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Early years

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What is Jawaharlal Nehru known for?

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Jawaharlal Nehru

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Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister of India after it gained independence. He previously was one of the prominent leaders of the Indian National Congress , having attracted the country’s intellectuals and youth into the mainstream of the movement. His descendants, including Indira Gandhi , Rajiv Gandhi , and Rahul Gandhi, were also prominent Indian leaders.

How was Jawaharlal Nehru educated?

Jawaharlal Nehru had a largely Western upbringing. As a boy, he was homeschooled in India , mostly by a series of English governesses and tutors. He continued his education in England , at the Harrow School in London and at Trinity College, Cambridge .

Jawaharlal Nehru was a key leader of the Indian National Congress and the independence movement. He often balanced the religiosity and traditionalism of Mahatma Gandhi with a more secular and modernist perspective, thus broadening the appeal of the movement. In 1947 he became India ’s first prime minister and served until his death in 1964.

Jawaharlal Nehru helped lead India to independence, which ended the British raj. As India’s first prime minister, he worked to make India an important member of the international community. He dislodged the Portuguese from Goa but was less successful in disputes with China over Arunachal Pradesh and with Pakistan over Kashmir .

Read a brief summary of this topic

Jawaharlal Nehru , byname Pandit (Hindi: “Pundit” or “Teacher”) Nehru , (born November 14, 1889, Allahabad , India—died May 27, 1964, New Delhi), first prime minister of independent India (1947–64), who established parliamentary government and became noted for his neutralist (nonaligned) policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the 1930s and ’40s.

Nehru was born to a family of Kashmiri Brahmans , noted for their administrative aptitude and scholarship, who had migrated to Delhi early in the 18th century. He was a son of Motilal Nehru , a renowned lawyer and leader of the Indian independence movement, who became one of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi ’s prominent associates. 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 those—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 to Harrow , a leading English school, where he stayed for two years. Nehru’s 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.”

The seven years Nehru spent in England left him in a hazy half-world, at home neither in England nor in India. Some years later he wrote, “I have become a queer mixture of East and West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.” He went back to India to discover India. The contending pulls and pressures that his experience abroad were to exert on his personality were never completely resolved.

Close-up of terracotta Soldiers in trenches, Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China

Four years after his return to India, in March 1916, Nehru married Kamala Kaul, who also came from a Kashmiri family that had settled in Delhi. Their only child, Indira Priyadarshini, was born in 1917; she would later (under her married name of Indira Gandhi ) also serve (1966–77 and 1980–84) as prime minister of India. In addition, Indira’s son Rajiv Gandhi succeeded his mother as prime minister (1984–89).

(Read Indira Gandhi’s 1975 Britannica essay on global underprivilege.)

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

Nehru’s autobiography discloses his lively interest in Indian politics during the time he was studying abroad. His letters to his father over the same period reveal their common interest in India’s 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 freedom was 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 but 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 Gandhi’s insistence on fighting against British rule of India without fear or hate.

Nehru met Gandhi for the first time in 1916 at the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress (Congress Party) in Lucknow . Gandhi was 20 years his senior. Neither seems to have made any initially strong impression on the other. Gandhi makes no mention of Nehru in an autobiography he dictated while imprisoned in the early 1920s. The omission is understandable, since Nehru’s role in Indian politics was secondary until he was elected president of the Congress Party in 1929, when he presided over the historic session at Lahore (now in Pakistan ) that proclaimed complete independence as India’s political goal. Until then the party’s objective had been dominion status.

Nehru’s close association with the Congress Party dates from 1919 in the immediate aftermath of World War I . That period saw an early wave of nationalist activity and governmental repression, which culminated in the Massacre of Amritsar in April 1919; according to an official report, 379 persons were killed (though other estimates were considerably higher), and at least 1,200 were wounded when the local British military commander ordered his troops to fire on a crowd of unarmed Indians assembled in an almost completely enclosed space in the city.

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, Nehru spent 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 Party lasted from 1919 to 1929. In 1923 he became general secretary of the party for two years, and he did so again in 1927 for another two years. His interests and duties took him on journeys over wide areas of India, particularly in his native United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh state), where his first exposure to the overwhelming poverty and degradation of the peasantry had a profound influence on his basic ideas for solving those vital problems. Though vaguely inclined toward socialism , Nehru’s 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. Nehru’s real interest in Marxism and his socialist pattern of thought stemmed 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—such as the regimentation and the heresy hunts of the communists—he could never bring himself to accept Karl Marx ’s writings as revealed scripture. Yet from then on, the yardstick of his economic thinking remained Marxist, adjusted, where necessary, to Indian conditions.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Overview (4), mini bio (1).

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, in Allahabad, India. He was the son of Swaroop Rani and Motilal Nehru, a wealthy lawyer and a prominent leader of the Indian independence movement. The Nehru family belonged to the saraswat Brahmin caste. Nehru graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge University and came back to India in 1912. In 1916, by his parents' arrangement, he married 17-year-old Kamala from a Kashmiri business family in Delhi. He became the top political leader of the Indian National Congress Party along with his mentor, Mohandas K. Gandhi . Nehru and his family made transformations in their upper class lifestyle. They followed Gandhi and abandoned fashionable British clothes and expensive possessions. Nehru and his family adopted the native language of Hindu, or Hindustani for their common use. Nehru also wore a khadi kurta and a Gandhi cap as an Indian nationalist uniform. When Nehru's father joined the Swaraj Party in opposition to Gandhi, Jawaharlal stayed with Gandhi. Together they led the nation of India to independence in 1947. Nehru signed the first constitution of independent India in 1949. He was an outstanding public speaker. He served as the first Prime Minister of India from 1947 until May 27, 1964, the day he died. He was one of the founders of the international non-aligned movement.

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Shri Jawaharlal Nehru

Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was born in Allabahad on November 14, 1889. He received his early education at home under private tutors. At the age of fifteen, he went to England and after two years at Harrow, joined Cambridge University where he took his tripos in Natural Sciences. He was later called to the Bar from Inner Temple. He returned to India in 1912 and plunged straight into politics. Even as a student, he had been interested in the struggle of all nations who suffered under foreign domination. He took keen interest in the Sinn Fein Movement in Ireland. In India, he was inevitably drawn into the struggle for independence.

In 1912, he attended the Bankipore Congress as a delegate, and became Secretary of the Home Rule League, Allahabad in 1919. In 1916 he had his first meeting with Mahatma Gandhi and felt immensely inspired by him. He organised the first Kisan March in Pratapgarh District of Uttar Pradesh in 1920. He was twice imprisoned in connection with the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22.

Pt. Nehru became the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee in September 1923. He toured Italy, Switzerland, England, Belgium, Germany and Russia in 1926. In Belgium, he attended the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities in Brussels as an official delegate of the Indian National Congress. He also attended the tenth anniversary celebrations of the October Socialist Revolution in Moscow in 1927. Earlier, in 1926, at the Madras Congress, Nehru had been instrumental in committing the Congress to the goal of Independence. While leading a procession against the Simon commission, he was lathi-charged in Lucknow in 1928. On August 29, 1928 he attended the All-Party Congress and was one of the signatories to the Nehru Report on Indian Constitutional Reform, named after his father Shri Motilal Nehru. The same year, he also founded the ‘Independence for India League’, which advocated complete severance of the British connection with India, and became its General Secretary.

In 1929, Pt. Nehru was elected President of the Lahore Session of the Indian National Congress, where complete independence for the country was adopted as the goal. He was imprisoned several times during 1930-35 in connection with the Salt Satyagraha and other movements launched by the Congress. He completed his ‘Autobiography’ in Almora Jail on February 14, 1935. After release, he flew to Switzerland to see his ailing wife and visited London in February-March, 1936. He also visited Spain in July 1938, when the country was in the throws of Civil War. Just before the court-break of the Second World War, he visited China too.

On October 31, 1940 Pt. Nehru was arrested for offering individual Satyagraha to protest against India’s forced participation in war. He was released along with the other leaders in December 1941. On August 7, 1942 Pt. Nehru moved the historic ‘Quit India’ resolution at the A.I.C.C. session in Bombay. On August 8,1942 he was arrested along with other leaders and taken to Ahmednagar Fort. This was his longest and also his last detention. In all, he suffered imprisonment nine times. After his release in January 1945, he organized legal defence for those officers and men of the INA charged with treason. In March 1946, Pt. Nehru toured South East Asia. He was elected President of the Congress for the fourth time on July 6, 1946 and again for three more terms from 1951 to 1954.

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Jawaharlal Nehru

(1889-1964)

Who Was Jawaharlal Nehru?

Nehru was born in Allahabad, India in 1889. His father was a renowned lawyer and one of Mahatma Gandhi's notable lieutenants. A series of English governesses and tutors educated Nehru at home until he was 16. He continued his education in England, first at the Harrow School and then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned an honors degree in natural science. He later studied law at the Inner Temple in London before returning home to India in 1912 and practicing law for several years. Four years later, Nehru married Kamala Kaul; their only child, Indira Priyadarshini, was born in 1917. Like her father, Indira would later serve as prime minister of India under her married name: Indira Gandhi . A family of high achievers, one of Nehru's sisters, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, later became the first woman president of the UN General Assembly.

Entering Politics

In 1919, while traveling on a train, Nehru overheard British Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer gloating over the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The massacre, also known as the Massacre of Amritsar, was an incident in which 379 people were killed and at least 1,200 wounded when the British military stationed there continuously fired for ten minutes on a crowd of unarmed Indians. Upon hearing Dyer’s words, Nehru vowed to fight the British. The incident changed the course of his life.

This period in Indian history was marked by a wave of nationalist activity and governmental repression. Nehru joined the Indian National Congress, one of India's two major political parties. Nehru was deeply influenced by the party's leader, Gandhi. It was Gandhi's insistence on action to bring about change and greater autonomy from the British that sparked Nehru's interest the most.

The British didn't give in easily to Indian demands for freedom, and in late 1921, the Congress Party's central leaders and workers were banned from operating in some provinces. Nehru went to prison for the first time as the ban took effect; over the next 24 years, he was to serve a total of nine sentences, adding up to more than nine years in jail. Always leaning to the left politically, Nehru studied Marxism while imprisoned. Though he found himself interested in the philosophy but repelled by some of its methods, from then on the backdrop of Nehru's economic thinking was Marxist, adjusted as necessary to Indian conditions.

Marching Toward Indian Independence

In 1928, after years of struggle on behalf of Indian emancipation, Nehru was named president of the Indian National Congress. (In fact, hoping that Nehru would attract India's youth to the party, Gandhi had engineered Nehru's rise.) The next year, Nehru led the historic session at Lahore that proclaimed complete independence as India's political goal. November 1930 saw the start of the Round Table Conferences, which convened in London and hosted British and Indian officials working toward a plan of eventual independence.

After his father's death in 1931, Nehru became more embedded in the workings of the Congress Party and became closer to Gandhi, attending the signing of the Gandhi-Irwin pact. Signed in March 1931 by Gandhi and the British viceroy Lord Irwin, the pact declared a truce between the British and India's independence movement. The British agreed to free all political prisoners and Gandhi agreed to end the civil disobedience movement he had been coordinating for years.

Unfortunately, the pact did not instantly usher in a peaceful climate in British-controlled India, and both Nehru and Gandhi were jailed in early 1932 on charges of attempting to mount another civil disobedience movement. Neither man attended the third Round Table Conference. (Gandhi was jailed soon after his return as the sole Indian representative attending the second Round Table Conference.) The third and final conference did, however, result in the Government of India Act of 1935, giving the Indian provinces a system of autonomous government in which elections would be held to name provincial leaders. By the time the 1935 act was signed into law, Indians began to see Nehru as the natural heir to Gandhi, who didn’t designate Nehru as his political successor until the early 1940s. Gandhi said in January 1941, "[Jawaharlal Nehru and I] had differences from the time we became co-workers and yet I have said for some years and say so now that ... Jawaharlal will be my successor."

World War II

At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, British viceroy Lord Linlithgow committed India to the war effort without consulting the now-autonomous provincial ministries. In response, the Congress Party withdrew its representatives from the provinces and Gandhi staged a limited civil disobedience movement in which he and Nehru were jailed yet again.

Nehru spent a little over a year in jail and was released with other Congress prisoners three days before Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. When Japanese troops soon moved near the borders of India in the spring of 1942, the British government decided to enlist India to combat this new threat, but Gandhi, who still essentially had the reins of the movement, would accept nothing less than independence and called on the British to leave India. Nehru reluctantly joined Gandhi in his hardline stance and the pair were again arrested and jailed, this time for nearly three years.

By 1947, within two years of Nehru's release, simmering animosity had reached a fever pitch between the Congress Party and the Muslim League, who had always wanted more power in a free India. The last British viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, was charged with finalizing the British roadmap for withdrawal with a plan for a unified India. Despite his reservations, Nehru acquiesced to Mountbatten and the Muslim League's plan to divide India, and in August 1947, Pakistan was created—the new country Muslim and India predominantly Hindu. The British withdrew and Nehru became independent India’s first prime minister.

The First Prime Minister of Independent India

Domestic policy.

The importance of Nehru in the context of Indian history can be distilled to the following points: he imparted modern values and thought, stressed secularism, insisted upon the basic unity of India, and, in the face of ethnic and religious diversity, carried India into the modern age of scientific innovation and technological progress. He also prompted social concern for the marginalized and poor and respect for democratic values.

Nehru was especially proud to reform the antiquated Hindu civil code. Finally, Hindu widows could enjoy equality with men in matters of inheritance and property. Nehru also changed Hindu law to criminalize caste discrimination.

Nehru's administration established many Indian institutions of higher learning, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the Indian Institutes of Technology, and the National Institutes of Technology, and guaranteed in his five-year plans free and compulsory primary education to all of India's children.

National Security and International Policy

The Kashmir region—which was claimed by both India and Pakistan—was a perennial problem throughout Nehru's leadership, and his cautious efforts to settle the dispute ultimately failed, resulting in Pakistan making an unsuccessful attempt to seize Kashmir by force in 1948. The region has remained in dispute into the 21st century.

Internationally, starting in the late 1940s, both the United States and the U.S.S.R. began seeking out India as an ally in the Cold War, but Nehru led efforts toward a "nonalignment policy," by which India and other nations wouldn’t feel the need to tie themselves to either dueling country to thrive. To this end, Nehru co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement of nations professing neutrality.

Recognizing the People's Republic of China soon after its founding, and as a strong supporter of the United Nations, Nehru argued for China’s inclusion in the UN and sought to establish warm and friendly relations with the neighboring country. His pacifist and inclusive policies with respect to China came undone when border disputes led to the Sino-Indian war in 1962, which ended when China declared a ceasefire on November 20, 1962, and announced its withdrawal from the disputed area in the Himalayas.

Nehru's four pillars of domestic policies were democracy, socialism, unity, and secularism, and he largely succeeded in maintaining a strong foundation of all four during his tenure as president. While serving his country, he enjoyed iconic status and was widely admired internationally for his idealism and statesmanship. His birthday, November 14, is celebrated in India as Baal Divas ("Children's Day") in recognition of his lifelong passion and work on behalf of children and young people.

Nehru's only child, Indira, served as India's prime minister from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1984 when she was assassinated. Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, was prime minister from 1984 to 1989, when he was also assassinated.

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Jawaharlal Nehru Biography: Early Life, Family, Education and Political Journey

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a leading figure in the Indian Independence struggle. He was the first Prime Minister of Independent India. He had initiated socio-economic policies of the idealistic socialist kind. He was a prolific writer and authored books such as 'The Discovery of India' and 'Glimpses of the World History'.

Jawaharlal Nehru was the father of Indira Gandhi, the first woman Prime Minister of India. He established a parliamentary government and is known for his nonaligned or neutralist policies in foreign affairs. He participated in India's Independence movement and was a principle leader in the 1930s and 40s.

Jawaharlal Nehru: Quick Facts

Born on: 14 November, 1889

Place of Birth: Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India

Father's Name: Motilal Nehru

Mother's Name: Swarup Rani Nehru

Spouse: Kamala Nehru

Children: Indira Gandhi

Education: Harrow School, London; Trinity College, Cambridge; Inns of Court School of Law, London

Occupation: Barrister, Writer, and Politician

Political party: Indian National Congress

Political Ideology: Nationalism, Socialism, Democracy

Award: Bharat Ratna

Publications/Works: The Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History, Jawaharlal Nehru's Autobiography, Letters from a Father to his Daughter, etc.

Died: 27 May 1964

Place of Death: New Delhi

Cause of Death: Heart attack

Memorial: Shantivan, New Delhi

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Jawaharlal Nehru: Early Life, Family, and Education

Jawaharlal Nehru was born in a Kashmiri Brahman family. His father Motilal Nehru was a renowned lawyer and leader of the Indian independence movement. He was also one of the prominent associates of Mahatma Gandhi. Jawaharlal Nehru was the eldest son of Motilal Nehru out of four children and two of whom were girls. He completed his early education until the age of 14 at home under private tutors. At the age of fifteen, he went to England at Harrow school. After two years, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and earned an honours degree in natural sciences. At the Inner Temple, London, he had completed his studies for a barrister.

He spent seven years in England but was very confused and always felt that he is in a half home neither in England nor in India. And so, he had written, "I have become a queer mixture of East and West, out of place everywhere, at home now where". He came back to India in around 1912. He had an interest in the struggle of all nations who suffered under foreign domination. In 1916, he married Kamala Kaul and settled in Delhi. In 1917, Indira Priyadarshini (Indira Gandhi) was born.

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Jawaharlal Nehru: Political Journey

- He attended the Bankipore Congress as a delegate in 1912.

- In 1919, he became the Secretary of the Home Rule League, Allahabad.

- In 1916, the first time he met with Mahatma Gandhi , and was immensely inspired by him.

- In 1920, he organised the first Kisan March in the Pratapgarh district of Uttar Pradesh.

- Due to the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-22), he was imprisoned twice.

- In September 1923, he became the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee.

- In 1926, he toured Italy, Switzerland, England, Belgium, Germany, and Russia.

- As an official delegate of the Indian National Congress, he had attended the Congress of oppressed Nationalities in Brussels in Belgium.

- In 1927, he attended the tenth-anniversary celebrations of the October Socialist Revolution in Moscow.

- During the Simon Commission in 1928, he was lathi-charged in Lucknow.

- He attended the All-Party Congress on 29 August 1928 and was one of the signatories to the Nehru Report on Indian Constitutional Reform that was named after his father Shri Motilal Nehru.

- In 1928, he founded the 'Independence for India League' and became its General Secretary.

- He was elected the President of the Lahore Session of the Indian National Congress in 1929. In this session only, the complete goal for the independence of the country was adopted.

- During 1930-35, he was imprisoned several times, due to the connection with Salt Satyagraha and other movements launched by the Congress.

- On 14 February 1935, he had completed his 'Autobiography' in Almora Jail.

- After releasing from jail, he went to Switzerland to see his ailing wife.

- He was again arrested for offering an individual Satyagraha on 31 October, 1940 to protest against India's forced participation in the war.

- In December 1941, he was released from jail.

- At the 'All India Congress Committee' session in Bombay on 7 August, 1942, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru moved the 'Quit India' resolution.

- He was arrested with other leaders on 8 August, 1942 and taken to Ahmednagar Fort. This was the longest and his last detention.

- He was released from Jail in January 1945 and organised a legal defence for officers and men of the INA charged with treason.

- In July, 1946, for the fourth time, he was elected as the President of the Congress and again for three more terms from 1951 to 1954.

In this way, he became the first Prime Minister of independent India. He was the first Prime Minister to hoist the national flag and make his iconic speech "Tryst with Destiny" from the ramparts of the Lal Quilla (Red Fort).

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Major works of Jawaharlal Nehru after becoming the Prime Minister of India

- He imparted modern values and thought.

- He insisted on the secular and liberalist approach.

- He focused on the basic unity of India.

- He advocated democratic socialism and encouraged India's industrialisation by implementing the first five-year plans in 1951.

- Promoted scientific and technological advancements by establishing higher learning.

- Also, instituted various social reforms like free public education, free meals for Indian children, legal rights for women including the ability to inherit property, divorce their husbands, laws to prohibit discrimination based on caste, etc.

Summary on Indian National Movement

Jawaharlal Nehru: Legacy

He believed in pluralism, socialism, liberalism, and democracy. He had an immense love for children and so, his birthday is celebrated as Children's Day in India. He supported and generated a way for India's education by envisioning the top tier institutions of India including the Indian Institute of Technology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences and India's first Space Program, etc.

In fact, Shyam Benegal created a TV series "Bharat Ek Khoj" that was based on Jawaharlal Nehru's famous book, Discovery of India. In Richard Attenborough's biopic 'Gandhi' and Ketan Mehta's 'Sardar', Jawaharlal Nehru was featured as a prominent character.

Jawaharlal Nehru: Death

On 27 May 1964, he died due to a heart attack. He was cremated at the Shantivan on the banks of the Yamuna River in Delhi.

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Jawaharlal Nehru Biography

Jawahar Lal Nehru’s Biography - A journey of Struggle, Sacrifice and Victory

Jawahar Lal Nehru was an Indian independence fighter and the first prime minister of India. He was considered as a central warrior in Indian Politics before independence as well as after independence. He was born on 14 November 1889 in Allahabad and served the nation from 1947 until his death in 1964. The birthplace of Jawahar Lal Nehru is Prayagraj which is in Ahmedabad. Due to his association with the Kashmiri Pandit community, he was also known as Pandit Nehru, while the Indian kids referred to them as Chacha Nehru. Jawahar Lal Nehru’s birthday is widely celebrated as children’s day. His father’s name is Motilal Nehru who served as Indian Prime minister in 1919 and 1928. His mother’s name is Swarup Rani Thussu and she was the second wife of Motilal’s. Jawahar Lal Nehru had 2 sisters and he was the eldest among all. Vijay Laxmi was the eldest sister who later became the President of the United Nations General Assembly. And the youngest sister Krishna Hutheesing was a noted writer and authored several books on her brother. Jawahar Lal Nehru was married to Kamala Nehru who was born in 1899.

Childhood and Early Age:

He grew up in a privileged atmosphere in rich homes. His father trained him by private governesses and tutors. Nehru became interested in science and theosophy under the influence of Ferdinand T. Brooks' tutelage. At the age of thirteen, family friend Annie Besant subsequently introduced him to the Theosophical Society. For nearly three years Brooks was with me and in some ways, he influenced me greatly.

Jawahar Lal Nehru’s Education:

In October 1907, Nehru visited Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated with an honours degree in science in 1910. He also studied politics, economics, history, and literature with little interest during this time. Most of his political and financial philosophy was molded by the writings of Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, John Maynard Keynes, Bertrand Russell, Lowes Dickinson, and Meredith Townsend.

After completing his degree in 1910, Nehru moved to London and studied law at the Inner Temple Inn. During this period, including Beatrice Webb, he continued to research the Fabian Society scholars. He was called to the Bar in 1912.

Early Struggle for Independence (1912 - 1938)

During his time in Britain as a student and a barrister, Nehru developed an interest in Indian politics. Nehru attended an annual session of the Indian National Congress in Patna within months of his return to India in 1912. In 1912, Congress was the party of progressives and elites, and he was disconcerted by what he saw as "very much an English-knowing upper-class affair." Nehru had reservations about Congress' efficacy but decided to work for the party to support the Indian civil rights movement led in South Africa by Mahatma Gandhi, raising funds for the movement in 1913. Later, in the British colonies, he protested against indentured labour and other such injustice faced by Indians.

Non-Cooperation Movement:

Nehru's first significant national participation came at the beginning of the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920. Nehru was arrested in 1921 on charges of anti-government activities Nehru remained loyal to Gandhi in the rift that developed within the Congress following the sudden closure of the Non-Cooperation movement after the Chauri Chaura incident and did not join the Swaraj Party formed by his father Motilal Nehru and CR Das.

Salt Satyagraha Success:

The Salt Satyagraha succeeded in attracting the world's attention. Increasingly, Indian, British, and world views started to accept the validity of the Congress party's independence claims. Nehru found the high-water mark of his involvement with Gandhi to be the salt satyagraha and thought that its enduring significance was in transforming Indian attitudes.

Jawahar Lal Nehru The First Prime Minister of India:

Nehru served for 18 years as prime minister, first as temporary prime minister, and then as prime minister of the Republic of India from 1950.

In the 1946 elections Congress captured a majority of seats in the assembly and, with Nehru as the prime minister, led the provisional government. On 15 August 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru was sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Free India. On 15 August, he took office because the Prime Minister of India and gave his inaugural entitled "Tryst with Destiny".

Hindu Marriage Law and Role of Jawahar Lal Nehru:

Several laws passed such as the Hindu Code law in the 1950s that sought to codify and amend Hindu personal law in India. After India's independence in 1947, this codification and change, a process initiated by the British Raj, was completed by the Indian National Congress government headed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The object of the Hindu Code Bill was to provide a civil code instead of a body of personal Hindu law, which had been amended only to a limited extent by the British authorities. On 9 April 1948, the bill was submitted to the Constituent Assembly, but it created a lot of uproars and was subsequently broken down to three more specialized bills that came before the 1952-7 term of the Lok Sabha. The Hindu Marriage Bill abolished polygamy and included restrictions on inter-caste marriages and divorce procedures; the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Bill had the adoption of girls as its main thrust, which had been little practiced until then; the Hindu Succession Bill put daughters on the same footing as widows and sons when it came to family property inheritance.

1952 Elections and Jawahar Lal Nehru:

Following the constitution's ratification on 26 November 1949, the Constituent Assembly, before new elections, proceeded to serve as the provisional parliament. The interim cabinet of Nehru was composed of 15 representatives from different communities and parties. Different cabinet members resigned from their positions and formed their parties to contest the elections. Nehru was also elected the president of Congress for 1951 and 1952 while being the PM. In the election, the Congress party under the leadership of Nehru won significant majorities at both state and national level, despite a large number of parties competing.

Death of Jawahar Lal Nehru:

After 1962, Nehru's health started to decline slowly, and he spent months recovering in Kashmir until 1963. He felt very relaxed after his return from Dehradun on 26 May 1964 and went to bed, as usual, had a restful night after he returned from the bathroom, Nehru complained of back pain. He talked to the doctors who were attending him for a short time, and Nehru collapsed almost instantly. Before he died, he remained unconscious. His death was registered to Lok Sabha on 27 May 1964 (the same day) the cause of death is suspected to be a heart attack. The body of Jawaharlal Nehru was put for public viewing on the Indian national Tri-colour flag. Nehru was cremated on 28 May at Shantivan on the banks of the Yamuna by Hindu rituals, witnessed by 1.5 million mourners flocking to the streets of Delhi and the cremation grounds.

FAQs on Jawaharlal Nehru Biography

Q1. Why do we Celebrate Jawahar Lal Nehru’s Birthday as a Children’s Day?

Ans. Every year, 14th November is celebrated as children’s day. Jawahar Lal Nehru also remembered as Chacha Nehru was the first-ever Prime Minister of India. Children’s day is celebrated for the awareness of child rights, child care, and education for all children. According to him, children were the real assets and strength of society. Cultural activities for children are held across the world on this day, in different schools, colleges, and other educational institutions. There are some programs and events, which also see the involvement of students. Kids also dress up as Jawaharlal Nehru with a red rose pinned to their 'Nehru' jacket collar.

Q2. What was Nehru’s Contribution Towards India?

Ans. After achieving independence, Jawaharlal Nehru was India's first Prime Minister. He was previously one of the influential leaders of the Indian National Congress, having pulled the intellectuals and youth of the country into the movement's mainstream. His descendants were also influential Indian politicians, including Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi. Nehru played a leading role in the growth of the Indian independence struggle's internationalist perspective. He found foreign allies for India and forged relations with independence and democracy movements around the world. He brought moderate socialist economic reforms into practice and dedicated India to an industrialization policy. Also, Nehru acted as India's foreign minister.

Q3. Explain the Education History of Jawahar Lal Nehru?

Ans. Jawaharlal Nehru had a Western childhood, in large part. He was homeschooled in India as a child, often by a series of governesses and tutors in English. In October 1907, Nehru went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated in 1910 with an honors degree in natural science. He started his education in England, in London at Harrow School, and in Cambridge at Trinity College. He also studied politics, economics, history, and literature with little interest during this time. He spent seven years in England, but he was very confused and still felt neither in England nor in India that he was in a half-home. "I have become a queer mixture of East and West, out of place everywhere, at home now where" I have become a queer East-West combination, out of place anywhere, at home now, where.

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Nehru, Jawaharlal

The first prime minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and had advocated for India’s release from British rule. Nehru’s political and social work helped create an independent India in 1947, and inspired Martin Luther King in his own struggle for the freedom of African Americans in the United States. During King’s 1959 India trip , which he called “one of the most concentrated and eye-opening experiences” of his life, he met with Nehru ( Papers 5:232 ).

Nehru, the son of a wealthy barrister and politician, was born on 14 November 1889, in Allahabad, India. The eldest of three children, Nehru was home schooled until the age of 15, when he continued his education in England. He received a BA (1910) from Trinity College, Cambridge, and, after studying law at Inner Temple in London, Nehru was called to the bar in 1912, and returned to India to practice law. Following his return to India, Nehru joined Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement and, in 1923, became general secretary of the All-India Congress Committee.

Nehru served as a source of inspiration for King during the Montgomery bus boycott . A year before the two men met, King inscribed a copy of his newly published book, Stride Toward Freedom , to Nehru with the words: “In appreciation for your genuine good-will, your broad humanitarian concern, and the inspiration that your great struggle for India gave to me and the 50,000 Negroes of Montgomery” (King, November 1958). King and Nehru met on 10 February 1959, at the prime minister’s home. During that visit Nehru and King discussed the possibility of Indian universities providing assistance for African American students. Although Nehru supported the proposal, he acknowledged that “nobody in poor India had thought about offering scholarships for students from rich America” (Reddick, 1968). The two men also discussed methods that relied on nonviolence , and the vitality of Gandhianism throughout India.

Nehru and King maintained a casual correspondence until Nehru’s death in May 1964. In a telegram to Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, King said that the prime minister’s death was a “great loss to the whole world” and that “generations yet unborn will be inspired by his noble life” (King, 27 May 1964). Writing in The Legacy of Nehru: A Memorial Tribute , published the year after Nehru’s death, King said: “In all of these struggles of mankind to rise to a true state of civilization, the towering figure of Nehru sits unseen but felt at all council tables. He is missed by the world, and because he is so wanted, he is a living force in the tremulous world of today” (King, 67).

Nehru’s legacy was carried on by his only child, Indira Gandhi, who served as the third prime minister of independent India until her assassination in 1984. Today Nehru’s powerful influence in India is still widely acknowledged.

King, Inscription to Nehru, November 1958, LDPF-GAMK .

King, “My Trip to the Land of Gandhi,” July 1959, in Papers 5:231–238 .

King to Gandhi, 27 May 1964, SCLCE-GEU-S .

Nehru, “Martin Luther King, Jr.,” in Legacy of Nehru , ed. Natwar-Singh, 1965.

Nehru, Toward Freedom , 1941.

Nehru to King, 14 January 1959, in Papers 5:107–108 .

“Notes for Conversation between King and Nehru,” 10 February 1959, in Papers 5:130 .

Reddick, “With King through India: A Personal Memoir,” 1968, LDRP-NN-Sc .

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Jawaharlal Nehru Biography: Early Life, Family, Education and Political Journey

In India, Jawaharlal Nehru's birthdate is observed as Children's Day. He was born in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, on November 14, 1889. In the fight for Indian independence, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru played a key...

Table of Content

In India, Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthdate is observed as Children’s Day. He was born in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, on November 14, 1889. In the fight for Indian independence, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru played a key role. He served as India’s first prime minister after independence. He introduced idealistic socialist socioeconomic measures. Furthermore, he wrote a lot, producing works like “The Discovery of India” and “Glimpses of the World History.” Indira Gandhi, India’s first female prime minister, is the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru. He founded a parliamentary system of governance and is renowned for his neutralist or non-aligned foreign policy views. He took part in the fight for Indian independence and served as a key figurehead throughout the 1930s and 1940s.

Jawaharlal nehru biography, jawaharlal nehru family, early life and education.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s Political Journey

Jawaharlal Nehru Major works after becoming the Prime Minister of India

Jawaharlal nehru legacy, jawaharlal nehru death.

Jawaharlal Nehru's Political Journey

Frequently Asked Questions

Get answers to the most common queries related to the General Awareness.

1. What did Jawaharlal Nehru do that made him renowned throughout history?

2. what was jawaharlal nehru's slogan, 3. what are the two key jawaharlal nehru writings, 4. how did jawaharlal nehru get his education, 5. what were the achievements of jawaharlal nehru.

Answer: The British Raj came to an end when Jawaharlal Nehru helped lead India to independence. He tried to establish India as a significant player in the international world as the country’s first prime minister.

Answer: With his well-known slogan “Panch Sheel” (Five Principles) of worldwide collaboration and peace, Pandit Nehru inspired the whole country.

Answer: The Glimpses of World History and Discovery of India are two of Jawaharlal Nehru’s most significant writings.

Answer: Jawaharlal Nehru was raised mostly in the West. He was mostly educated at home in India as a youngster by a succession of tutors. He pursued his schooling in England at Trinity College in Cambridge and the Harrow School in London.

Answer: Jawaharlal Nehru had a significant role in both the independence struggle and the Indian National Congress. He was appointed India’s first prime minister in 1947 and held the position until he died in 1964.

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Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru, byname Pandit (Hindi: “Pundit” or “Teacher”) Nehru, (born November 14, 1889, Allahabad, India—died May 27, 1964
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889 in Allahabad in British India. His father, Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), a self-made wealthy barrister who
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, in Allahabad, India. He was the son of Swaroop Rani and Motilal Nehru, a wealthy lawyer and a prominent
Shri Jawaharlal Nehru
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was born in Allabahad on November 14, 1889. He received his early education at home under private tutors. At the age of fifteen
Jawaharlal Nehru
Name: Jawaharlal Nehru · Birth Year: 1889 · Birth date: November 14, 1889 · Birth City: Allahabad · Birth Country: India · Gender: Male · Best Known
Jawaharlal Nehru Biography: Early Life, Family ...
Jawaharlal Nehru was born in a Kashmiri Brahman family. His father Motilal Nehru was a renowned lawyer and leader of the Indian independence
Jawaharlal Nehru Biography
Jawahar Lal Nehru was an Indian independence fighter and the first prime minister of India. He was considered as a central warrior in Indian Politics before
Nehru, Jawaharlal
Nehru, the son of a wealthy barrister and politician, was born on 14 November 1889, in Allahabad, India. The eldest of three children, Nehru was home schooled
Jawaharlal Nehru Biography: Early Life, Family ...
He was born in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, on November 14, 1889. In the fight for Indian independence, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru played a key role. He served as
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Write a short biography of Jawaharlal Nehru under the following headings. His parentage and education. His contribution to India's freedom struggle. Jawaharlal
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
He was born on 14th November,1889 in Allahabad. He was born to Shrimati Swarup Rani Thussu and Shri Moti Lal Nehru, a prominent lawyer in Allahabad. He received