Nehru, Jawaharlal
(1889–1964), Indian politician. Jawaharlal Nehru was born 14 November 1889 in Allahabad. His father Motilal Nehru (1861–1931) was a rich lawyer who sent him to England in 1905 for an elite education at Harrow, Cambridge, and London. He returned to India in 1912 and practiced law. In 1917, he joined the Home Rule League.
After the Amritsar massacre in 1919, Nehru was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) in the Indian National Congress (INC). Nehru was influenced by Marxist ideas and was cofounder of the Indian branch of the League against Imperialism. Ideologically, he differed from Gandhi in many ways, but Gandhi sponsored him twice for the presidency of the INC in 1929 and 1936, as Gandhi was aware of Nehru's influence on the younger generation.
Nehru's autobiography, published in London in 1936, was widely appreciated as a moving document of the Indian freedom struggle. In August 1946 the Viceroy of India appointed him interim prime minister. He continued as prime minister of independent India. As a passionate parliamentarian, he laid the foundations of India's democracy. Under his leadership the INC won the general elections of 1952, 1957, and 1962. The INC retained a "centrist" position profiting from the polarization of incompatible opposition parties. The Planning Commission, with the prime minister as ex-officio chairman, was established by cabinet resolution in 1950. The Five Year Plans inaugurated by Nehru in this capacity stressed rapid industrialization based on public-sector enterprises. He advocated a "socialist pattern of society" and insisted that the state should control the "commanding heights of the economy."
Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1940s. (CORBIS)
In his foreign policy Nehru supported both the idea of Afro-Asian solidarity (Bandung Conference, 1955) and the movement of nonaligned nations (Belgrade Conference, 1961). He first met Egyptian prime minister Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) and Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) in 1954 and joined with them in sponsoring the nonaligned movement. In spite of his commitment to this movement, he also cultivated good relations with the Soviet Union, whose economic achievements he had admired since visiting it for the first time in 1927. He also thought of Communist China as an anti-imperialist power and hoped for peaceful coexistence with it. This hope was shattered by the border war of October 1962 when Chinese troops invaded India. His health broke down after this experience, and he died in May 1964.
Dietmar Rothermund
Further Reading
Brecher, Michael. (1959) Nehru—A Political Biography. London: Oxford University Press.
Nehru, Jawaharlal. (1936) Toward Freedom: The Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru. London: Bodley Head.
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