141 Facts About Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secularist, social democrat, and author who served for 16 years as India's first prime minister following India's independence in 1947.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is widely considered one of the most influential heads of state in India's post-colonial history and among the world's most consequential 20th century heads of state.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru promoted parliamentary democracy, secularism, and science and technology during the 1950s, powerfully influencing India's arc as a modern nation.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became a barrister, returned to India, enrolled at the Allahabad High Court, and gradually began to take an interest in national politics, which eventually became a full-time occupation.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru joined the Indian National Congress, and rose quickly, first as leader of its progressive faction during the 1920s and then of the Congress itself.

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Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru gained the support of Mahatma Gandhi, who designated Nehru as his political heir.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru promoted the idea of the secular nation-state in the 1937 Indian provincial elections, allowing the Congress to sweep the elections, and to form governments in several provinces.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who supported the Allied war effort during World War II, reluctantly heeded Gandhi's call for immediate independence.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became India's interim prime minister in September 1946, with the League reluctantly joining his government in October 1946.

On 26 January 1950, when India became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became the Republic of India's first prime minister.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru embarked on an ambitious program of economic, social, and political reforms.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru remained popular with the Indian people despite India's defeat in the Sino-Indian War of 1962 for which he was widely blamed.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's premiership spanning 16 years, 286 days—which is, to date, longest in India—ended with his death on 27 May 1964 from a heart attack.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy has been hotly debated by Indians and international observers alike.

In more recent years, criticism of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has emerged from right-wing political figures in India, particularly since the onset of Narendra Modi's premiership.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru described his childhood as a "sheltered and uneventful one".

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru grew up in an atmosphere of privilege at wealthy homes, including a palatial estate called the Anand Bhavan.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's father had him educated at home by private governesses and tutors.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru wrote: "for nearly three years [Brooks] was with me and in many ways, he influenced me greatly".

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru gained entry to Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1907 and graduated with an honours degree in natural science in 1910.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had developed an interest in Indian politics during his time in Britain as a student and a barrister.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru doubted the effectiveness of Congress but agreed to work for the party in support of the Indian civil rights movement led by Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa, collecting funds for the movement in 1913.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru spoke out against the censorship acts passed by the British government in India.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru emerged from the war years as a leader whose political views were considered radical.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ridiculed the Indian Civil Service for supporting British policies.

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Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru noted someone had once defined the Indian Civil Service, "with which we are unfortunately still afflicted in this country, as neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service".

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was dissatisfied with the pace of the national movement.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became involved with aggressive nationalists leaders demanding Home Rule for Indians.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru joined both leagues, but worked primarily for the former.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru welcomed and encouraged the rapprochement between the two Indian communities.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru joined the movement and rose to become secretary of Besant's Home Rule League.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested on charges of anti-governmental activities in 1921 and released a few months later.

In 1923, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was imprisoned in Nabha, a princely state, when he went there to see the struggle that was being waged by the Sikhs against the corrupt Mahants.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru played a leading role in the development of the internationalist outlook of the Indian independence struggle.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru sought foreign allies for India and forged links with movements for independence and democracy around the world.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru represented India and was elected to the Executive Council of the League against Imperialism that was born at this meeting.

Increasingly, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru saw the struggle for independence from British imperialism as a multinational effort by the various colonies and dominions of the Empire; some of his statements on this matter were interpreted as complicity with the rise of Hitler and his espoused intentions.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru drafted the policies of the Congress and a future Indian nation in 1929.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the first leaders to demand that the Congress Party should resolve to make a complete and explicit break from all ties with the British Empire.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the leaders who objected to the time given to the British—he pressed Gandhi to demand immediate actions from the British.

At midnight on New Year's Eve 1929, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the tricolour flag of India upon the banks of the Ravi in Lahore.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru remarked about the unprecedented popular response, "it seemed as though a spring had been suddenly released".

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was charged with breach of the salt law and sentenced to six months of imprisonment at Central Jail.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru nominated Gandhi to succeed him as the Congress president during his absence in jail, but Gandhi declined, and Nehru nominated his father as his successor.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru considered the salt satyagraha the high-water mark of his association with Gandhi, and felt its lasting importance was in changing the attitudes of Indians:.

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Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru spent the early months of 1936 in Switzerland visiting his ailing wife in Lausanne, where she died in March.

Since the Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah had fared badly at the polls, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru declared that the only two parties that mattered in India were the British colonial authorities and the Congress.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had hoped to elevate Maulana Azad as the preeminent leader of Indian Muslims, but Gandhi, who continued to treat Jinnah as the voice of Indian Muslims, undermined him in this.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had the support of left-wing Congressmen Maulana Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was elected in his place and held the presidency for two years.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru worked closely with Bose in developing good relations with governments of free countries all over the world.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the first nationalist leaders to realise the sufferings of the people in the states ruled by Indian princes.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru helped to make the struggle of the people in the princely states a part of the nationalist movement for independence.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was given the responsibility of planning the economy of a future India and appointed the National Planning Commission in 1938 to help frame such policies.

All India States Peoples Conference was formed in 1927 and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who had supported the cause of the people of the princely states for many years, was made the organisation's president in 1939.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru opened up its ranks to membership from across the political spectrum.

When Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru presented Lord Linlithgow with these demands, he chose to reject them.

In October 1940, Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, abandoning their original stand of supporting Britain, decided to launch a limited civil disobedience campaign in which leading advocates of Indian independence were selected to participate one by one.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill dispatched Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the War Cabinet who was known to be politically close to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and knew Jinnah, with proposals for a settlement of the constitutional problem.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's prestige was restored unwittingly by Gandhi, who had been released from prison on medical grounds in May 1944 and had met Jinnah in Bombay in September.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru served as prime minister for 18 years, first as the interim prime minister and from 1950 as the prime minister of the Republic of India.

In July 1946, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru pointedly observed that no princely state could prevail militarily against the army of independent India.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, while being the prime minister, was elected the president of Congress for 1951 and 1952.

In December 1953, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru appointed the States Reorganisation Commission to prepare for the creation of states on linguistic lines.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru stressed commonality among Indians and promoted pan-Indianism, refusing to reorganise states on either religious or ethnic lines.

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In 1962, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru led the Congress to victory with a diminished majority.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is time and again described as a charismatic leader with a rare charm.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru implemented policies based on import substitution industrialisation and advocated a mixed economy where the government-controlled public sector would co-exist with the private sector.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru believed the establishment of basic and heavy industry was fundamental to the development and modernisation of the Indian economy.

Policy of non-alignment during the Cold War meant that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru received financial and technical support from both power blocs in building India's industrial base from scratch.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's critics contended that India's import substitution industrialisation, which was continued long after the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru era, weakened the international competitiveness of its manufacturing industries.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a passionate advocate of education for India's children and youth, believing it essential for India's future progress.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's government oversaw the establishment of many institutions of higher learning, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and the National Institutes of Technology.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru outlined a commitment in his five-year plans to guarantee free and compulsory primary education to all of India's children.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru launched initiatives such as the provision of free milk and meals to children to fight malnutrition.

However, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has been criticised for the inconsistent application of the law.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru convincingly succeeded secularism and religious harmony, increasing the representation of minorities in government.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru led the faction of the Congress party, which promoted Hindi as the lingua franca of the Indian nation.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru sought to build support among the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa in opposition to the two hostile superpowers contesting the Cold War.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a strong supporter of the United Nations, except when it tried to resolve the Kashmir question.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru pioneered the policy of non-alignment and co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement of nations professing neutrality between the rival blocs of nations led by the US and the USSR.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru sought to establish warm and friendly relations with China in 1950 and hoped to act as an intermediary to bridge the gulf and tensions between the communist states and the Western bloc.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a key organiser of the Bandung Conference of April 1955, which brought 29 newly independent nations together from Asia and Africa, and was designed to galvanise the nonalignment movement under Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's leadership.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru envisioned it as his key leadership opportunity on the world stage, where he would bring together the emerging nations.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru used military force to annex Hyderabad in 1948 and Goa in 1961.

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Many hailed Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru for working to defuse global tensions and the threat of nuclear weapons after the Korean War.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru commissioned the first study of the effects of nuclear explosions on human health and campaigned ceaselessly for the abolition of what he called "these frightful engines of destruction".

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had pragmatic reasons for promoting de-nuclearization, fearing a nuclear arms race would lead to over-militarisation that would be unaffordable for developing countries such as his own.

At Lord Mountbatten's urging, in 1948, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had promised to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir under the auspices of the UN.

However, as Pakistan failed to pull back troops in accordance with the UN resolution, and as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru grew increasingly wary of the UN, he declined to hold a plebiscite in 1953.

In 1953, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru orchestrated the ouster and arrest of Sheikh Abdullah, the prime minister of Kashmir, whom he had previously supported but now suspected of harbouring separatist ambitions; Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad replaced him.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was then at the peak of his popularity in India; the only criticism came from the far-right.

In 1954, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru signed with China the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, known in India as the Panchsheel, a set of principles to govern relations between the two states.

Dag Hammarskjold, the second secretary-general of the United Nations, said that while Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was superior from a moral point of view, Zhou Enlai was more skilled in realpolitik.

In 1956, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru criticised the joint invasion of the Suez Canal by the British, French, and Israelis.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had a powerful ally in the US president Dwight Eisenhower who, if relatively silent publicly, went to the extent of using America's clout at the International Monetary Fund to make Britain and France back down.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru maintained good relations with Britain even after the Suez Crisis.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru accepted the UK and World Bank's arbitration, signing the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960 with Pakistani ruler Ayub Khan to resolve long-standing disputes about sharing the resources of the major rivers of the Punjab region.

From 1959, in a process that accelerated in 1961, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru adopted the "Forward Policy" of setting up military outposts in disputed areas of the Sino-Indian border, including in 43 outposts in territory not previously controlled by India.

War exposed the unpreparedness of India's military, which could send only 14,000 troops to the war zone in opposition to the much larger Chinese Army, and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was widely criticised for his government's insufficient attention to defence.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru would continue to maintain his commitment to the non-aligned movement, despite calls from some to settle down on one permanent ally.

Under American advice Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru refrained from using the Indian air force to beat back the Chinese advances.

India's policy of weaponisation using indigenous sources and self-sufficiency began in earnest under Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, completed by his daughter Indira Gandhi, who later led India to a crushing military victory over rival Pakistan in 1971.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ordered the raising of an elite Indian-trained "Tibetan Armed Force" composed of Tibetan refugees, which served with distinction in future wars against Pakistan in 1965 and 1971.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru asked that these aircraft be manned by American pilots until Indian airmen were trained to replace them.

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Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's health began declining steadily after 1962, and he spent months recuperating in Kashmir through 1963.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru spoke to the doctors who attended on him for a brief while, and almost immediately he collapsed.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's death left India with no clear political heir to his leadership; later Lal Bahadur Shastri succeeded him as the prime minister.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru hailed Nehru as Bharat Mata's "favourite prince" and likened him to mythological warrior-king Rama.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was instrumental in getting the Congress party working committee to vote for partition.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is credited with integrating peacefully most of the princely states of India.

Patel was a long-time comrade to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru but died in 1950, leaving Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as the unchallenged leader of India until his own death in 1964.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru went on to serve as a minister with various portfolios during Nehru's tenure and in Shastri and Indira Gandhi governments.

Later Desai alleged that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru used the Kamaraj Plan to remove all possible contenders 'from the path of his daughter, Indira Gandhi.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was responsible for the establishment of Hindi as an official language of the central government and a few states.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru accomplished the nationalisation of insurance companies and the formation of the Life Insurance Corporation of India through the Life Insurance Corporation of India Act, 1956.

Under Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, he served as India's high commissioner to the UK, UN ambassador, and union minister of defence.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was forced to resign after the debacle of the 1962 China war.

Indira was elected as Congress party president in 1959, which aroused criticism for alleged nepotism, although Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had actually disapproved of her election, partly because he considered that it smacked of "dynasticism"; he said, indeed it was "wholly undemocratic and an undesirable thing", and refused her a position in his cabinet.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru began to be embarrassed by her ruthlessness and disregard for parliamentary tradition and was "hurt" by what he saw as assertiveness with no purpose other than to stake out an identity independent of her father.

At Lady Edwina Mountbatten's burial at sea in 1960, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru requested an Indian Navy frigate INS Trishul to escort HMS Wakeful from which the burial took place and to cast a wreath as a mark of the respect in which she was held in India.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru liked and admired Nehru, it was useful to him that the Prime Minister should find such attractions in the Governor-General's home, it was agreeable to find Edwina almost permanently in good temper: the advantages of the alliance were obvious.

Nehru's sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit told Pupul Jayakar, Indira Gandhi's friend and biographer, that Padmaja Naidu and Nehru lived together for many years.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to model India as a secular country; his secularist policies remain a subject of debate.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is praised for creating a system providing universal primary education, reaching children in the farthest corners of rural India.

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Historian Ramachandra Guha writes, "[had] Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru retired in 1958 he would be remembered as not just India's best prime minister, but as one of the great statesmen of the modern world".

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, thus, left behind a disputed legacy, being "either adored as architect of Modern India or reviled for India's progress or lack of it".

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru remains a popular symbol of the Congress Party which frequently celebrates his memory.

The Jawaharlal Nehru Port near the city of Mumbai is a modern port and dock designed to handle a huge cargo and traffic load.

In 2012, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was ranked number four in Outlooks poll of The Greatest Indian.

Indian film director Kiran Kumar made a film about Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru titled Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru: The Jewel of India in 1990 starring Partap Sharma in the titular role.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was a prolific writer in English who wrote The Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History, An Autobiography and Letters from a Father to His Daughter, all written in jail.

Letters comprised 30 letters written to his daughter Indira Priyadarshani Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who was then 10 years old and studying at a boarding school in Mussoorie.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's autobiography is subtle, complex, discriminating, infinitely cultivated, steeped in doubt, suffused with intellectual passion.

Michael Brecher, who considered Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to be an intellectual for whom ideas were important aspects of Indian nationalism, wrote in Political Leadership and Charisma: Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Ben-Gurion, and Other 20th-Century Political Leaders:.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's books were not scholarly, nor were they intended to be.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was not a trained historian, but his feel for the flow of events and his capacity to weave together a wide range of knowledge in a meaningful pattern give to his books qualities of a high order.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's sentences were finely made and memorable – Nehru was a good writer; his Discovery of India stands well above the level reached by most politician-writers.

In 1948, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was conferred an honorary doctorate by the University of Mysore.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru later received honorary doctorates from the University of Madras, Columbia University, and Keio University.

In 1955, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.