Jawaharlal Nehru

Prime minister of India (1947-1964)

• Born: November 14, 1889
• Birthplace: Allahabad, India
• Died: May 27, 1964
• Place of death: New Delhi, India

Nehru led India through the difficult transition from colony to independence, providing the critical political skills for his close friend and mentor, Mahatma Gandhi. On India’s being granted independence on August 15, 1947, Nehru became India’s first prime minister. Following Gandhi’s assassination in January, 1948, Nehru placed India firmly in a nonaligned, democratic path, ruling the country until his own death.

Early Life

Jawaharlal Nehru (juh-WAH-huhr-lahl NAY-rew) was born into an affluent, prominent Kashmiri Brahman family. Nehru’s father was both a barrister and prominent politician, and Jawaharlal was groomed for a similar role from an early age. Given the family background, young Nehru was reared in an Anglophile atmosphere, tutored by a succession of British nannies and teachers.

At thirteen, under the influence of his tutor, Ferdinand Brooks, Nehru joined Annie Besant’s Theosophical Society. In May, 1905, Nehru arrived at Harrow School in London to prepare for college. Following three years of study at Harrow, Nehru began his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge. Following completion of his undergraduate studies, in 1910 Nehru moved to London to begin his bar studies at the Inner Temple.

Nehru returned to India in September, 1912. Given his family interests in Congress Party politics, young Nehru soon became involved in Allahabad’s political scene, though at the time the Congress Party was fairly obscure. Nehru attended the Congress Party’s Bankipore meeting as a delegate in October, 1912. He worked as a junior barrister under his father’s supervision, but he was not drawn to the practice of law as a profession.

Nehru married Kamala Kaul, the daughter of an orthodox Brahman Kashmiri family, on February 8, 1916. In November, 1917, their daughter Indira was born, who would herself later become prime minister of India.

Life’s Work

Despite India’s contributions to the Allies in World War I, the nation was disappointed by Britain’s subsequent Government of India Act of December 23, 1919, feeling that it fell far short of Indian desires for home rule. Nehru by this time had determined to work with Mahatma Gandhi, who had returned to India from South Africa in January, 1915. Gandhi’s satyagraha (nonviolence) campaign began in March, 1919, and Nehru fully supported it. Nehru believed that Gandhi’s policies offered “a method of action which was straight and open and possibly effective.” The relevance of Gandhi’s policies was highlighted by the massacre on April 13, 1919, at Amritsar, when troops under General Reginald Dyer opened fire, killing hundreds of unarmed civilians. Nehru’s father had continued to rise in Indian politics; in November, 1919, he was elected to the presidency of the Congress Party.

In June, 1920, Nehru met with a crowd of peasants who had marched fifty miles to Allahabad to acquaint the politicians with the appalling conditions of their lives. Nehru was sufficiently moved by their tales of exploitation by the large landowners that he began to interest himself in the plight of the peasantry. Nehru began to understand that in the countryside might be built a base of political support for a national movement, rather than largely relying on the cities. He quickly became very popular among the peasantry as a politician who, despite a background of affluence, was genuinely concerned with their problems. Nehru now busied himself with spreading Gandhi’s satyagraha policies throughout the countryside.

British authorities were sufficiently vexed by the Nehrus’ activities that on December 6, 1921, they took father and son into custody. Jawaharlal was released in March, 1922, when it was discovered that he had been wrongly convicted. On his release he worked to urge Indians to boycott foreign goods, resulting in his rearrest and sentencing on May 19, 1922, to a twenty-one-month prison term. Nehru was again released early, in January, 1923. Nehru was arrested yet again in September, 1923, but given a suspended sentence.

Nehru now believed that Congress Party policies needed a body of regular, disciplined volunteers; he accordingly founded the Hindustan Seva Dal in December, 1923, a body under congressional control that was to recruit and train patriotic Indians. Within the month, Nehru was formally elected general secretary of Congress.

Nehru’s wife’s health began to deteriorate; she was diagnosed as having tuberculosis. In March, 1926, the entire family moved to Switzerland to facilitate her recovery. The Nehrus settled in Geneva; while Kamala underwent medical treatment, Jawaharlal busied himself observing the International Labor Office and the League of Nations, both headquartered in the city.

Nehru was a keen political observer of the European political scene and during his twenty-month stay in Europe, visited a number of the European capitals. During the summer of 1926, he visited Italy, observing the effects of fascism there. During September he again went to England, while that autumn a trip to Berlin impressed him with German industrial might. In February, 1927, Nehru went to Brussels as an Indian National Congress Party representative to attend the International Congress of Oppressed Nationalities Against Imperialism. Nehru pursued some academic interests while in Switzerland, becoming enrolled in the University of Geneva’s International Summer School. During November, 1927, Nehru and his family went to Moscow for the tenth anniversary celebrations of the establishment of Soviet power, giving Nehru a chance to observe firsthand the workings of a socialist state.

On his return to India in December, 1927, Nehru threw himself into Congress political work, immersing himself in it for the next two years. In answer to the hotly debated question of whether India should seek either dominion status within the British Empire or complete independence, Nehru at the Madras Congress in December, 1927, forwarded a resolution that this “Congress declares the goal of the Indian people to be complete National Independence.” The same month he formed the first of his pressure groups within Congress, the Republican Party of Congress. Nehru contributed extensively to the popular press, particularly the Hindu and Tribune. His untiring efforts were rewarded with election to the presidency of Congress in 1929. At Congress’s annual meeting that December, Nehru moved the main resolution, that Congress now stood for complete Indian independence . The resolution passed overwhelmingly.

Nehru’s predicament was that he was drawn to both Gandhian principles of nonviolence and socialism. His interest in socialism had been strengthened by his visit to the Soviet Union, which he saw as a nonimperialist nation attempting to implement true equality. His closeness to Gandhi, however, made him constantly aware of the ethical strength embodied in his nonviolent principles.

Direct conflict with the British government erupted with Gandhi’s famous March, 1930, March to the Sea to manufacture salt in violation of a government monopoly. Both Gandhi and Nehru spent much of the next few years in and out of British jails; Nehru served nearly four years during the period 1930-1935. While in prison he wrote Glimpses of World History (1934-1935), a series of letters to his daughter Indira that contemplated the entire sweep of human history. Nehru also wrote Jawaharlal Nehru: An Autobiography (1936) and many articles during this period of confinement. Nehru was to spend nearly nine years total in prison between 1921 and 1945, but he never allowed himself to become embittered by the experience; instead, he tried to put his time to good use.

A great personal loss was the death of his father on February 6, 1931. As his wife’s health deteriorated, Nehru became more and more concerned; following an early release from prison in September, 1935, he flew immediately to Europe to be with his wife, who had earlier gone there for medical treatment. His wife died in Lausanne on February 29, 1936. With his wife’s death, Nehru threw himself into political work. Following his return to India, by February, 1937, he had visited every province in India, giving him a broad perspective of the country’s problems. Subsequent elections strengthened Congress’s power. Congress now faced growing unrest from the Muslim League, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

The next major issue facing Congress was the declaration by Great Britain on September 3, 1939, of Indian belligerency in the war against Adolf Hitler without Indian consent. As a member of the Working Committee, Nehru drew up a protest, but this was contrary to the emergency acts passed by the government, and on October 31, 1940, Nehru was immediately arrested and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. Despite the severity of the British crackdown, Nehru and five hundred Congress colleagues were released in early December, 1941.

Given the seriousness of the British position in the Far East with the Japanese advances since December, 1941, Churchill’s government began to deal seriously with India. Sir Stafford Cripps arrived in India on March 22, 1942, with a compromise offer from His Majesty’s government. In return for wholehearted Indian support of the war effort, India would achieve independence after the war. Nehru and Gandhi were arrested after rioting erupted in August, 1942, after the proposal was rejected. Nehru wrote The Discovery of India (1946) during this period of confinement, which lasted from August, 1942, to June, 1945.

On release, Nehru continued to agitate for complete independence. Clement Attlee’s government had declared in December, 1945, its support for Indian independence, but increasing Muslim resistance to inclusion in a Hindu state made negotiations increasingly difficult. Nehru in August, 1946, was invited as the president of Congress to form an interim cabinet. In early 1947, the British government declared its intention to quit India by June, 1948, and the friction between the Muslim League under Jinnah and Congress increased.

India was formally granted independence on August 15, 1947. Fighting between the areas assigned to an independent Muslim Pakistan and a Hindu India forced a migration of hundreds of thousands and resulted in many deaths. Prime Minister Nehru and Gandhi attempted to stanch the bloodshed but were largely unsuccessful. Gandhi himself was assassinated on January 25, 1948.

Nehru’s troubles as prime minister were immediately increased in 1947-1948 by the problem of conflicting Indian-Pakistani claims to Kashmir, with firefights occurring along the disputed frontier. India also experienced increasing tension with China, especially after China’s invasion of Tibet in October, 1950. After a revolt in Tibet failed in 1959, the Dalai Lama with 100,000 followers found sanctuary in India. Chinese and Indian troops subsequently fought a series of fierce border skirmishes in the autumn of 1962.

India’s postcolonial domestic problems were immense. To improve the economy, Nehru’s government on April 1, 1951, inaugurated its first Five-Year Plan, with an emphasis on increasing agricultural output. The government also instituted a Community Development Program to raise the living standard of the countryside. In 1955, the Untouchability Act was passed to attempt to ease life for India’s most degraded citizens.

Nehru’s popularity remained high; he was reelected in March, 1957, and to a third five-year term in March, 1962. Nehru’s nonaligned stance slowly won for him grudging admiration, even in the fiercely anticommunist United States. He visited the United States in 1949 and 1956; President Dwight D. Eisenhower returned the courtesy in 1960. His emphasis on India’s need for both democracy and socialism has increasingly proven a model for the developing world since Nehru’s death on May 27, 1964. With brief exceptions, his descendants ruled India up until 1989.

Significance

Jawaharlal Nehru had an influence far outside India’s borders. In pursuing democratic, nonaligned policies, Nehru’s India provided a pattern for the newly emerging postcolonial nations of Africa and Asia. With Gandhi’s untimely death, Nehru was the one Indian political leader who had been sufficiently closely associated with the Mahatma to be accepted as his most capable disciple and successor. In the postwar, postcolonial era, Nehru, as leader of the world’s largest democracy, faced the staggering problems brought about by the ending of the British Raj. Despite Nehru’s cosmopolitan background and his close friendship with many Englishmen, he did not want to turn an independent India into an Asian replica of Great Britain.

Nehru’s acute observations of both the European and Soviet political systems led him to attempt to combine the best features of both in India. Given India’s industrial weakness, Nehru believed that a centrally planned economy would provide the most immediate results. In politics, Nehru believed that the British parliamentary system and a multiparty structure provided a better model for India than the Soviet one-party state. Nehru was also an innovator in international relations. Nehru attempted to draw closer to other Asian states attempting to maintain an equal distance between the American and Soviet blocs, believing that India’s immense size made it the natural leader in south Asia.

The political dynasty that Nehru founded remained remarkably stable in Indian politics. When his grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, resigned as prime minister, on November 29, 1989, a Nehru had ruled India for all but five of its forty-two years of independence from Britain. While Rajiv was not able to carry on that heritage, his mother, Indira Gandhi, governed India from January, 1966, with a brief break in 1977-1979, until her assassination by Sikh extremists on October 31, 1984. For whatever future direction the nation may take, many of Nehru’s values continue to guide the country’s destiny.

Bibliography

Ali, Tariq. The Nehrus and the Gandhis: An Indian Dynasty. Rev. ed. London: Picador, 2002. This well-written family history begins with Nehru and traces his relatives and their influence on Indian politics and history.

Brecher, Michael. Nehru: A Political Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. A massive, scholarly examination of Nehru’s life and political philosophy. The work is especially valuable for its setting of Nehru’s life in the larger context of India’s resurgent nationalism under British rule from the nineteenth century onward.

Brown, Judith N. Nehru: A Political Life. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Focuses on Nehru’s political career, describing how he became Gandhi’s political heir and the challenges he faced as the founder of Indian independence.

Collins, Larry, and Dominique Lapierre. Freedom at Midnight. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975. Based on extensive use of both primary and secondary sources, this work is a very readable account of India’s push toward independence and the immediate postindependence era. The book succeeds in putting Nehru’s accomplishments in the larger perspective of twentieth century Indian politics, though the account ends with Gandhi’s assassination.

Gopal, Sarvepali. Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography. 3 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976-1984. As one of India’s most respected historians, Gopal was chosen to write Nehru’s official biography and enjoyed access to Nehru’s papers and associates. Although the work is extremely thorough, it suffers from a slight lack of relative objectivity about its subject.

Nehru, Jawaharlal. Jawaharlal Nehru: An Autobiography. New ed. London: Bodley Head, 1985. The bulk of this work was written by Nehru during his confinement (June, 1934-February, 1935), with additional material added later by the author to cover events up to 1940. The tone is both thoughtful and reserved, and is marked by a remarkable lack of rancor toward the British.

Pandey, B. N. Nehru. London: Macmillan, 1976. Pandey, a member of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, conducted extensive interviews in India with members of Nehru’s family, friends, and fellow politicians.

Shorter, Bani. Nehru: A Voice for Mankind. New York: John Day, 1970. A fairly intimate biography of Nehru that serves as an introduction to the man, his work, and the history of India. Includes an index and photographs.

Tharoor, Shashi. Nehru: The Invention of India. New York: Arcade, 2003. Examines Nehru’s life and political development and evaluates his legacy.

Zachariah, Benjamin. Nehru. New York: Routledge, 2004. Biography focusing on Nehru’s political career, describing how he came to lead the Indian national movement and how he sustained that leadership through the early years of his country’s independence.