Biography of Jawharlal Nehru

Name:	Jawaharlal Nehru
Birth Date:	14 November 1889
Death Date:	27 May 1964
Birthplace:	Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
Occupation:	President
Born In:	Uttar Pradesh

Biography

Jawaharlal Nehru (Hindi: जवाहरलाल नहरू, Javāharlāl Nehrū) (November 14, 1889 – May 27, 1964), also called Pandit ('Scholar, Teacher') Nehru, was one of the most important leaders of the Indian Independence Movement and, as the head of the Indian National Congress, became the first Prime Minister of India when India won its independence on August 15, 1947.

Jawaharlal Nehru was born in Allahabad on November 14, 1889, to Swaroop Rani, the wife of Motilal Nehru, a wealthy Allahabad based barrister and political leader himself. He was Motilal Nehru's only son amongst three younger daughters including Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. 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, 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.