Shri Jawaharlal Nehru
(August 15, 1947 to May 27, 1964)
Party - Congress
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was born in Allabahad on November 14, 1889.
He received his early education at home under private tutors. At the age of
fifteen, he went to England and after two years at Harrow, joined Cambridge
University where he took his tripos in Natural Sciences. He was later called to
the Bar from Inner Temple. He returned to India in 1912 and plunged straight
into politics. Even as a student, he had been interested in the struggle of all
nations who suffered under foreign domination. He took keen interest in the
Sinn Fein Movement in Ireland. In India, he was inevitably drawn into the
struggle for independence.
In 1912, he attended the Bankipore Congress as a delegate, and
became Secretary of the Home Rule League, Allahabad in 1919. In 1916 he had his
first meeting with Mahatma Gandhi and felt immensely inspired by him. He
organised the first Kisan March in Pratapgarh District of Uttar Pradesh in
1920. He was twice imprisoned in connection with the Non-Cooperation Movement
of 1920-22.
Pt. Nehru became the General Secretary of the All India Congress
Committee in September 1923. He toured Italy, Switzerland, England, Belgium,
Germany and Russia in 1926. In Belgium, he attended the Congress of Oppressed
Nationalities in Brussels as an official delegate of the Indian National
Congress. He also attended the tenth anniversary celebrations of the October
Socialist Revolution in Moscow in 1927. Earlier, in 1926, at the Madras
Congress, Nehru had been instrumental in committing the Congress to the goal of
Independence. While leading a procession against the Simon commission, he was
lathi-charged in Lucknow in 1928. On August 29, 1928 he attended the All-Party
Congress and was one of the signatories to the Nehru Report on Indian
Constitutional Reform, named after his father Shri Motilal Nehru. The same
year, he also founded the ‘Independence for India League’, which advocated
complete severance of the British connection with India, and became its General
Secretary.
In 1929, Pt. Nehru was elected President of the Lahore Session
of the Indian National Congress, where complete independence for the country
was adopted as the goal. He was imprisoned several times during 1930-35 in
connection with the Salt Satyagraha and other movements launched by the
Congress. He completed his ‘Autobiography’ in Almora Jail on February 14, 1935.
After release, he flew to Switzerland to see his ailing wife and visited London
in February-March, 1936. He also visited Spain in July 1938, when the country
was in the throws of Civil War. Just before the court-break of the Second World
War, he visited China too.
On October 31, 1940 Pt. Nehru was arrested for offering
individual Satyagraha to protest against India’s forced participation in war.
He was released along with the other leaders in December 1941. On August 7,
1942 Pt. Nehru moved the historic ‘Quit India’ resolution at the A.I.C.C.
session in Bombay. On August 8,1942 he was arrested along with other leaders
and taken to Ahmednagar Fort. This was his longest and also his last detention.
In all, he suffered imprisonment nine times. After his release in January 1945,
he organized legal defence for those officers and men of the INA charged with
treason. In March 1946, Pt. Nehru toured South East Asia. He was elected
President of the Congress for the fourth time on July 6, 1946 and again for
three more terms from 1951 to 1954.
Source: https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/former_pm/shri-jawaharlal-nehru/