NEHRU, JAWAHARLAL (1889–1964), nationalist leader and first prime minister of India (1947–1964). Jawaharlal Nehru was born in Allahabad on 14 November 1889. The Nehrus originally came from the valley of Kashmir and had migrated to Delhi at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Jawaharlal's grandfather, Gangadhar, was a police officer in Delhi at the time of the Revolt of 1857. When the victorious British troops stormed their way into Delhi, he escaped with his family to Agra. Early in 1861, at the age of thirty-four, he passed away. Three months after his death, his wife gave birth to a son, who was named Motilal. He was brought up by his elder brother, Nandlal. Motilal Nehru, the father of Jawaharlal, forged his way to the forefront of the Allahabad Bar, where he built up an enormous practice; he was noted for his natural shrewdness, persuasive advocacy, and ready wit. Genial, fond of good food and good wine and good conversation, he was known among his friends—British and Indian—for his generous hospitality.
The Early Years
As a child, Jawaharlal was the recipient of much anxious solicitude from his parents. His mother, Swarup Rani, showered on him, as he wrote later, "indiscriminate and excessive love." Motilal decided that the schools in Allahabad were not good enough for his son, and arranged for his instruction at home by European tutors. Though he was spared the straitjacket of a conventional education, solitary instruction at home deepened the loneliness of the boy, who as the only child for eleven years had little opportunity to play with children of his own age. One of his tutors, Ferdinard T. Brooks, a young man of mixed Irish and French extraction, inspired in him a zest for reading and an interest in science.
From English tutors to an English public school must have seemed to Motilal Nehru a natural, perhaps a necessary step. In 1905 he took his son to England and had him admitted to Harrow public school. Jawaharlal entered the school routine of studies and sports, though he did not seem to leave any impression on his contemporaries, nor did they find his company intellectually stimulating. "My tastes and inclinations," he wrote to his father, "are quite different. Here boys older than me and in higher forms than me take great interest in things which appear to me childish."
In October 1907 Jawaharlal was admitted to Trinity College at Cambridge. His interest in science led him to take the Natural Science Tripos for his subjects. The three years he spent at Cambridge were, as he recalled later, "pleasant years with many friends.. and a gradual widening of the intellectual horizon." The days were taken up with work and play, and the long winter evenings passed in interminable discussions on life, literature, politics, ethics, sex, and people, until long after midnight the dying fires sent Jawaharlal and his friends shivering to their beds. Cambridge also imparted a keen edge to Jawaharlal's political thinking. His letters from Harrow and Cambridge exuded nationalist fervor and aggressive anti-imperialism, which alarmed his father, though it was not uncommon for Indian students at British universities to pass through a phase of intellectual rebellion and political extremism.