Jawaharlal Nehru

From 1888, a prosperous lawyer from the Kashmiri Pandit clan (an ethno-religious group) and Cambridge graduate, Motilal Nehru, participated in the work of the INC. He was among the most moderate members of the Congress, but in the 1910s he became imbued with the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and shifted to national-patriotic positions. In 1919, he was elected president of the INC. One of his closest associates was his son Jawaharlal, born in 1889.

Jawaharlal received his primary education at home and attended school in India. In 1905, he went to England, studied at a college, and then at Cambridge University in the natural sciences department, where he specialized in three subjects — chemistry, geology, and botany. At the same time, he devoted a significant part of his time to studying literature, history, politics, and economics. After graduating from Cambridge in 1910, Nehru began studying law in London and in 1912 obtained the right to practice law. In 1912, he returned to India, joined the High Court, and was soon elected as a delegate to the Indian National Congress (INC) convention. In 1916, his first meeting with the leader of India's national liberation movement, Mahatma Gandhi, took place.

The progressive and radical views of Jawaharlal Nehru contributed to his emergence from the late 1920s as one of the leaders of the left wing of the Indian National Congress. He was part of the party's leading core; from 1923, he was repeatedly elected secretary of the Executive Committee, then in 1927 — General Secretary of the INC and Chairman of the INC. Jawaharlal Nehru's work at the head of the Congress proved fruitful. In 1938, the party's membership reached 5 million people.

In November 1927, he visited the USSR, where he participated in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution.

In 1927, father and son Nehru began promoting the idea of transforming India from a colony into a British dominion — effectively an independent state. On August 30, 1928, they presented a memorandum containing a draft of the Indian constitution. The British authorities reacted negatively to the Nehru family's ideas. He was first arrested in 1921 for anti-British agitation in a village, and his total prison time would amount to 10 years.

Nehru actively spoke out against fascist aggression in Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) and Europe, in support of Republican Spain and China's struggle against Japanese aggression. During World War II (1939–1945), he actively supported the Soviet Union in its fight against Nazi Germany and its satellites.

From 1946, Britain began rapidly losing control of the situation in India. In 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru became vice-premier of the interim government of India — the Executive Council under the Viceroy of India.

Britain realized that it was losing its positions in the country and had to leave.

The recognition of India's independence itself occurred peacefully, but blood was ultimately shed during the partition of the country into Hindu and Pakistani parts. The religious "bomb" planted by Curzon exploded when the country gained independence.

In 1947, Nehru personally headed the government, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense of the young independent state. Nehru held the post of Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs until his death in 1964.

The development and implementation of the fundamental principles of the Republic of India's domestic and foreign policy, known as the "Nehru course," are associated with the name of Jawaharlal Nehru. As chairman of the Planning Commission, he took direct part in drafting the first three five-year plans for India's development (1951/52–1965/66). The measures for economic and socio-cultural development designed and implemented under Nehru's leadership initiated the restructuring of the colonial-feudal structure of Indian society.

In the field of foreign policy, Jawaharlal Nehru pursued a policy of "positive neutrality" aimed at the struggle for peace, international cooperation, against the threat of war, against neocolonialism and racism.

If Gandhi can be called the "father" of the Indian nation, then Nehru is its "architect."

Nehru's socio-economic course is called "Indian socialism," based on economic planning and import substitution through the creation of an extensive public sector in industry.

In 1955, Nehru became one of the founders of the international Non-Aligned Movement.

Together with Tito, Nasser, and Sukarno, he became a co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Nehru admired the economic transformations in the USSR, and even more so — the Bolsheviks' national policy aimed at the equality of peoples.

Jawaharlal Nehru died on May 27, 1964, in New Delhi.