A short documentary made by Films division of
India in year
1957 on the life of
Jawaharlal Nehru as
First Prime Minister of
India.
Jawaharlal Nehru (
14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was the first
Prime Minister of India and a central figure in
Indian politics for much of the
20th century. He emerged as the paramount leader of the
Indian independence movement under the tutelage of
Mahatma Gandhi and ruled India from its establishment as an independent nation in
1947 until his death in office in 1964. He is considered to be the architect of the modern
Indian nation-state: a sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic. During his lifetime, he was popularly known as
Pandit Nehru ("
Scholar Nehru") or as Panditji ("Respected Scholar"), while many Indian children knew him as "
Uncle Nehru" (Chacha Nehru).
The son of
Motilal Nehru, a prominent lawyer and nationalist statesman and Swaroop
Rani, Nehru was a graduate of
Trinity College, Cambridge and the
Inner Temple, where he trained to be a barrister. Upon his return to India, he enrolled at the
Allahabad High Court, and took an interest in national politics, which eventually replaced his legal practice. A committed nationalist since his teenage years, he became a rising figure in Indian politics during the upheavals of the
1910s. He became the prominent leader of the left-wing factions of the
Indian National Congress during the
1920s, and eventually of the entire
Congress, with the tacit approval of his mentor,
Gandhi. As
Congress President in 1929, Nehru called for complete independence from the
British Raj and instigated the Congress's decisive shift towards the left.
Nehru and the Congress dominated Indian politics during the
1930s as the country moved towards independence. His idea of a secular nation-state was seemingly validated when the Congress, under his leadership, swept the
1937 provincial elections and formed the government in several provinces; on the other hand, the separatist
Muslim League fared much poorer. But these achievements were seriously compromised in the aftermath of the
Quit India Movement in
1942, which saw the
British effectively crush the Congress as a political organisation. Nehru, who had reluctantly heeded Gandhi's call for immediate independence, for he had desired to support the
Allied war effort during the
Second World War, came out of a lengthy prison term to a much altered political landscape.
The Muslim League under his old Congress colleague and now bête noire,
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had come to dominate Muslim politics in India.
Negotiations between Nehru and
Jinnah for power sharing failed and gave way to the independence and bloody partition of India in 1947.
Nehru was elected by the Congress to assume office as independent India's first
Prime Minister, although the question of leadership had been settled as far back as
1941, when Gandhi acknowledged Nehru as his political heir and successor. As Prime Minister, he set out to realise his vision of India.
The Constitution of India was enacted in
1950, after which he embarked on an ambitious program of economic, social and political reforms. Chiefly, he oversaw India's transition from a monarchy to a republic, while nurturing a plural, multi-party democracy. In foreign policy, he took a leading role in Non-Alignment while projecting India as a regional hegemon in
South Asia.
Under Nehru's leadership, the Congress emerged as a catch-all party, dominating national and state-level politics and winning consecutive elections in 1951, 1957, and 1962. He remained popular with the people of India in spite of political troubles in his final years and failure of leadership during the
1962 Sino-Indian War. In India, his birthday is celebrated as
Children's Day.
To Know More about
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,
Please Visit - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru
- published: 10 Aug 2015
- views: 1158