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Jawaharlal Nehru
*** Shopping-Tip: Jawaharlal Nehru
{| align="right" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="border: 1px solid; margin-left: 1em"
|+ '''Jawaharlal Nehru'''
|-
! bgcolor="#efefef" colspan="2" |
Image:Discovery of india.jpg thumb|Nehru on the Cover of the [[Discovery of India.]]
|-
! Date of Birth:
|
November 14,
1889
|-
! Date of Death:
|
May 27,
1964
|-
! Place of Birth:
|
Allahabad,
Uttar Pradesh,
India
|-
! bgcolor="#efefeg" colspan="2" |
Prime Minister of India
|-
! Tenure Order:
| 1st Prime Minister
|-
! Political party:
|
Indian National Congress
|-
! Took Office:
|
August 15,
1947
|-
! Left Office:
|
May 27,
1964
|-
! Successor:
|
Lal Bahadur Shastri
|}
'''Jawaharlal Nehru''' (जवाहरलाल नेहरू, JavÄ?harlÄ?l NehrÅ«) (
November 14,
1889 –
May 27,
1964), also called '''Pandit''' ('Scholar, Teacher') '''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 School 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.
Gandhi and the 1920s
His father Motilal Nehru was already a prominent figure in the
Indian National Congress and had served as its president. Thus when young and glamorous Jawaharlal entered the Congress, it excited young Indians all over, who felt Nehru would rejuvenate India's political leadership and come at the same level with the British rulers of the land.
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. This would be valuable but the only administrative experience Nehru would have before taking on India's whole government in 1947. He used his tenure to expand public education, health care and sanitation. He resigned citing lack of cooperation from civil servants and obstruction from British authorities.
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.
Political Attitudes
Jawaharlal was the leader of a new generation of Congressmen who were radical in political beliefs. He had been exposed to
socialism in England and Europe, and following freedom struggles in
Ireland and the revolution in
Russia, Nehru became one of the first major Indian political figures to embrace the idea of full political independence from the
British Empire. Even Gandhi and Motilal Nehru had not committed to this, but Nehru's vision was shared by
Subhas Chandra Bose too, and a growing number of Indians.
Rise to Leadership
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. 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.
Socialism and Quit India
Image:Nehru Gandhi 1937 touchup.jpg thumb|280px|[[Gandhi and
Nehru in 1937]]
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.
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.
Incarcerated for 32 months with his fellow Congress leaders, Nehru focused on writing his ''Discovery of India''.
Congress Presidency
Upon the end of the war, Nehru and the Congress leadership were released. The new
Labour Party (UK) Labour Party government of
Clement Attlee in the United Kingdom was preparing plans for India's independence.
In 1946, the Congress convened its session for a presidential election, knowing fully that this leader would become the head of India's government.
Nehru, unlike Patel, was nominated by no state unit, but the Working Committee made a tentative nomination. Gandhi asked Patel to withdraw himself from the election, allowing Nehru's election, and Patel promptly did so. This relatively undocumented episode is deeply controversial to contemporary historians.
Partition and Independence
Image:Nehru signing Indian Constitution.jpg thumb|Jawaharlal Nehru signing the [[Constitution of India ]]
Elections were held in 1946 to the
Constituent Assembly of India. The Congress swept the vote at the central level and most of British India's provinces.
The
All India Muslim League, led by
Muhammad Ali Jinnah had become the prime political opponent of the Congress. The League demanded a separate Muslim state, and enjoyed the support of many of India's Muslims.
Nehru and the Congress Party strongly opposed India's partition, or any excessive political concessions to the League to prevent this. The party accepted the May 16 Plan proposed by the Cabinet Mission led by
Sir Stafford Cripps as the only resort to preventing India's division as proposed in the June 16 plan. Although the May 16 plan envisioned communal grouping of India's provinces, the Congress accepted to keep the League from usurping control of the new interim government. When the League pulled out from the process, Congress was left in complete control of the new government. Nehru became the Vice President of the Viceroy's Executive Council, de facto head of government.
But Jinnah's
Direct Action Day to protest this left over 10,000 Hindus and Muslims dead in the following months. Fearing communal chaos, the Congress decided to allow the League to enter the council. However, Nehru's leadership was rejected by the new League ministers, and the council stalled over every policy decision.
Considering a political coalition unworkable and the communal situation dangerous enough to lead to full civil war between Hindus and Muslims, Nehru and
Sardar Patel backed the plan of Lord
Louis Mountbatten, India's last viceroy to partition the country into India and
Pakistan. Nehru and Patel managed to convince Gandhi, who was fearful about partition but even more fearful of civil war. The AICC adopted the resolution in June, 1947. Nehru served on the
Partition of India Partition Council that finalized the separation of government institutions and provincial resources between the two new dominions.
On August 15th, 1947, India became an independent nation. At the age of 58, Jawaharlal Nehru became the
Prime Minister of India. Lord
Louis Mountbatten became the Governor General of the Dominion, and the Constituent Assembly began work to draft the
Constitution of India and transition to a sovereign Republic.
Prime Minister of India
Jawaharlal Nehru served as India's Prime Minister from August 15, 1947, to May 27, 1964 - the day he died.
1947 to 1952
Prime Minister Nehru headed a Cabinet that included leaders from across the political spectrum like
Syama Prasad Mookerjee and
B.R. Ambedkar.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was the
Deputy Prime Minister of India and the Union Home Minister. Although Patel was powerful in the Congress Party and enjoyed far more of the respect and support of party bureaucrats than Nehru did, he could not match Nehru's popularity with the masses, his youth and dynamism. But India's first administration was a duumvirate, and Nehru did not dominate. Whenever the two faced a dispute, they would ask Gandhi to arbitrate and decide the matter.
Nehru and Patel spent their first weeks in strenuous efforts to restore peace to
Punjab, India Punjab and
Bengal after partition, and rehabilitating over 10 million incoming refugees from Pakistan. When Pakistani raiders attacked the princely state of
Jammu and Kashmir, Nehru insisted upon the state's immediate accession before the aiding of military assistance. While the state complied, in December 1947 Nehru declared a cease-fire and asked the UN to arbitrate the Kashmir dispute. This move is today largely criticised for the failure to evict Pakistani militants from Kashmir, 3 successive wars and the continuation of this dispute till present day.
Gandhi's assassination on January 30, 1948 was a major blow to India. Nehru wept as did many millions of Indians, and he and Patel embraced together. Many called for Patel's resignation following the murder, blaming his Home Ministry for failing to protect Gandhi, but Nehru rejected Patel's resignation, and gave an unusual and personal vote of confidence, and a commitment to work together. Patel was also bound by a promise to Gandhi to stay in government, but was prepared to resign if Nehru did not desire for his continuance.
However, Nehru and Patel still disagreed on the issue of
Hyderabad state Hyderabad, which had resisted annexation. Nehru and Mountbatten engaged in strenuous diplomacy in the months when Patel was recuperating from a heart attack, but with their failure Nehru was forced to concede the need for military action. Patel undertook ''Operation Polo'' as Acting Prime Minister while Nehru was in Europe, and Hyderabad was merged into the Union. But Nehru resisted similar action on
Goa, occupied by the
Portugal Portuguese and resisted sending military aid to
Tibet, which was invaded by Communist
China in 1950.
More than 900,000 Hindu refugees had flooded out of
East Pakistan, fearing intimidation and violence from Muslims. There were many allegations of government-forced evictions, and since over 1 million people had died since partition, it was a political firestorm. Nehru invited Pakistan's Prime Minister
Liaquat Ali Khan to
Delhi to discuss the matter, against the advice of
Sardar Patel and many other Indian politicians. Although aware of military options, Nehru wanted to make his best effort for peace.
The Delhi Pact of 1949 guaranteed minority rights in both countries, creating minority commissions in the
Punjab, India Punjab and
Bengal provinces of both countries. It was strongly condemned as ''appeasement'' in
West Bengal by Hindus, and several Cabinet ministers resigned in protest. Nehru became a hated figure overnight. Although Patel had firmly criticized it, he now publicly defended it. Visiting West Bengal, he talked to the common people and a variety of Hindu and Muslim citizen groups, asking the people to give peace a last try. As a result of Patel's efforts, the pact was approved and around 800,000 Hindus returned to East Pakistan.
Nehru was embarrassed when he tried to impose his preference on the Congress presidential election of 1950, lobbying against conservative
Purushottam Das Tandon and again trying to approve Governor General
Chakravarti Rajgopalachari as the first President of the forthcoming Indian Republic. Going against the will of the majority of Congressmen and rejecting Patel's aid, Nehru was strongly criticized within the party. Tandon won his election, and the party backed its favorite Dr.
Rajendra Prasad, who became the first
President of India.
At this point, Nehru considered resignation, seeing his support in the party evaporate. Patel rebuked him for ignoring the party membership but assured him there was no need to resign. With Patel's support, Nehru continued in office.
The
Constitution of India was signed on January 26, 1949, and came into effect the next year. In 1952, India held its first democratic national elections, and Nehru led the Congress Party to a sweeping majority in the
Parliament of India.
Sardar Patel had died at the end of 1950, and the real Nehru era was about to begin.
The Personal Life of the Prime Minister
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.
Nehru's policies
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.
Economic policy
Nehru was fascinated by the
Soviet Union's
Piatiletka or
5-year plans. But he wrote after a visit there in the
1920s that 'the human costs are unpayable'. A believer in the 'mixed economy' of
Harold Laski and influenced by the
Fabian Society, Nehru wished the
economy of India to be partially capitalist, but with the state occupying a large role, especially in the ''commanding heights'' of the economy.
In setting a path for the economic policy after Independence, he chose from a set of options considerably more limited than those available today, and followed to a large degree the conventional wisdom among Indian academic economists of the time. India's growth rate in
GDP stayed moderately above 4% during all the years that Nehru was Prime Minister. It is hard to say definitively how much growth there ''might'' have been with different economic policies: predominantly capitalist Western Europe grew slightly faster than India during the Nehru years (especially during the decade after World War II); but so did the command economies of communist China and the Soviet Union. The strongly capitalist USA grew somewhat more slowly, as did most of the newly independent nations that followed WWII (with the exception of oil-producing nations).
Some recent (but isolated) studies influenced by
Chicago School (economics) Chicago School economists—such as one by
Goldman Sachs—have claimed that India, had the potential to grow faster than it did in the post-Nehru 1960-1980 timeframe. According to this thinking, that opportunity was wasted out of a misplaced faith in the power of economic planning. Economist Jagdish Bhagwati has remarked that India's problem has been that it has too many brilliant economists; Bhagwati believes the stalwarts of Nehru's Planning Commissions began to believe in their own infallibility, to the detriment of the Indian nation.
B. R. Shenoy a contemporary opponent of Nehru's Second Five-Year Plan, notably, is now considered a significant theorist in the
Austrian School of Economics.
The Soviet Union was the only major power during Nehru's tenure to aid India in developing independent capabilities areas of heavy industry, engineering, and technology. This political fact, combined with Nehru's preference for state-led development, promoted suspicion about the sincerity of India's
non-aligned foreign policy positions. In hindsight, the Nehruvian model failed in many of its objectives; however, many Indian economists—particularly among Nehru's contemporaries—believe Nehru's emphasis on central planning was the right policy for India of that time.
Some critics of Indian economic development believe that the economy of the Nehruvian and post-Nehruvian era, with inefficient public sector entities on the one hand, and crony-capitalist private sector entities that used the so-called
license raj to carve out lucrative niches for themselves on the other, was a product of economic policy foundations laid during Nehru's tenure.
Nehru's economic policies are sometimes confused by critics with those of his daughter,
Indira Gandhi, which were more
statist and ''
Dirigisme dirigiste'' in orientation. Nehru's economics of state intervention and investment were conceived at a time when transfers of capital and technology important to India were not easily forthcoming from the developed world (which at the time also had plenty of state-sponsored capital controls.)
Foreign Policy
Nehru 's foreign policy was supportive of anti-colonialism, and the freedom movements in
Tanzania,
Algeria,
Indochina and the abolition of
apartheid in
South Africa. Nehru was also one of the founding statesmen of the
Non Aligned Movement, of Asian and African nations seeking to stay away from the pressures of the alliances created by the
USA and
USSR. Nehru also condemned the invasion of
Suez in 1956 by
Israel, the
United Kingdom and
France.
However, Nehru's
neutrality was strongly criticized when he failed to condemn the USSR's invasion of
Hungary in 1956-58.
On
November 27,
1946, Nehru appealed to the
United States and the
Soviet Union to end
nuclear testing and to start
nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster."
Nehru's personal charisma extended to the world stage where, because of his leadership, India was often seen to be "punching above its weight." As Prime Minister, he pursued a foreign policy of
non-alignment and became a founder and leader of the
Non-Aligned Movement. He pursued India's claim to
Kashmir in the face of Pakistani opposition, resulting in the
First Kashmir War (1947-49). Not wishing to confront China, Nehru did not protest the Chinese conquest of
Tibet, despite the fact that it meant the disappearance of a
buffer state that had separated China and India, although the
Dalai Lama was permitted to set up a government-in-exile at
Dharamsala. Military defeat at the hands of the
People's Republic of China in the
Sino-Indian War in October
1962 brought strong criticism of military unpreparedness and Nehru's policy of excessive trust in China, which had, to its credit, truthfully indicated its intention to occupy Tibet, including parts of it claimed by India.
Home Front
Nehru was leading a combination of old and young Indians all energized by patriotism and the opportunity to finally put their dreams and vision for India into practice. The Nehru years were generally peaceful, with the generation of freedom-fighters controlling the Union and state governments and political parties.
Nehru also engineered major social and political reforms in India. Laws were passed abolishing caste discrimination, dowry weddings and
suttee, and extending legal rights and social freedoms to Indian women, all against tough opposition from orthodox Hindus. Discrimination based on
casteism was outlawed. Nehru championed a nationwide campaign to enroll every Indian child in a primary school and encourage higher education. The famous
Indian Institutes of Technology were established during Nehru's reign.
In 1957, the States Reorganization Commission led by
P.C. Mahanalobis promulgated a plan to create new Indian states whose territorial boundaries would be defined by the majority language of the resident population. While generally supported, this plan caused sectarian violence in
Mumbai,
Andhra Pradesh and
Tamil Nadu, where states argued about the territorial demarcation, and violence erupted between different ethnic communities. Once he saw that both party and country wanted it, Nehru yielded to the formation of linguistic states — a policy he was personally opposed to. The debate of making
Hindi the national language also heated up as a result, claiming a number of lives amidst times of disorder.
Nehru also encouraged peaceful generation of
nuclear energy, financing work at the
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in
Mumbai. He solicited economic and technical support from the
USA,
Canada, the
United Kingdom UK,
France and the
USSR, all who helped establish major industrial factories, steel plants and India's first nuclear reactors. Major dams and irrigation canals, roads and highways, electric power stations and a host of other public works were constructed.
Legacy
Image:Jawaharlal Nehru statue in Aldwych 1.jpg thumb|Statue of Jawaharlal Nehru in [[Aldwych]]
Nehru is India's longest serving Prime Minister, leading his party to victory in three general elections in 1952, 1957 and 1962.
In an interview to an American magazine Nehru had said, ''"My legacy to India is, hopefully, 400 million people capable of governing themselves."''
His death on May 27, 1964 was because of a sudden heart attack. It was mourned by millions of people. He was cremated in
Raj Ghat and associated memorials Shantivana.
Scores of sports stadiums, public roads and highways, schools and colleges around India have been named after him. The
Jawaharlal Nehru University in
New Delhi is one of the best in India, and the
Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust was constructed in the 1980s to relieve India's largest port city,
Mumbai.
Nehru was very famous for the rose which he always kept in his breast pocket. A rose had been given to him by his wife on her death-bed, and he picked a fresh rose each morning in her memory.
The Nehru Family in Indian Politics
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, but is not Prime Minister despite the Congress currently being the largest party in the Parliament. Her son
Rahul Gandhi entered Parliament in the
2004 General Elections, and it is speculated that he is being groomed as a future Prime Minister.
See also:
*
Motilal Nehru
*
Indira Gandhi
*
Feroze Gandhi
*
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
*
Kamala Nehru
*
Nayantara Sehgal
*
Rajiv Gandhi
*
Sonia Gandhi
*
Maneka Gandhi
*
Sanjay Gandhi
*
Arun Nehru
*
Varun Gandhi
*
Rahul Gandhi
*
Priyanka Gandhi
Books, Quotes and Trivia
*The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organized religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled us with horror, and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. What Great Men Think of Religion, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
*I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth, and ignorance. I want nothing to do with any order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are capable of becoming happier and more civilized, on this earth, capable of becoming true man, master of his fate and captain of his soul. To attain this I would put priests to work, also, and turn the temples into schools.Journey to the Beginning, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
*Nehru's letters to his daughter
Indira Gandhi 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'' (ISBN 014303104X), which was a
New York Times bestseller list 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.
* Nehru had a golden bronze statue of
Mahatma Gandhi and a hand of
Abraham Lincoln on his office desk.
* In
1937, ''Modern Review'' of
Calcutta carried a letter, under the pen-name ''Chanakya'', that warned members of the Congress Party against Nehru, then party president, declaring that he had "tendencies towards autocracy" and needed to be firmly checked before he "turns into Caesar". It emerged many years later that the letter was written by Nehru himself.
* Nehru popularized the
Nehru jacket.
* Nehru's birthday,
14 November, is celebrated as
Children's Day in India, in memory of his love of children.
Further reading
*
Nehru-Gandhi family
-
''A Tryst With Destiny'' historic speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru on August 14th, 1947 Speech in the Constituent Assembly of India, on the eve of India's Independence
*''Nehru: A Biography'' by Shashi Tharoor (November 2003) Arcade Books ISBN 155970697X
*''Jawaharlal Nehru'' (Edited by S. Gopal and Uma Iyengar) (July 2003) ''The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru''
Oxford University Press ISBN 019565324X
*''Autobiography:Toward freedom'' Oxford University Press
See also
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource author}}
{{commonscat|Jawaharlal Nehru}}
*
List of people on stamps of Ireland
{{Prime Ministers of India}}
{{IndiaFreedom}}
Category:1889 births Nehru, Jawaharlal
Category:1964 deaths Nehru, Jawaharlal
Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Nehru, Jawaharlal
Category:Indian freedom fighters Nehru, Jawaharlal
Category:Prime Ministers of India Nehru, Jawaharlal
Category:Bharat Ratna recipients Nehru, Jawaharlal
Category:Indian writers Nehru, Jawaharlal
Category:Atheists Nehru, Jawaharlal
Category:Old Harrovians Nehru, Jawaharlal
Category:Congress Presidents Nehru, Jawaharlal
bg:Джавахарлал Ð?еру
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he:×’'ווהרלל × ×”×¨×•
kn:ಜವಾಹರ� ‌ಲಾಲ� ನೆಹರ�
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scn:Jawaharlal Nehru
sr:Ð?авахарлал Ð?ехру
fi:Jawaharlal Nehru
sv:Jawaharlal Nehru
ta:ஜவஹர�லால� நேர�
zh:贾瓦哈拉尔·尼赫�
*** Shopping-Tip: Jawaharlal Nehru
