PRESENTATION ON A LEGENDARY INDIAN LEADER ANDTHE FIRST PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA,

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU- A TRIBUTE

ON HIS DESK

On his desk , Jawaharlal Nehru kept two totems- a gold statuette of Mahatma Gandhi and a bronze cast of the hand of Abraham Lincoln, which he would occasionally touch for comfort. The two

objects reflected the range of his sources of inspiration; he often spoke of his wish to confront problems with the heart of the Mahatma and the

hand of Lincoln.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

These words by famous poet, Robert Frost (1874–1963), U.S.

poet ( Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening) , were found on

a scrap of paper on the desk of Indian prime minister

Jawaharlal Nehru when he died.

Jawaharlal Nehru was the 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.

Jawaharlal NehruFew leaders of the world had the intellect, charm and vision of Nehru

Personal details

Born

Died

Spouse

Children

14 November 1889

27 May 1964 (aged 74)

Kamala Kaul

Indira Gandhi

BIOGRAPHY

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, had a strong and influential lineage. Born on the 14th of November, 1889 at Allahabad,

Jawaharlal Nehru was the eldest child of Motilal Nehru and Swarup Rani. His family was from Kashimiri heritage and belonged to a high Hindu

caste

Motilal Nehru He was a barrister by profession and won several accolades for his legal works from different spheres

Swaroop Rani Nehru Motilal nehru's wife and Mother of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru

The Nehru family ca. 1890s

Nehru dressed in cadet uniform

at Harrow School in England

Jawaharlal Nehru played a significant role in shaping the policies and ideology of the Congress party and remains a popular icon of the party till today . Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was born on November 14th 1889 in Allahabad to Motilal Nehru, an affluent barrister and Swarupini Thussu. Nehru grew up in a privileged home and went on to Trinity College, Cambridge for further education in 1907, from where he graduated with an honours degree. After obtaining his degree, Nehru lived in London for a few years where he studied law and was admitted to the English bar in 1912.

ANAND BHAVAN

HOME

Anand Bhavan (Nehru's Drawing Room

Gandhi`s Room, Anand Bhavan, Allahabad

JAWARLAL NEHRU’S PICTURE

IN ALLAHABAD BHAVAN

Anand Bhawan, Allahabad

A peek inside the extensive Nehru personal library @ Anand Bhavan

He was educated in England, at Harrow School, and then at Trinity College, Cambridge. He studied law at the Inner Temple in London. He returned to India in 1912 and practised law for some years. In 1916, he married Kamala Kaul and the following year they had a daughter, Indira.

MARRIAGE SPOUSE

INDIRA

DAUGHTER

With daughter Indira Priyadarshani in 1918

By 1912, Nehru returned to India and became an advocate in the Allahabad High Court, where he was working as a barrister, though he was not entirely interested in practicing law. While he was in Britain, Nehru had developed a healthy interest in Indian politics and eventually joined the Congress party to support the Indian Civil Rights movement in South Africa. Nehru assisted in collecting funds for the Civil Rights campaigners led by Mahatma Gandhi. He also took part in movements against the discrimination of Indians in British colonies. By 1919, Nehru was an intrinsic part of the Indian National Congress which was fighting for freedom from British rule. Nehru drew immense inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi and his policy of non-violence and was imprisoned many times during the 1920s and 1930s by the British on charges of civil disobedience. By 1928, Nehru had been elected the president of the Congress party.

In 1919, Nehru joined the Indian National Congress which was fighting for greater autonomy from the British. He was heavily influenced by the organization's leader Mohandas Gandhi. During the 1920s and 1930s Nehru was repeatedly imprisoned by the British for civil disobedience. In 1928, he was elected president of the Congress.

PRISON

This Place was kept as the secluded prisons by Britishers because of the Fort’s mighty structure and vast compound.

These are the pages from his personal diary and letters written to daughter Indira Gandhi during his detention here written in three different languages i.e, English, Hindi and Urdu. Handwriting very difficult to comprehend.

Letters from a Father to His Daughter

is an enormously heartening and a strong reminder for readers of all ages and eras about how we

shape the world we live in through our understanding of it and the choices we make in it.

Nehru letters to Indira

In one of the first letters, Nehru reminds his daughter that we need to consistently step outside of our biases and boundaries.

“England is only a little Island and India, though a big country is only a small part of the earth’s surface. If we want to know something about the story of this world of ours we must think of the countries and all the peoples that we have inhabited it, and not merely of one little country where we may have been born .

In a letter exploring the origin of different races, Nehru dispels the irrational beliefs that lie at the heart of racism by telling Indira the story of how early humans migrated across the earth and developed into different races based on the conditions of the lands they lived in.

We find that people’s complexions are the result of the climate they live in. They have nothing to do with the worthiness or goodness or beauty of a person.

Reflecting on the different complexions of people in different regions of India — fairer in the north where it is cooler and darker in the hotter south — and on the flawed cultural beliefs that associate fairer with better, Nehru adds a disclaimer about privilege:

Of course, it may be that some people, even though they may live in a hot country, do not work in the open and are rich enough to live in big houses and take care of themselves and their complexions. A rich family may live like this for generations and may thus not be affected by the climate very much. But not to work oneself and to live on the work of others is nothing to be proud of.

He adds a prescient note on India’s own geopolitical destiny — a country that, nearly a century after Nehru’s letters, is emerging as a global force of innovation:

If we find anything good in other countries, we should certainly take it.

Indians we have to live in India and work for India. But we must not forget the world and the people living in other countries are after all our cousins. It would be such an excellent thing if all the people in the world were happy and contented. We have therefore to try to make the whole world a happier place to live in.

In a letter exploring the origin and social purpose of religion, Nehru explores the inner contradictions of religion, which haunt us to this day:

This seems horrible but a man who is afraid will do anything.

This must have been the beginnings of religion. So religion first came as fear, and anything that is done because of fear is bad. Religion, as you know, tells us many beautiful things. When you grow up, you will read about the religions of the world and of the good things and the bad things that have been done in their name. . . . We see even today that people fight and break each other’s heads in the name of religion. And for many people it is still something to be afraid of. They spend their time trying to please some imaginary beings by making presents in temples and even sacrifices of animals.

Ultimately, he tells his daughter that civilization is not a matter of external material evidence but of internal spiritual disposition:

Fine buildings, fine pictures and books and everything that is beautiful are certainly signs of civilization. But an even better sign is a fine man who is unselfish and works with others for the good of all. To work together is better than to work singly, and to work together for the common good is best of all.

The Discovery Of India was written by Jawahar Lal Nehru during his 3 years imprisonment inside the Ahmednagar Fort. He had written the book while he was interned in the room in the record period of five months from April 1944 to September 1944 and during his Twentieth month of stay in this prison.

Reading through his Book, one could empathise with his state of mind, the intense feeling and the person one grows into, after living in an enclosed self plus environment for almost 3 years. One attains a spiritual self with solitude. Walking through the compound where the leaders were kept, the devotee in me dipped several times in the holy river of knowledge, into the history of the Book, an epic in the making which will be bible for historians and youth and will be read and remembered till eternity.

In Pandit Nehru’s Words –“The sensation is heightened when the writing had been done in close and abnormal atmosphere of prison. It seems almost that I was reading some familiar piece written by another, who was near to me and yet who was different. Perhaps that is the measure of change that has taken place in me (after a prison tenure).This book is mine and not wholly mine, as I am constituted today, it represents rather some past self of mine which has joined the long succession of other selves that existed for a while and faded away, leaving only a memory behind.” Anand Bhawan Allahabad December 29, 1945 — Nehru

An Autobiography: Toward FreedomBy Jawaharlal Nehru

First published in 1936. This book was written by Nehru almost entirely in prison from June 1934 to February 1935. His account, though replete with autobiographical details, is much more than a personal document; in the words of Rabindranath Tagore, "Through all its details there runs a deep current of humanity which overpasses the tangles of facts and leads us to the person who is greater than his deeds, and truer than his surroundings."

Nehru's India: Select SpeechesBy Jawaharlal Nehru

Focusing on topical issues and with an introduction by Mushirul Hasan, this important collection of Jawaharlal Nehru's speeches showcases the relevance of his vision in India today.

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU AS A WRITER OF ENGLISH PROSE

"I am not a man of letters," wrote Jawaharlal Nehru in one of his missives from jail to his daughter Indira, but of course he was. All through his life Nehru lost no opportunity to write. His words took the form of drafts and resolutions for the Congress party, essays on the great issues of the day for newspapers and journals, and letters to friends, family, and colleagues in the independence movement. When he became Prime Minister of India, Nehru wrote a long letter addressed jointly to his chief ministers every fortnight, containing his deliberations on domestic and world affairs. It is clear that, despite the burdens of his worldly commitments, words set down on paper were for Nehru a way of making sense of the commotion of life, politics and ideas.

Letters for a Nation : From Jawaharlal Nehru to His Chief Ministers 1947-1963

In October 1947, two months after he became independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote the first of his fortnightly letters to the heads of the country’s provincial governments-a tradition that he kept until his last letter in December 1963, only a few months before his death. Carefully selected from among nearly 400 such letters, this collection covers a range of themes and subjects, including citizenship, war and peace, law and order, national planning and development, governance and corruption, and India’s place in the world. The letters also cover momentous world events and the many crises and conflicts the country faced during the first sixteen years after Independence. Visionary, wise and reflective, these letters are not just a testimony to Nehru’s statesmanship and his deep engagement with every aspect of India’s democratic journey, but are also of great contemporary relevance for the guidance they provide for our current problems and predicaments.

By 1919, Nehru was an intrinsic part of the Indian National Congress which was fighting for freedom from British rule. Nehru drew immense inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi and his policy of non-violence and was imprisoned many times during the 1920s and 1930s by the British on charges of civil disobedience. By 1928, Nehru had been elected the president of the Congress party. Soon, Nehru was being looked at as a successor of Gandhi and was at the center of the negotiations for Independence with the British. He also opposed the creation of a separate Muslim state of Pakistan by the leader of the All India Muslim League, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, even though the nation was ultimately divided into India and Pakistan.

Pandit Nehru with the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, centre, and Vallabhai Patel (right), waiting for a car outside Birla House, Bombay.

Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru participate in a 'charkha' demonstration held in the Bhangi colony in New Delhi, April 19, 1946.

Vallabhbhai Patel and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit at Anand Bhavan in Allahabad

Glimpses of World History, a book written by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1934

Glimpses of World History, a book written by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1934, is a panoramic sweep of the history of humankind. It is a collection of 196 letters on world history written from various prisons in British India between 1930–1933. The letters were written to his young daughter and were meant to introduce her to world history.

The letters start off with one he sends to his daughter on her birthday. He says he is sad about not being able to send her any "material" gift from prison, so he would try to give her something he can "afford", a series of letters from his heart.

Written from prison, where he had no recourse to reference books or a library but his personal notes, Glimpses of World History contains the history of humankind from 6000 BC to the time of writing of the book. It covers the rise and fall of great empires and civilizations from Greece and Rome to China and West Asia great figures such as Ashoka and Genghis Khan, Mohan Das K. Gandhi and Vladimir Lenin wars and revolutions, democracies and dictatorships.

Contd….

He wrote about many cultures throughout the globe in detail because, as he himself said, he didn't like the way history was taught in schools where it was confined to the history of a single country and that too narrow, and he wanted his daughter Priyadarshini to know why people did what they did. It was possible only through knowing the history of the whole world.

The letters are written in informal language, with the contemporary and personal events too mentioned. They reflect the world view of Nehru, and his grasp of history.

It could be considered as one of the first attempts at historiography from a non-Eurocentric angle - a statement that is itself subject to the charge of Eurocentrism, given the long history of historical writing outside of Europe, for instance in China (from The Classic of History, c. 550 BC) or the Islamic world (from Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari in the 9th century AD to Biruniand ibn Khaldun).

Jawaharlal Nehru shortly after his arrival in London on Dec 3, 1946.

By the end of World War Two, Nehru was recognised as Gandhi's successor. He played a central role in the negotiations over Indian independence. He opposed the Muslim League's insistence on the division of India on the basis of religion. Louis Mountbatten, the last British viceroy, advocated the division as the fastest and most workable solution and Nehru reluctantly agreed.

New Delhi: Nehru during an historic conference on partition of India , with Lord Mountbatten and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, president of the Muslim League.

On August 15th 1947, Nehru became the first Prime Minister of Independent India and served the position until his death in May 1964. Nehru is applauded for introducing India to socialist economic reforms and ushering in an era of industrialization. Nehru served in various positions in the Indian cabinet and handled portfolios such as the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Finance.

On July 15th 1955, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, was awarded the Bharat Ratna (India’s highest civilian honour) by then President Rajendra Prasad.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru with the Nizam of Hyderabad (C) and Indian Military Governor Major General Jayanto Chaudhury, at the Nizam's King Kothi Palace, in Hyderabad on Dec. 25, 1949.

Pandit Nehru is remembered not only as India’s first Prime Minister, but also as India’s most charismatic leader who was greatly admired, not only in India, but across the globe, for his idealism and statesmanship. Nehru is believed to have given Indians an image of themselves which no other leader had succeeded in doing.

Nehru invested a lot of his energy into the emancipation of children and the youth, who he believed to be the future of the country. Nehru was fondly known as Chacha Nehru by young children and his birthday (November 14th) is celebrated as Children’s Day across India.

During the Cold War, Nehru maintained a “positive neutrality” for India and became a popular agent for the non-aligned Asian and African countries, most of which were former colonies and wanted to avoid being dependent on any major world power. Indo-Chinese border tension broke out in 1962, which led to India’s defeat, which is also believed to be one of the causes that led to the decline of Nehru’s health. He died shortly after on May 27th 1964.

Nehru’s Bedroom (Tinmurti bhavan)

Drawing room in Tinmurti bhavan

Nehru’s Study ( Tinmurti bhavan)

Tryst with Destiny - Speech Text

WILL AND TESTAMENT

gifts gallery which displays some of the most beautiful gifts received by Nehru during his travels in India and abroad. In addition to the permanent display in the Museum, special exhibitions are arranged periodically to depict different facets of Nehru's life and phases of the Indian national movement

NEHRU’S FOREIGNPOLICY

Jawaharlal Nehru’s concept of nonalignment brought India considerable international prestige among newly independent states that shared India's concerns about the military confrontation between the super powers and the influence of the former colonial powers.

Nonalignment had its origins in India's colonia Indian independence struggle experience and the nonviolent left India determined to be the master of its fate in an international system dominated politically by Cold War alliances and economically by Western capitalism and Soviet Communism. The principles of nonalignment, as articulated by Nehru and his successors, were preservation of India's freedom of action internationally through refusal to align India with any bloc or alliance, particularly those led by the United States or the Soviet Union; nonviolence and international cooperation as a means of settling international disputes. Nonalignment was a consistent feature of Indian by the late 1940s and enjoyed strong, almost unquestioning support among the Indian elite.

India’s foreign policy was conducted under the guidance of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. The shaping of India’s foreign policy was largely influenced by the international development after the Second World War, the weakening of the forces of imperialism and growth of the forces of democracy and progress.

But at that point the internal situation of India did not permit them to pay attention to international developments. It was mainly due to Nehru’s efforts that since the mid-twenties the Congress party began to take interest in international affairs.

The Congress resolved to support the subject peoples and races in their struggle for freedom and equality. They also decided to condemn racial discriminations throughout the world. After 1927 Nehru took an active part in formulating the foreign policy of the Congress that was in effect its first foreign policy statement.

Contd…

It contained a declaration that India should not participate in imperialist and any other war. This position was taken up as the key foreign policy principle in late 1920s and 1930s. When in 1930s Japan, Italy and Germany engaged themselves in imperialist aggressions, the Congress condemned their brutal imperialist designs and passed resolutions to defend the cause of the nationalist forces in various countries such as China, Ethiopia, etc.

The inter-war period shaped a substantial portion of India’s foreign policy. India agreed to cooperate with Britain against Nazi Germany but since the cooperation was sought on British terms, the newly constituted Congress ministries resigned.

The dropping of atom bomb by the Americans on Japanese soil wounded India’s feelings and was strongly condemned. Soon after the formation of the interim government in September 1946, India took steps to establish friendly relations with all countries. During the time that the interim government was in office, India established diplomatic relations and exchanged ambassadors with the USA, USSR, China and some other countries.

After independence, Nehru became the virtual director of India’s foreign policy. And under his guidance India became the first state to have pursued a policy that was new in the history of international relations- the policy of Non-Alignment. He was ably supported by Naser of Egypt, Sukarno of Indonesia and Joseph Broz Tito of Yugoslavia.

Early in 1947, at the initiative of India, the Asian Relations Conference at Delhi was convened where the principles of foreign policy of independent India were proclaimed. It was attended by representatives of 29 countries. The Conference helped to strengthen the solidarity of all Asian countries.

Nehru also participated in the Afro-Asian Conference held in 1955 in Bandung and popularized the policy of non-alignment there. The agenda contained in these conferences was the economic and cultural cooperation, respect for human rights and self-determination and finally the promotion of world peace and cooperation.

The policy of Non-alignment meant the acceptance of the inevitability of war but on the conviction that was could also be avoided. Non-Alignment stood for an independent policy conditioned and controlled by India’s own strength. It meant not to entangle oneself with any kind of alliances or commitments that would lead to war and conflict.

The policy of Non-alignment was based on the five principles of Panch Shila, enumerating international conduct. These were first envisaged and formulated in 1954.

These principles were:a. Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.b. Non-aggressionc. Non interference in each other’s military affairsd. Equality and mutual benefitc. Peaceful coexistence

Non-alignment was a tactic or technique to maintain world peace in such a way that each nation pursues his own interest without disturbing the other. The policy was also in tune with the domestic requirements of democracy and socialism.

A major economic factor for the adoption of the policy of non-alignment had been India’s economic backwardness. Foreign aid was an important component for developing our underdeveloped economy. Therefore aid was welcome from all quarters- USSR, UK, USA, Germany and Japan. This presupposes non-alignment. India was both tied up with the east and west for economic development.

National security and foreign policy

Leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement: (L to R) PM Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Pres. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Pres. Gamal Abdel Nasser of United Arab.

Nehru's three visits to the United States of America

September 8, 1961: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (left) and Indian Prime Minister .

Nehru receiving US President Dwight D. Eisenhower at Parliament House,

1959

FAMOUS QUOTES

WITH YOUNG INDIRA

Pandit Nehru with his daughter Indira Gandhi ascending a flight of Persepolis Palace near Shiraz in Iran, Sept 23, 1959. stone steps as they tour the ruins of the 3,000-year-old

Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, take their seats for the final session, of the Afro-Asian conference at Bandung, Indonesia, April 24, 1955.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Having a Meal with His Family

SISTERS

A 1956 file picture of Vijayalakshmi Pandit with her three daughters at Anand Bhavan, the family home of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in Allahabad.

Vijayalakshmi Pandit (left), India's Ambassador to the United States confers with her sister Krishna Hatee Singh after the former's arrival at Santa Cruz Airport in Bombay from United States on September 2, 1951

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, president of the U.N. General Assembly, visiting Winston Churchill, war-time Prime Minister of the U.K., at his home in Chartwell, Kent, on July 11, 1954.

Krishna Hutheesing meeting David Ben Gurion (the first Prime Minister of Israel) in Israel, 1958

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit by Rex Coleman, for Baron

With Grand Children

Jawaharlal Nehru steps back after placing a wreath of the tomb of George Washington at Mount Vernon in Virginia, Oct 12, 1949.

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU BUILDER OF MODERN SCIENCE AND PROMOTER OF SCIENTIFIC TEMPER

Jawaharlal Nehru’s farsighted vision and admirable leadership is responsible for developing modern science in our country. He played a major role in establishing a modern scientific and technological infrastructure and strove to promote scientific temper.

To Nehru, scientific temper was something to be inculcated in society at large.

To accomplish his dream to establish world class institutions of science Nehru actively corresponded with and invited several reputed scientists and academicians from across the world. J.B.S. Haldane, one of the greatest geneticists of the 20th century, emigrated from England to spend the last years of his life in India, in part because of his admiration for Nehru.

The growth of scientific temper is a measure of the extent to which society applies the methods of science to solve its problems. Science should serve society. A clear awareness among the masses needs to be cultivated.

Contd…..

Pandit Nehru laid the brick and mortar of science in newly independent India. Nehru’s enormous contributions to the establishment of the IITs, of the large network of research laboratories of the CSIR and DRDO and of the atomic energy establishment are all well known. To accomplish his dream of making these institutions world class centres of research and learning, Pandit Nehru invited and encouraged a number of renowned scientists and academicians like Homi Bhaba, J.B.S. Haldane, Sir C.V. Raman, Satish Dhavan, Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, J.C. Ghosh, Humayun Kabir and many others. It was Nehru’s sustained and spontaneous political support that translated the idea into a reality. Over 45 Central laboratories in different fields of science were launched during his time. He was also responsible for initiating the first steps to launch India into the electronics and space era. ….contd

But more than the brick and mortar—the hardware or establishment of physical facilities as it were—Nehru was preoccupied with what he at different times called the “scientific method”, the “scientific approach”, the “scientific outlook” and the “scientific temper”—the software. Inaugurating the 34th session of the Indian Science Congress, which met in Delhi in January 1947, Pandit Nehru expressed the hope that as “India was on the verge of independence and science in India too was coming of age, it would try to solve the problems of new India by rapid planned development in all sectors and try to make her more and more scientific minded”.

He said: ”Science was not merely an individual’s search for truth; It was something infinitely more than that if it worked for the community.” He explained: “For a hungry man or hungry woman, truth has little meaning. He wants food. For a hungry man God has no meaning. And India is starving and to talk of truth and God and many of the finer things is mockery. We have to find food for them, clothing, housing, education and health are absolute necessities that every person should possess. When we have done that we can philosophise and think of God. So, science must think in those terms and work along those lines on the wider scale of coordinated planning.”

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU BUILDER OF DEMOCRACY

Underlying the strong institutional base Nehru laid for the growth of Indian democracy was the value system shaped under Gandhiji’s leadership, The relevance of those highly cherished values – communal harmony, non-violence and emancipation of the oppressed sections of the society – has not decreased with the passage of time. Even today they occupy a high place in our system though euphemistically we may describe them as national integration and social justice. Nehru’s commitment to democracy stemmed from that value system nurtured by Gandhiji.

With all its faults the Indian democracy under Nehru’s leadership grew to be the most enduring system in the third world. The uniqueness of Nehru’s democracy which was hailed as the Hellas of Asia lay in the fact that it could survive severe tests both from within and outside. Disproving some western critics who had prophesied the collapse of Indian democracy after Nehru, the Indian democracy not only survived Nehru but came out with flying colours from the most trying years that followed. The sudden death of Nehru and Shastri (whose succession was described as Two Successions by a Western scholar) and later of Indira Gandhi and the unprecedented drought and economic misery of the mid-sixties besides the three wars that were forced on India in 1962, 1965 and 1971 were the most severe tests faced by free India. And Indian democracy proved worthy of Nehru’s faith in it.

Throughout his 17 years in the prime minister’s office, he held up democratic socialism as the guiding star, emphasizing that India needed to achieve both democracy and socialism. With the help of the overwhelming majority that the Congress Party maintained in the parliament during his term of office, he advanced toward that goal. The four pillars of his domestic policies were democracy, socialism, unity, and secularism. He succeeded to a large extent in maintaining the edifice supported by those four pillars during his lifetime.

The political ethos Nehru promoted was one of staunch anti-imperialism, a determination to safeguard India against foreign domination and internal division, and a commitment- at least in principle- to the uplift of the poorest sections of the Indian Country.

On 15 August 1947, Nehru became the first prime minister of independent India. He held the post until his death in 1964. He implemented moderate socialist economic reforms and committed India to a policy of industrialisation.

Nehru also served as foreign minister of India. In October 1947, he faced conflict with Pakistan over the state of Kashmir, which was disputed at independence. Nehru sent troops into the state to support India's claim. A United Nations ceasefire was negotiated, but Kashmir remains deeply unstable to this day.

Against the background of the Cold War, Nehru developed a policy of 'positive neutrality' for India. He became one of the key spokesmen for the non-aligned countries of Africa and Asia, many of which were former colonies that wanted to avoid dependence on any major power.

Despite efforts at cooperation by both countries, Indian-Chinese border disputes escalated into war in 1962 and Indian forces were decisively beaten. This had a significant impact on Nehru's declining health. He died on 27 May 1964.

His most comprehensive biographer, the late S.Gopal put it best:

No one who lived in India during the enchantment of Nehru years needs to be reminded of the positive, generous spirit, the quality of style, the fresh and impulsive curiosity, the brief flares of temper followed by gentle contrition and the engaging streak of playfulness, all of which went along with an unrelenting sense of duty , a response to large issues, an exercise of reason and unaffiliated intelligence in human affairs, and intense but not exclusive, patriotism and, above all, complete and transparent personal integrity …to a whole generation of India he was not so much a leader as a companion who expressed and made clearer a particular view of the present and a vision of the future. The combination of intellectual and moral authority was unique in his time.

Jawahalal Nehru has left behind a strong legacy in India and many memorials have been built for him, along with many colleges and universities which have been named after him, including the famous Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Nehru is also remembered for his preferred style of clothing and has lent his name to garments such as the Nehru jacket and the Nehru cap, still worn by many politicians. Many documentaries have been made on the life of Nehru and he has been portrayed in many films, such as Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, Sardar, Shyam Benegal’s TV series, Bharat Ek Khoj and The Last Days of the Raj. Apart from this, Nehru had penned many books, such as The Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History and his autobiography, Toward Freedom.

REFERENCES

1. wikipedia2. Nehru, Jawaharlal. Glimpses of World History. Penguin Books India. ISBN 0-670-05818-13. Jawaharlal Nehru- Builder of Modern Science and Promoter of Scientific Temper- Soma S. Marla, Mainstream, VOL LI, No 48, November 16, 2013

4. Jawaharlal Nehru Builder of Indian democracy by Dr. A. Prasanna Kumar

5. Jawaharlal Nehur Prime Minister of India written by Frank Moraes

6. BBC-Historic Figures: Jawaharlal Nehru (www.bbc.co.uk)

7. Nehru: The Invention of India by Shashi Tharoor

8. Jawaharlal Nehru’s Foreign Policy-Indian History by Mamata Aggarwal

Ms. Dayamani Surya holds Master’s Degree in the English Literature from Osmania University,

Hyderabad (India), Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching of English from CIEFL, Post Graduate

Diploma in Teaching of English from CIEFL, Bachelor’s degree in Science (Osmania University)

and Bachelor’s degree in Education from St.Ann’s College of Education , Secunderabad

(affiliated to Osmania University), Hyderabad.

She holds online professional certifications like:•Project Management•Human Resource Management•Financial Accounting• Management and Accounting• Business Process Outsourcing•Advance Learning Certificate in English Literature Analysis from Ireland.

She was a student of the Nehru Memorial Govt. High School, Malakpet, Hyderabad, India. She

worked as a teacher in many Public Schools in Hyderabad, India. At present, she works as a

Research Associate in the District Centre for English Scheme, Department of Training and

Development, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad since 1 May 2007, her

work focuses on Administration, Curriculum Development and Teaching in the International

Training Programme for Foreign Students at the University.

She works online as a mentor, helps the students and research scholars in their project work,

compilation of articles and research papers, contributes to the publication of articles and

journals. She is involved in materials production, paper evaluation of some educational

organizations.

She published papers in Lang Lit –An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal ISSN

2349-5189. She also published articles in English Language Teaching Institute, Rajasthan

Journal ISSN No.2250 317X.