struggle for full, political independence. Nehru
and Bose reduced the time of opportunity to one year. The British did
not respond. When the Congress convened its session in 1929, Gandhi
backed the young Jawaharlal for the Congress presidency. Although
confessing embarrassment at his hurried ascent, President Nehru declared
India's independence on January 26, 1930 in Lahore, raised free India's
flag in a large public convention on the banks of the Ravi and
inaugurated the struggle. Nehru was arrested in 1930, and during the
Salt Satyagraha of 1931 for a number of years. The revolt was an
astounding national success. Millions of Indians had participated, and
the British were ultimately forced to acknowledge that there was a need
for major political reform. When the British promulgated the Government
of India Act 1935, the Congress Party decided to contest elections.
Nehru stayed out of the elections, but campaigned vigorously nationwide
for the party.
The Congress formed governments in almost every province, and won the
largest number of seats in the Central Assembly, which the Congress had
denounced as powerless. But it was able to exercise control of
provincial affairs, giving India its first taste of democratic
self-government. Nehru was elected again to the Congress Presidency in
1936, and again in 1937. In his famous speech to the session in Lucknow
in 1936, he pushed the passage of the Avadi Resolution which committed
the Congress to socialism as the basis of the future agenda of a free
India's government. But the effort was strongly criticized by major
Congress leaders, including Gandhi and Sardar Patel, though for
different reasons. Nehru transformed his position to commit that the
resolution did not in fact bind Congress to socialism, and that the
Congress Party's main goal was independence, not socialism. However,
Nehru had grown politically closer to Congress socialists like Jaya
Prakash Narayan, Narendra Dev and the liberal-socialist Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad. During this period, Nehru also wrote his autobiography in
which he vividly describes his struggle for (political) freedom, noting
that 'This book was written entirely in prison'.
It is a very readable and honest account that contains many anecdotes
and insights in the political and social circumstances of pre-war
India. When World War II broke out, Nehru and the Congress condemned the
unilateral decision made by the British viceroy to enter India, but
were divided as to what to do about it. Nehru and Patel made an offer of
cooperation with the British, promising whole-hearted support if after
the war, the British would deliver India's political freedom. This was
opposed by Gandhi, but marked the first occasion when Nehru, and indeed a
majority of Congress leaders went against his advice. Several British
politicians and British officials backed the offer, considering Indian
support valuable, but the bid failed when the British ruled out any
political reform. The Congress Party ordered all of its elected members
in the Central and provincial assemblies to resign, and another national
struggle seemed inevitable. Nehru and Maulana Azad were lukewarm to
Gandhi's call for revolt, still considering it a good possibility that
the British would ultimately concede independence for Indian support.
Although many other Indian political parties opposed the call, Gandhi
and Sardar Patel convinced Nehru and Azad, and the entire Indian
National Congress to a final showdown with the British Empire.
The Quit India Movement was launched on August 13, 1942. The Congress
made an open call for complete independence immediately. Only an
independent India would decide whether India would participate in the
war. The Congress asked all Indians to boycott British goods, the
institutions and factories run by the British, public services and
government programs. Major strikes, protests and demonstrations broke
out all over India, and although other political parties did not
participate, it proved to be the most forceful revolt in the history of
British rule. Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were
immediately arrested. The Committee was imprisoned in a
fort-turned-prison in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, separate from Gandhi, who
was imprisoned in Pune. The British had made arrangements to deport the
leaders if necessary, but felt that then any chance of regaining order
would be lost due to public outrage. Outside, hundreds of thousands of
Indian freedom fighters were imprisoned, and thousands were killed in
police firings. Upon the end of the war, Nehru and the Congress
leadership were released. The new Labour Party government of Clement
Attlee in the United Kingdom was preparing plans for India's
independence. Imprisoned for a total of over 13 years, he was President
of the Congress in 1929, 1936, 1937 and 1947.
He became the Vice President of the Interim Government on September
2, 1946 and later the Prime Minister of Independent India on August 15,
1947. Jawaharlal Nehru served as India's Prime Minister from August 15,
1947, to May 27, 1964 - the day he died. Nehru loved children; therefore
his birthday is observed as Children's Day. For children, he was Chacha
(uncle) Nehru. In 1946, Nehru had moved into the former residence of
the British Commander in Chief of the Indian Army on York Road, in
Delhi. With independence, this became the official residence of the PM,
and after Nehru's death in 1964, the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.
Nehru lived alone initially, but was later joined by his daughter Indira
Gandhi, who despite having a young family of her own felt a need to
take care of her father's personal needs. Over the years she became his
virtual chief of staff - managing his schedule and appointments,
instructing the staff of the residence and often accompanying him on
foreign trips and in meetings with world leaders. Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru's administration created the policies that formed the
backbone of India's social and economic development, national defense
and position in world affairs for decades, although many times are
criticized as very much wrong policies. Nehru also sired the most
powerful political dynasty in India's modern history. His daughter
Indira Gandhi would become Prime Minister within two years of his death
in 1966, and would serve for 15 years and 3 terms.
His grandson Rajiv Gandhi would hold that office from 1984 to 1989. Today, Rajiv's widow Sonia Gandhi is Congress President.
Books
- Nehru's letters to his daughter Indira during successive periods of
imprisonment in 1930-1934 were later compiled into a book called
'Glimpses of World History'.
- His 1942-1945 incarceration produced 'The Discovery of India', a history of India with digressions.
- Subsequently, he wrote 'An Autobiography', which was a New York Times best seller.
- The words of Nehru's famous 'Tryst with Destiny' speech on the eve
of Indian Independence is as familiar, and indeed significant, to Indian
ears as the Gettysburg Address is to Americans.
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Dr. Hakim Ajmal Khan was a noted Indian freedom fighter, renowned
physician and educationalist. He was the founder of the Jamia Millia
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1892 to 1902. In Rampur he met Syed Ahmed Khan and was appointed a
trustee of the Aligarh college, now the Aligarh Muslim University.
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