Jawaharlal Nehru: The Untold Story Behind India’s First Prime Minister

 date of independence in 1947 until his death in 1964. While much too made of his political legacy, the man behind the statesman had a very cool background to check out.

The son of a distinguished Kashmiri Brahmin, Nehru, India’s future leader, enjoyed a privileged education at Harrow School and Cambridge University. In addition, he became the leading figure in the nationalist movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Which had a long term effect on the quest for national independence. His leadership was to mark with commitment towards parliamentary democracy, secularism and science & technology.

In this article, we will reveal the untold stories of Nehru – from his haves to have not, from his inheritance to insurrection. We will also explore how he laid the foundation of India’s democracy. He confronted political dilemmas and bequeathed a legacy that still shapes the country.

The Privileged Child Who Questioned Empire Long before he was India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru was a boy and raised in a cookie jar of uncommon privilege. Intellectual stimulus that would form his world view and political consciousness.

Jawaharlal Nehru: Growing up in Anand Bhavan The narrative of Nehru’s upbringing is anchored at Anand Bhavan. The ancestral home of the Nehrus in Allahabad, now renamed Prayagraj. Frequently mistaken for the Nehru family’s original home called Swaraj Bhavan. Anand Bhavan, built in 1927 by Motilal Nehru. Motilal Nehru co-designed the mansion himself with an architect, deployed the Tata family, indicating the family’s wealth and influence.

Life in Anand Bhavan was one of grace and profusion. There were great leather-bounded collections of books. Stately monogrammed crockery and costly furniture, bought at Maple & Co of London. This was a home where Western privilege met burgeoning nationalist feelings. Luxurious carpets sat next to simple charkhas, coarse khadi cloth.

Jawaharlal was the first child of Motilal and Swarup Rani Nehru born on November 14, 1889. He was of Kashmiri lineage, his family being members of the Kashmiri Pandit community. Brahmins who had begun moving to Kashmir from what is now the Indian state in the 6th and 7th centuries. Childhood Nehru described his childhood as a “sheltered and uneventful one”.He got to birth into a wealthy Kashmiri Indian family that served the Mughal Court.

His sisters were Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and Krishna Hutheesing. The young Jawaharlal was raised in a large mansion in Allahabad in a wealthy and politically influential family.

Jawaharlal Nehru: Exposure to Western liberalism Western liberalism versus Indian tradition Nehru’s education up. Until the age of 16 consisted of learning at home with the use of private tutors. The tutor who made the greatest impression on him was an Irishman with theosophic interests called Ferdinand T. Brooks. Brooks was responsible for introducing young Nehru to theosophical concepts. Later led to his joining the Theosophical Society at the age of 13.

While his enthusiasm for theosophy abated, this early exposure led to an interest in spiritual matters. Nehru also had an Indian teacher, a house tutor who also taught him Hindi and Sanskrit. He accidentally saw how to eat meat in Indian tradition. This incident changed him, a boy who had no contact with Hindu traditions to become a boy familiar with Hindu tradition.

This later evolved into an in-depth study of Buddhist and Hindu philosophies. A subsequent book published years later called “The Discovery of India”. At 16, Nehru sailed away from India to Harrow, one of England’s grandest schools. He then went to Trinity College, Cambridge. Where he graduated with first class honors in natural science in 1910. He devoured politics, economics, history, literature in that time.

His major intellectual influences were the works of leading intellectuals. Such as Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, John Maynard Keynes and Bertrand Russell. It were these that most influenced his political understanding and his grasp of economics.

Jawaharlal Nehru: disillusionment with colonial rule Nehru got to birth into a leading political family of India. He had the benefit of the best education available in India and England at the time of his education. As well as an anglicized upbringing, that fact should have turned him against Nationalism for life.

These sentiments were to exacerbation, the Second Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War. Of the latter, he mention(ed): In 1905 the Japanese victories had a thrilling effect. There was a moment when I thought I must leave everything. Must throw myself heart and soul into the ranks of those who from their ranks were leading their country to victory. Nationalist ideas swayed my mind. I thought of Indian freedom and Asiatic freedom from the thraldom of Europe.

At Harrow, the young Nehru (who was known as “Joe”) read the works of G.M. Trevelyan on Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary hero. These readings led to visions of similar revolutionary feats in his land of birth. He wrote, “The vision of similar deeds around me in India came before of gallant fight with the British. For my gallant fight for Indian freedom, and in my brain, India and Italy got strangely mixed up.

As a result, when Nehru came back to India after studying in England, he was to pull between two worlds. He became widely known as “a queer mixture of East and West, out of place everywhere”. This cultural character would remain a major part of his identity for the rest of his own.