The first prime minister of liberated India was greeted by an exceptionally warm welcome in the USSR. He got off the plane, taking turns saying hello to those who met. A crowd of Muscovites, waving flags and bouquets of flowers in a welcoming manner, suddenly rushed to the foreign guest. The guards did not have time to react, and Nehru was surrounded. Continuing to smile, he stopped and began to take flowers. Later, in a conversation with reporters, Jawaharlal Nehru admitted that he was genuinely touched by such an unplanned mess during his first official visit to Moscow.
Origin and family
Jawaharlal Nehru (photo of a public figure is in the article) was born in November 1889 in Allahabad, a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. His parents belonged to the Kashmiri Brahman caste. This group traces its lineage from the first Brahmins from the Vedic river Sarasvati. Families of the caste were usually large, and due to the high mortality rate among women, many men practiced polygamy. The families especially waited for the boys, because it was believed that to achieve moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death, all suffering and limitations of existence) is possible only by cremation of the father by his son.
The mother of Joe Nehru (as he was called in the West for simplification) was Svarup Rani, the father was Motilal Nehru. Motilal’s father, Gangadhar Nehru, was the last guard in Delhi. During the sepoy uprising in 1857, he fled to Agra, where he soon died. Then the family was led by the older brothers of Matilal - Nandalal and Bonsidhar. Matilala Nehru grew up in Jaipur, Rajasthan, where his brother served as chief minister. Then the family moved to Allahabad, where the young man graduated from college. He decided to continue his education at Cambridge.
Matilal Nehru took part in the activities of the National Congress of India, he advocated limited self-government within the British Empire. His views were significantly radicalized under the influence of Gandhi's ideology. The Nehru family, previously leading a western lifestyle, abandoned English clothing in favor of homespun dress. Matilal Nehru was elected president of the party, participated in the organization of the Congress of Trade Unions, tried to organize a peasant movement. His house in Allahabad, where the children of Nehru grew up, quickly turned into the headquarters of the struggle for the national liberation of the whole country.
Three children were born in the family of Motilal Nehru and Svarup Rani. The first-born was Jawaharlal Nehru, who was born in 1889. One year later, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandita was born, and another seven years later, Krishna Nehru Hutising. It was one of the most famous families in India. Jawaharlal Nehru became the first prime minister of liberated India, Vijaya - the first Indian woman to take office in the government. Krishna Nehru Houtising took up a writing career, which was no less successful than her relatives in the political arena.
Early biography
Jawaharlal Nehru received elementary home education. Motilala Nehru then sent his son, whose name translates as “precious ruby” from Hindi, to a prestigious school in Greater London. In Britain, Jawaharlal was known as Joe Nehru. At twenty-three, the young man graduated from Cambridge. During the course he studied law. While still in the UK, the attention of Jawaharlal Nehru was drawn to the activities of Mahatma Gandhi, who returned from South Africa. In the future, Mahatma Gandhi will become a political mentor and teacher of Nehru. In the meantime, after returning to India, Joe Nehru settled in his hometown and began working in his father's law office.
Youth leader
Nehru became one of the activists of the National Congress, who fought for the country's independence by non-violent methods. He now looked at his native land through the eyes of a man who had received a European education and had acquired Western culture. Acquaintance with Gandhi helped him synthesize European trends with Indian national tradition. Joe Nehru, like other members of the National Congress, knew the doctrine of Mahatma Gandhi well. The authorities of Great Britain repeatedly imprisoned the activist. In total, he spent about ten years in custody. Nehru took part in the campaign of non-cooperation with the colonial authorities, initiated by Gandhi, and then - in a boycott of English goods.
As chairman
At the age of thirty-eight, Joe Nehru was elected chairman of the INC. In the same year he came to the USSR to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution with his wife Kamala, sister Krishna and father Matilal Nehru. For ten years, the number of parties has increased by more than ten times, but by that time a split between Muslims and Hindus was already clearly marked. The Muslim League advocated the creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan, while Nehru stated that he considered socialism to be the only key to solving all problems.
First Prime Minister
At the end of August 1946, Joe Nehru became the prime minister of the Provisional Government of the country - the Executive Committee under the king, and a year later - the first head of government, the Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs of the liberated India. Jawaharlal Nehru at the head of the government accepted the proposal of the British Empire to divide India into two states, namely Pakistan and the Indian Union. Nehru raised the flag of an independent state over the Red Fort in Delhi.
The last contingents of British troops left the former dominion in early 1948, but the next two years were overshadowed by the war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. As a result, two thirds of the disputed state ended up in India, the rest of the territory was included in Pakistan. After these events, the majority of the population trusted the INC. In the elections in 1947, associates of Jawaharlal Nehru received 86% of the vote in the government. The chairman managed to achieve the accession of almost all Indian principalities (555 out of 601). A few years later, first French and then Portuguese enclaves on the coast were annexed to India.
In 1950, India was proclaimed a secular republic. The constitution included guarantees of all fundamental democratic freedoms, prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of nationality, religion or caste. The main power in the presidential-parliamentary republic belonged to the prime minister, elected by parliament. Parliament consisted of a state chamber and a people's chamber. Twenty-eight Indian states received internal autonomy and freedom of economic regulation, their own legislation, and the police. The number of states further increased, as several new ones were created based on nationality. All new provinces (unlike the old states) had a more or less uniform ethnic composition.
Domestic policy
As prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru sought to reconcile all the peoples of India and Hindus with the Sikhs and Muslims who make up the warring political parties. In economics, he adhered to the principles of planning and the free market. Joe Nehru was able to maintain the unity of the right, left and centrist factions of the government, balance in politics, avoiding radical decisions. The prime minister warned the Indian people that poverty cannot be immediately turned into wealth using the capitalist or socialist method. The path lies through improving labor productivity, hard work and organizing an equitable distribution of benefits. Jawaharlal Nehru's quote on ways to overcome poverty has become a ray of hope for many millions of citizens. He believed that continuous progress could only be achieved with the help of a planned socialist approach.
In any brief biography of Jawaharlal Nehru, it is always mentioned that he emphasized his desire to smooth out various class and social contradictions. The Prime Minister believed that this problem could be resolved through peaceful cooperation. One must try to smooth out class conflicts, and not exacerbate them so as not to threaten people with struggle and annihilation. Nehru proclaimed a course towards the creation of a socialist society, which meant supporting small business, developing the public sector, and creating a nationwide social insurance system.
In the first elections in 1951-1952, Congress received 44.5% of the vote, more than 74% of the seats in the House. Then Nehru actively strengthened the national sector. In 1948, he proclaimed a resolution according to which a state monopoly on the production of rail transport, nuclear energy and weapons was established. In the coal and oil industries, mechanical engineering, and ferrous metallurgy, only the state could create new enterprises. Seventeen key areas of industry were then declared nationalized. The Bank of India also came under nationalization, and control over private banks was established.
In the agricultural sector, former feudal duties were abolished only in the fifties. Landowners were now forbidden to take land from tenants. Landownership was also limited. In the 1957 election, Nehru won again, retaining a majority in parliament. The number of votes increased to forty-eight percent. In the next election, the party lost three percent of the vote, but retained control of most state governments and parliament.
Foreign policy
Jawaharlal Nehru enjoyed great authority in the international arena. He also became the author of a policy of non-alignment with various political blocs. The basic principles of the foreign policy of liberated India were formulated by him in 1948 at a congress in Jaipur: preservation of peace, neutrality, non-alignment with military-political blocs, anti-colonialism. The government of Joe Nehru was one of the first to recognize the PRC, but this did not prevent acute conflicts over Tibet. Nehru's discontent within the country grew. This led to the resignation of members of the government who belonged to the left faction. But Nehru managed to maintain the post and unity of the political party.
In the fifties and early sixties, an important area of parliament’s work led by Nehru was the elimination of enclaves of European states in Hindustan. After negotiations with the French government, the territories of French India were incorporated into independent India. After a short military operation in 1961, Indian troops occupied the Portuguese colonies on the peninsula, namely Diu, Goa and Daman. This accession was recognized by Portugal only in 1974.
The great peacekeeper Jawaharlal Nehru visited the United States of America in 1949. This contributed to the establishment of friendly relations, the active influx of American capital into India and the development of trade and economic relations between the countries. For the United States, India was a counterweight to communist China. In the early fifties, a number of agreements on technical and economic assistance were signed between the countries, but Nehru rejected the offer of the Americans to provide military assistance during the conflict between India and China. He preferred to remain committed to a policy of neutrality.
India accepted economic assistance from the Soviet Union, but did not become a strategic ally, but advocated the peaceful coexistence of countries with different political systems. In 1954, Nehru put forward five principles of coexistence in peace and harmony. Based on this patch, the Non-Aligned Movement later emerged. Jawaharlal Nehru briefly put forward the following points: respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, non-aggression, non-interference in internal state affairs, observance of the principles of mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence.
In 1955, the Indian Prime Minister paid a visit to Moscow, during which he became close to the USSR. He visited Stalingrad, Tbilisi, Tashkent, Yalta, Altai, Magnitogorsk, Samarkand, Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). Joe Nehru visited the Uralmash plant, with which India signed a contract after this visit. The plant delivered more than 300 excavators to the country. As the contradictions intensified, relations between the USSR and India became better, and after the death of Nehru they actually became allied.
Personal life
In 1916, on the day of the Hindu festival, which marks the arrival of spring, Nehru married Kamala Kaul, who was then only sixteen. A year later, their only daughter was born. Jawaharlal Nehru called his daughter Indira. Indira first met Mahatma Gandhi at the age of two. Already at eight she organized a children's home weaving union on his advice. Jawaharlal Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, in Oxford, England, studied management, anthropology and history. In 1942, she became the wife of Feroz Gandhi - a surname and not a relative of Mahatma Gandhi. Interracial marriages were considered sacrilege in relation to the laws and traditions of India, however, young people got married despite caste and religious barriers. Indira and Feroza had two sons - Rajiv and Sanjay. The children were predominantly under the supervision of their mother and lived in the house of their grandfather.
"Mistress" of the leader
Kamaoa Kaul died young, and Joe Nehru remained a widower. But in his life there was another woman with whom he did not tie the knot. Joe Nehru was deeply connected with Edwin Mountbatten, the wife of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the British Viceroy of the King in India. Edwin’s daughter always claimed that the relationship between her mother and Nehru was always exclusively platonic, although Lord Mountbatten’s wife had experience of extramarital affairs. In this case, various love letters were found, the public also knew that these two loved each other.
Jawaharlal Nehru was twelve years older than Edwina. With the Mountbatten couple, they became friends with similar liberal views. Subsequently, the wife of the Lord accompanied the Prime Minister of India on his most risky trips. She traveled with him to different parts of the country, torn by religious contradictions, suffering from poverty and disease. Spouse Edwin Mountbatten calmly related to this relationship. His heart was broken after the first betrayal, but he was an adequate and reasonable politician who was aware of the scale of Nehru's personality.
At a farewell dinner regarding the departure of the couple back to the UK, Nehru practically admitted the lady in love. The people of India have already fallen in love with Edwin. But now she and Joe Nehru lived in different countries. They exchanged letters filled with tenderness. The woman did not hide the message from her husband, because she and Louis parted. Then Lady Mountbatten realized how much she managed to fall in love with India. It was Jawaharlal who represented the former colony for her. The people of India also noted how much their leader grew older after Edwin left. Lady Mountbatten died at the age of fifty-eight in 1960.
