Jawaharlal Nehru - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com Google Jawaharlal Nehru: Early Life and Family Jawaharlal Nehru was born into an affluent Kashmiri Brahman family in Allahabad on November 14, 1889. Tutored at home until the age of 15, Nehru subsequently attended Harrow in England and, later, Trinity College, Cambridge. After studying law at London’s Inner Temple, he returned to India at the age of 22 where he practiced law with his father and prominent barrister, Motilal Nehru. Did You Know? In 1949, after zookeepers had killed most of Tokyo’s wild animals to prevent them from escaping during World War II air raids, Nehru delighted Japanese children by presenting Ueno Zoo with an Indian elephant. In 1916, four years after his parents had made the suitable arrangement, Nehru married 17-year-old Kamala Kaul. The following year, their only child, Indira Priyadarshini, was born.

Jawaharlal Nehru: Political Awakening Upon learning of esteemed theosophist Annie Besant’s arrest in 1917, Nehru was moved to join the All India Home Rule League, an organization devoted to obtaining self-government within the British Empire. In April 1919, British troops opened fire on thousands of unarmed civilians who had been protesting recently passed legislation that permitted the detainment of suspected political foes without trial. The Massacre of Amritsar, in which 379 Indians were killed and more than a thousand others were wounded, outraged Nehru and further solidified his resolve to win India’s independence. During the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-22) led by Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru was imprisoned for the first time for activities against the British government and, over the course of the next two and a half decades, spent a total of nine years in jail. In 1929, Jawaharlal was elected president of the Indian National Congress—his first leadership role in politics—whereby he promoted the goal of complete independence from Britain as opposed to dominion status.

In response to Britain’s declaration of India’s participation in the war against Germany at the onset of World War II without consulting Indian leaders, members of Congress passed the Quit India resolution on August 8, 1942, demanding political freedom from Britain in exchange for support in the war effort. The following day, the British government arrested all Congress leaders, including Nehru and Gandhi. Jawaharlal Nehru: Challenges and Legacy as Prime Minister On August 15, 1947, India finally gained its independence and Nehru became the nation’s first prime minister. Amid the celebration of newly acquired freedom, there was also considerable turmoil. The mass displacement that followed partition into the separate nations of Pakistan and India, along with disputes over control of Kashmir, resulted in the loss of property and lives for several hundred thousand Muslims and Hindus. Throughout his 17-year leadership, Nehru advocated democratic socialism and secularism and encouraged India’s industrialization beginning with the implementation of the first of his five-year plans in 1951, which emphasized the importance of increasing agricultural production.

He also promoted scientific and technological advancements through the establishment of higher learning, and instituted various social reforms such as free public education and meals for Indian children, legal rights for women—including the ability to inherit property and divorce their husbands—and laws to prohibit discrimination based on caste. During the Cold War , Nehru adopted a policy of non-alignment in which he professed neutrality, but was criticized when he refused to condemn the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and later requested foreign aid after China invaded India’s northern border in 1962. The conflict, known as the Sino-Indian War, had a deleterious effect on Nehru’s health, resulting in a severe stroke in January of 1964 and his death a few months later on May 27. Tags Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru leader of the Indian National Congress and first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru [juh wah' hur lahl neh' rU] was born in Allahabad on November 14, 1889, the only son of Motilal Nehru, a prosperous lawyer.

He studied in England, graduating from the Harrow School in 1907 and Trinity College, Cambridge University, in 1910. After two years at the Inner Temple, London, he qualified as a barrister. He returned to India in 1912 and practiced law in the Allahabad High Court. He married Kamala Kaul in 1916. The Independence Movement Nehru first met Mohandas Gandhi at the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress held in Lucknow in 1916, and soon became one of Gandhi's most trusted followers. Like his father, Jawaharlal initially favored India retaining dominion status within the British Commonwealth, but he soon came to believe that India deserved nothing less than complete independence. He formally joined Gandhi's civil disobedience movement at the September 1920 session of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta. In 1921, Nehru was sentenced to six months imprisonment for his work in the civil disobedience movement. It would not be the first time he would go to jail, for he would ultimately spend a total of nine years in prison before India finally gained its independence.

Nehru served as General Secretary of the Indian National Congress from 1923 to 1925. In 1929, he presided over the Lahore session of the Congress, which declared complete independence and civil disobedience under Gandhi's leadership. He was elected president of the Indian National Congress that same year; he held the post again in 1936, 1937, and 1946. In 1934, Gandhi formally resigned from politics and named Nehru as his successor. In 1937, the first elections under the Government of India Act were held. The Indian National Congress got the majority in seven of the eleven provinces, making Nehru the effective leader of India's government. Following the elections, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the defeated Muslim League, asked for the formation of coalition Congress-Muslim League governments in some of the provinces. Nehru's denial of the request would lead to a decades-long conflict between India's Hindu and Muslim populations. In 1939, Britain unilaterally declared India's participation on the side of the Allies.

Nehru replied that India had an obligation to support the democracies of the world, but would only fight as a free country. When Britain continued its refusal to grant independence, the Indian National Congress withdrew from the government and refused to support the British war effort. In August, 1942, the entire Congress Working Committee was arrested for passing its "Quit India" resolution. Released in 1945, he was invited by the British to form an interim government to organize India's transition to independence. He subsequently took a leading part in the negotiations that culminated in the emergence of the dominions of India and Pakistan in August 1947. Prime Minister India achieved complete independence on August 15, 1947, and Nehru became its first Prime Minister. He also assumed responsibility for India's foreign policy and served as Foreign Minister throughout his tenure. When India became independent its native population was amongst the poorest in the world. Under Nehru's leadership, India became an industrialized nation and the national income rose 42%.

Other improvements to Indian life included: the minimum marriageable age was increased from 12 to 15; women were given the right to divorce husbands and inherit property; the dowry system was made illegal; and, absentee landlords were stripped of their land, which was then transferred to tenant farmers who could document their right to occupancy. A staunch advocate of non-aggression, Nehru gained international recognition for opposing alliances with either the United States or the Soviet Union , and for promoting neutralism. Along with Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito and Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser , he became a spokesman for the nonaligned nations of Asia and Africa. As the leader of a nonaligned nation, Nehru played an important mediatory role in bringing the Korean War to an end. By offering India's services for conciliation and international policing, he was able to help end crises in the Suez Canal and the Congo. Nehru did face major foreign policy challenges with respect to Pakistan and China , however. India's differences with Pakistan over the Kashmir region led to frequent border disputes and skirmishes, as well as brief all-out warfare.

A consistent proponent of Communist China's admission to the United Nations, Nehru's position was seriously challenged when Chinese forces attacked and crossed the Indian border in 1962. Although Nehru did have his critics, his government went virtually unchallenged throughout his entire seventeen years in office. He died in office after suffering a stroke on May 27, 1964. Nehru was the author of many works, including Glimpses of World History (1934), his Autobiography (1936), and The Discovery of India (1946). Nehru's only child, Indira Priyadarshini ( Indira Gandhi ) served as Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977, and again from 1980 to 1984. Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, served as Prime Minister from 1984 to 1989.

Jawaharlal Nehru | prime minister of India | Britannica.com prime minister of India Subhas Chandra Bose Jawaharlal Nehru, byname Pandit (Hindi: “Pundit” or “Teacher”) Nehru (born November 14, 1889, Allahabad , India—died May 27, 1964, New Delhi ), first prime minister of independent India (1947–64), who established parliamentary government and became noted for his neutralist (nonaligned) policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the 1930s and ’40s. Jawaharlal Nehru, photograph by Yousuf Karsh, 1956. Karsh—Rapho/Photo Researchers Early years Nehru was born to a family of Kashmiri Brahmans , noted for their administrative aptitude and scholarship, who had migrated to Delhi early in the 18th century. He was a son of Motilal Nehru , a renowned lawyer and leader of the Indian independence movement, who became one of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi ’s prominent associates.

Jawaharlal was the eldest of four children, two of whom were girls. A sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit , later became the first woman president of the United Nations General Assembly . Until the age of 16, Nehru was educated at home by a series of English governesses and tutors. Only one of those—a part-Irish, part-Belgian theosophist, Ferdinand Brooks—appears to have made any impression on him. Jawaharlal also had a venerable Indian tutor who taught him Hindi and Sanskrit. In 1905 he went to Harrow , a leading English school, where he stayed for two years. Nehru’s academic career was in no way outstanding. From Harrow he went to Trinity College , Cambridge , where he spent three years earning an honours degree in natural science. On leaving Cambridge he qualified as a barrister after two years at the Inner Temple, London , where in his own words he passed his examinations “with neither glory nor ignominy.” The seven years Nehru spent in England left him in a hazy half-world, at home neither in England nor in India.

Some years later he wrote, “I have become a queer mixture of East and West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.” He went back to India to discover India. The contending pulls and pressures that his experience abroad were to exert on his personality were never completely resolved. Four years after his return to India, in March 1916, Nehru married Kamala Kaul, who also came from a Kashmiri family that had settled in Delhi. Their only child, Indira Priyadarshini, was born in 1917; she would later (under her married name of Indira Gandhi ) also serve (1966–77 and 1980–84) as prime minister of India. In addition, Indira’s son Rajiv Gandhi succeeded his mother as prime minister (1984–89). Political apprenticeship Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent On his return to India, Nehru at first had tried to settle down as a lawyer. Unlike his father, however, he had only a desultory interest in his profession and did not relish either the practice of law or the company of lawyers.

For that time he might be described, like many of his generation, as an instinctive nationalist who yearned for his country’s freedom, but, like most of his contemporaries, he had not formulated any precise ideas on how it could be achieved. Nehru’s autobiography discloses his lively interest in Indian politics during the time he was studying abroad. His letters to his father over the same period reveal their common interest in India’s freedom. But not until father and son met Mahatma Gandhi and were persuaded to follow in his political footsteps did either of them develop any definite ideas on how freedom was to be attained. The quality in Gandhi that impressed the two Nehrus was his insistence on action. A wrong, Gandhi argued, should not only be condemned but be resisted. Earlier, Nehru and his father had been contemptuous of the run of contemporary Indian politicians, whose nationalism , with a few notable exceptions, consisted of interminable speeches and long-winded resolutions. Jawaharlal was also attracted by Gandhi’s insistence on fighting against British rule of India without fear or hate.

Gandhi and Indian History Nehru met Gandhi for the first time in 1916 at the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress (Congress Party) in Lucknow . Gandhi was 20 years his senior. Neither seems to have made any initially strong impression on the other. Gandhi makes no mention of Nehru in an autobiography he dictated while imprisoned in the early 1920s. The omission is understandable, since Nehru’s role in Indian politics was secondary until he was elected president of the Congress Party in 1929, when he presided over the historic session at Lahore (now in Pakistan ) that proclaimed complete independence as India’s political goal. Until then the party’s objective had been dominion status. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Nehru’s close association with the Congress Party dates from 1919 in the immediate aftermath of World War I .

That period saw an early wave of nationalist activity and governmental repression, which culminated in the Massacre of Amritsar in April 1919; according to an official report, 379 persons were killed (though other estimates were considerably higher), and at least 1,200 were wounded when the local British military commander ordered his troops to fire on a crowd of unarmed Indians assembled in an almost completely enclosed space in the city. When, late in 1921, the prominent leaders and workers of the Congress Party were outlawed in some provinces, Nehru went to prison for the first time. Over the next 24 years he was to serve another eight periods of detention, the last and longest ending in June 1945, after an imprisonment of almost three years. In all, Nehru spent more than nine years in jail. Characteristically, he described his terms of incarceration as normal interludes in a life of abnormal political activity. His political apprenticeship with the Congress Party lasted from 1919 to 1929. In 1923 he became general secretary of the party for two years, and he did so again in 1927 for another two years.

His interests and duties took him on journeys over wide areas of India, particularly in his native United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh state), where his first exposure to the overwhelming poverty and degradation of the peasantry had a profound influence on his basic ideas for solving those vital problems. Though vaguely inclined toward socialism , Nehru’s radicalism had set in no definite mold. The watershed in his political and economic thinking was his tour of Europe and the Soviet Union during 1926–27. Nehru’s real interest in Marxism and his socialist pattern of thought stemmed from that tour, even though it did not appreciably increase his knowledge of communist theory and practice. His subsequent sojourns in prison enabled him to study Marxism in more depth. Interested in its ideas but repelled by some of its methods—such as the regimentation and the heresy hunts of the communists—he could never bring himself to accept Karl Marx ’s writings as revealed scripture. Yet from then on, the yardstick of his economic thinking remained Marxist, adjusted, where necessary, to Indian conditions. Struggle for Indian independence Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest After the Lahore session of 1929, Nehru emerged as the leader of the country’s intellectuals and youth.

Gandhi had shrewdly elevated him to the presidency of the Congress Party over the heads of some of his seniors, hoping that Nehru would draw India’s youth—who at that time were gravitating toward extreme leftist causes—into the mainstream of the Congress movement. Gandhi also correctly calculated that, with added responsibility, Nehru himself would be inclined to keep to the middle way. After his father’s death in 1931, Nehru moved into the inner councils of the Congress Party and became closer to Gandhi. Although Gandhi did not officially designate Nehru his political heir until 1942, the Indian populace as early as the mid-1930s saw in Nehru the natural successor to Gandhi. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931, signed between Gandhi and the British viceroy, Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax ), signalized a truce between the two principal protagonists in India. It climaxed one of Gandhi’s more-effective civil disobedience movements, launched the year before as the Salt March , in the course of which Nehru had been arrested.

Hopes that the Gandhi-Irwin Pact would be the prelude to a more-relaxed period of Indo-British relations were not borne out; Lord Willingdon (who replaced Irwin as viceroy in 1931) jailed Gandhi in January 1932, shortly after Gandhi’s return from the second Round Table Conference in London. He was charged with attempting to mount another civil disobedience movement; Nehru was also arrested and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The three Round Table Conferences in London, held to advance India’s progress to self-government, eventually resulted in the Government of India Act of 1935, which gave the Indian provinces a system of popular autonomous government. Ultimately, it provided for a federal system composed of the autonomous provinces and princely states. Although federation never came into being, provincial autonomy was implemented . During the mid-1930s Nehru was much concerned with developments in Europe, which seemed to be drifting toward another world war. He was in Europe early in 1936, visiting his ailing wife, shortly before she died in a sanitarium in Lausanne , Switzerland .

Even at that time he emphasized that in the event of war India’s place was alongside the democracies , though he insisted that India could fight in support of Great Britain and France only as a free country. Trending Topics Eyjafjallajökull volcano When the elections following the introduction of provincial autonomy brought the Congress Party to power in a majority of the provinces, Nehru was faced with a dilemma. The Muslim League under Mohammed Ali Jinnah (who was to become the creator of Pakistan) had fared badly at the polls. Congress, therefore, unwisely rejected Jinnah’s plea for the formation of coalition Congress–Muslim League governments in some of the provinces, a decision that Nehru had supported. The subsequent clash between the Congress and the Muslim League hardened into a conflict between Hindus and Muslims that was ultimately to lead to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. Imprisonment during World War II At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow , had committed India to war without consulting the autonomous provincial ministries.

The Congress Party’s high command withdrew its provincial ministries as a protest, but Congress’s action left the political field virtually open to Jinnah and the Muslim League. Nehru’s views on the war differed from those of Gandhi. Initially, Gandhi believed that whatever support was given to the British should be given unconditionally and that it should be of a nonviolent character. Nehru held that nonviolence had no place in defense against aggression and that India should support Great Britain in a war against Nazism but only as a free country. If it could not help, it should not hinder. In October 1940, Gandhi, abandoning his original stand, decided to launch a limited civil disobedience campaign in which leading advocates of Indian independence were selected to participate one by one. Nehru, the second of those leaders, was arrested and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. After spending a little more than a year in jail, he was released, along with other Congress prisoners, three days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii .

When the Japanese carried their attack through Burma (now Myanmar ) to the borders of India in the spring of 1942, the British government, faced by that new military threat, decided to make some overtures to India. Prime Minister Winston Churchill dispatched Sir Stafford Cripps , a member of the British War Cabinet who was politically close to Nehru and also knew Jinnah, with proposals for a settlement of the constitutional problem. Cripps’s mission failed, however, for Gandhi would accept nothing less than independence. The initiative in the Congress Party then passed to Gandhi, who called on the British to leave India; Nehru, though reluctant to embarrass the war effort, had no alternative but to join Gandhi. Following the Quit India resolution passed by the Congress Party in Bombay (now Mumbai ) on August 8, 1942, the entire Congress working committee, including Gandhi and Nehru, was arrested and imprisoned. Nehru emerged from that—his ninth and last detention—only on June 15, 1945. Within two years after his release, India was to be partitioned and free.

A final attempt by the viceroy, Lord Wavell , to bring the Congress Party and the Muslim League together failed. The Labour government that had meanwhile displaced Churchill’s wartime administration dispatched, as one of its first acts, a Cabinet mission to India and later replaced Lord Wavell with Lord Mountbatten . The question was no longer whether India was to be independent but whether it was to consist of one or more independent states. Hindu-Muslim antagonism, culminating in late 1946 in clashes that killed some 7,000 people, made the partition of the subcontinent inevitable. While Gandhi refused to accept it, Nehru reluctantly but realistically acquiesced . On August 15, 1947, India and Pakistan emerged as two separate independent countries. Nehru became independent India’s first prime minister. Achievements as prime minister In the 35 years from 1929, when Gandhi chose Nehru as president of the Congress session at Lahore, until his death, as prime minister, in 1964, Nehru remained—despite the debacle of the brief conflict with China in 1962—the idol of his people.

His secular approach to politics contrasted with Gandhi’s religious and traditionalist attitude, which during Gandhi’s lifetime had given Indian politics a religious cast—misleadingly so, for, although Gandhi may have appeared to be a religious conservative , he was actually a social nonconformist trying to secularize Hinduism. The real difference between Nehru and Gandhi was not in their attitudes toward religion but in their attitudes toward civilization. Whereas Nehru talked in an increasingly modern idiom , Gandhi was harking back to the glories of ancient India. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru being greeted by U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman at the start of … Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The importance of Nehru in the perspective of Indian history is that he imported and imparted modern values and ways of thinking, which he adapted to Indian conditions. Apart from his stress on secularism and on the basic unity of India, despite its ethnic and religious diversities , Nehru was deeply concerned with carrying India forward into the modern age of scientific discovery and technological development. In addition, he aroused in his people an awareness of the necessity of social concern with the poor and the outcast and of respect for democratic values.

One of the achievements of which he was particularly proud was the reform of the ancient Hindu civil code that finally enabled Hindu widows to enjoy equality with men in matters of inheritance and property. Internationally, Nehru’s star was in the ascendant until October 1956, when India’s attitude on the Hungarian Revolution against the Soviets brought his policy of nonalignment ( neutralism ) under sharp scrutiny by the noncommunist countries. In the United Nations , India was the only nonaligned country to vote with the Soviet Union on the invasion of Hungary , and it was thereafter difficult for Nehru to command credence in his calls for nonalignment. In the early years after independence, anticolonialism had been the cornerstone of his foreign policy . His interest in the issue waned, however, after Zhou Enlai , the Chinese prime minister, stole the spotlight from him at the Bandung Conference of African and Asian countries that was held in Indonesia in 1955. By the time of the first conference of the nonaligned movement in Belgrade , Yugoslavia (now Serbia ), in 1961, Nehru had substituted nonalignment for anticolonialism as his most-pressing concern.

The Sino-Indian conflict of 1962, however, exposed Nehru’s wishful thinking on nonalignment. When Chinese forces threatened to overrun the Brahmaputra River valley in the northeast as a result of a long-standing border dispute regarding Arunachal Pradesh state , they exposed the hollowness of Nehru’s proclamation, “Hindu-Chini bhai bhai” (“Indians and Chinese are brothers”). Nehru’s subsequent call for Western aid made virtual nonsense of his nonalignment policy. China soon withdrew its troops. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with Italian Pres. Antonio Segni, September 1962. Presidents of the Italian Republic The Kashmir region—claimed by both India and Pakistan—remained a perennial problem throughout Nehru’s term as prime minister. In the months after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, he made tentative efforts to settle the dispute between the two new countries while Hari Singh, the maharaja of Kashmir, decided on which country he would join. When Singh chose India, however, fighting broke out between the two sides.

The UN brokered a cease-fire line in the region, and Nehru proposed territorial adjustments along the line that failed. That demarcation became the line of control that still separates the Indian- and Pakistani-administered portions of the region. Nehru was more fortunate in his efforts to solve the problem of the Portuguese colony of Goa , the last remaining foreign-controlled entity in India. Although its military occupation by Indian troops in December 1961 raised a furor in many Western countries, in the hindsight of history, Nehru’s action is justifiable. With the withdrawal of the British and the French, the Portuguese colonial presence in India had become an anachronism . Both the British and the French had withdrawn peacefully. If the Portuguese were not prepared to follow suit, Nehru had to find ways to dislodge them. After first trying persuasion, in August 1955 he had permitted a group of unarmed Indians to march into Portuguese territory in a nonviolent demonstration. Even though the Portuguese opened fire on the demonstrators, killing nearly 30, Nehru stayed his hand for six years, appealing meanwhile to Portugal’s Western friends to persuade its government to cede the colony.

When India finally struck, Nehru could claim that neither he nor the government of India had ever been committed to nonviolence as a policy. Nehru’s health showed signs of deteriorating not long after the clash with China. He suffered a slight stroke in 1963, and a more-debilitating attack followed in January 1964. He died a few months later from a third and fatal stroke. Assessment While consciously assertive in his Indianness, Nehru never exuded the Hindu aura and atmosphere clinging to Gandhi’s personality. Because of his modern political and economic outlook, he was able to attract the younger intelligentsia of India to Gandhi’s movement of nonviolent resistance against the British and later to rally them around him after independence had been gained. Nehru’s Western upbringing and his visits to Europe before independence had acclimatized him to Western ways of thinking. Nehru did not conceal his differences with Gandhi on many basic social, economic, and political issues. He did not share Gandhi’s aversion to industrialization, and he saw to it that India’s early five-year plans after independence were geared toward heavy manufacturing.

If Nehru accepted Gandhi’s nonviolence, he did so not as a matter of principle but because he regarded nonviolence as a useful political weapon and the right policy for India under the prevailing political conditions. Of all the leaders of the Congress Party—including Gandhi—Nehru alone had given serious thought to India’s place in the world community . That enabled him not only to educate the Indian populace on foreign affairs before independence but to project his own views on Indian foreign policy when freedom came. If Gandhi made Indians aware of India, Nehru made them also aware of others. When India achieved independence, the image it presented to the world was really Nehru’s image: in the early years of Indian nationhood, the world identified India with Nehru. Throughout his 17 years in the prime minister’s office, he held up democratic socialism as the guiding star, emphasizing that India needed to achieve both democracy and socialism. With the help of the overwhelming majority that the Congress Party maintained in the parliament during his term of office, he advanced toward that goal. The four pillars of his domestic policies were democracy, socialism, unity, and secularism. He succeeded to a large extent in maintaining the edifice supported by those four pillars during his lifetime.

On This Day: India Gains Independence from Britain more » Associated Press Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru looks down on the crowd during India's Independence Day celebrations at Red Fort, New Delhi, India, Aug. 15, 1947. On This Day: India Gains Independence from Britain August 15, 2011 06:00 AM by findingDulcinea Staff On Aug. 15, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the nation with a new Declaration of Independence and became the first prime minister of India. A Celebration of Independence On June 15, 1947, the British House of Commons passed the Indian Independence Act, or Mountbatten Plan, which divided India into two dominions, India and Pakistan. It called for each dominion to be granted its independence by Aug. 15 of that year. On the night of Aug. 14, thousands of Indians gathered near government buildings in Delhi for the official ceremony celebrating independence. Jawaharlal Nehru, who would become the first prime minister of India, addressed the crowd an hour before midnight .

“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially,” he said. “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.” When the clock struck midnight, India began its first Independence Day celebration and its first day free of the British Empire. “The formal ceremonies, carefully rehearsed, had to be abandoned; in their place was a spontaneous exhibition of joy and happiness which made August 15 an unforgettable day,” wrote Indian newspaper Fauji Akhbar. “ Delhi's thousands rejoiced ,” wrote Time. “The town was gay, with orange, white and green. Bullocks' horns and horses' legs were painted in the new national colors, and silk merchants sold tri-colored saris.” Missing from the festivities, however, was Mohandas Gandhi, leader of the independence movement.

Gandhi opposed the partition of India and Pakistan, and was in the midst of a fast that he hoped would bring an end to the violence between the Hindus of India and the Muslims of Pakistan. Lord Mountbatten, viceroy of India, “drew the biggest applause of the day,” according to Time, when he declared, “At this historic moment let us not forget all that India owes to Mahatma Gandhi—the architect of her freedom through nonviolence. We miss his presence here today and would have him know how he is in our thoughts.” Key Players: Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi India owed much of its newfound freedom to the formidable partnership between Nehru and Gandhi . While they disagreed on tactics and religious matters, they shared a deep idealism and commitment to nonviolence, says former United Nations Under Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor. “While the world was disintegrating into fascism, violence and war in the 20th century, Gandhi taught the virtues of truth, nonviolence and peace,” wrote Tharoor in Time magazine.

“The principal pillars of Nehru's legacy—democratic institution-building, staunch pan-Indian secularism, socialist economics at home and a foreign policy of nonalignment--were all integral to a vision of Indianness that sustained the nation for decades.” Jawaharlal Nehru Nehru was educated in Britain and studied law before returning to India in 1912. He did legal work before becoming interested in politics and the teachings of Gandhi. He later became a prominent figure in Gandhi's nationalist movement , serving as the president of Congress several times. He would spend a total of nine years in jail for civil disobedience. During his tenure as prime minister, his government successfully dealt with significant challenges, such as the mass movement of minorities across the Indian-Pakistani border. He also succeeded in creating the political and administrative infrastructure for a parliamentary democracy and integrating some 500 states into the Indian Union, in addition to framing a new constitution. He served as prime minister until his death in 1964. Two years later, his daughter, Indira Gandhi, became the prime minister . His grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, would also serve as prime minister. Mohandas Gandhi Gandhi was India’s pre-eminent nationalist leader .

Born in Gujarat in 1869, he studied law in London and fought for the civil and human rights of Indian peoples both in South Africa. He developed non-violent political strategies influenced “primarily by Hinduism, but also by elements of Jainism and Christianity, as well as writers including Tolstoy and Thoreau,” according to the BBC. Upon his return to India, Gandhi applied these tactics, called “satyagraha” or “devotion to truth,” to the colonial independence movement. He organized several campaigns working toward a free India and became a unifying figure in the diverse nationalist movement and a prominent member of the National Congress. British colonial authorities in India arrested him in March 1922 for sedition . In 1930, he went on his famous 200-mile march to extract salt from the sea in protest of the government's salt tax. He was assassinated in 1948 by an man upset about his opposition to the British partition plan.

Manmohan Singh | Indian Prime Minister | AB Vajpayee | Indira Gandhi | Lok Sabha | Jawaharlal Nehru - Oneindia From Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh, here is the list of Indian Prime Ministers from 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru (1947-1964) Nehru is the first Prime Minister of Independent India. He also holds the record for continuously being in the office for the longest period (Aug 15, 1947 to May 27, 1964) about 17 years. Gulzari Lal Nanda A (1964-1964) Gandhian to the core, was interim Prime Minister on two occasions after the sudden demise of Pt. Nehru (from may 27, 1964 to June 9, 1964), for 14 days, and again after the sudden demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri (from January 11 to 24, 1966), again for a period of 14 days.

Lal Bahadur Shastri (1965-1966) Though he came to power under the shadow cast of the ever-famous Pt. Nehru, he quickly won the hearts of all Indians, especially after routing Pakistan in the 1965 war. Indian still reverbrates with his slogan 'Jai Jawan ! Jai Kisan !'. He held office for 582 days, from June 9, 1964 to January 11, 1966. Indira Gandhi (1966-1984) The Iron lady of India held office from Jan. 24, 1966 to March 24, 1977 and again from Jan. 14 to Oct. 31,1984, for a total of 5,831 days, just 300 days short of her father, Pt. Nehru. Abolition of privy purse, nationalization of banks, birth of Bangladesh are some of her achievements.

Morarji Desai (1977-1979) The first non-congress Prime Minister since Independence, Morarji Desai headed the Janata Party Government for 857 days, from March 24, 1977 to July 28, 1979. He was one of those rare Gandhians. Charan Singh (1979-1980) Known as a 'kisan' Prime Minister from Uttar Pradesh, he never faced Parliament, even though he was in office for 171 days, from July 28, 1979 to Jan. 14, 1980. Within days of assuming office, one of the supporting parties withdrew its support, after which he continued as caretaker P.M , till fresh elections were held. Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989) The youngest Prime Minister of India so far. Rajiv the grand son of Pt. Nehru assumed office at the age of 41, the day his mother Indira Gandhi was assassinated (Oct. 31,1984).

In the 1985 elections, he led his party to a big win and continued as PM till Dec 1,1989, when his party lost the hustings. VP Singh (1989-1990) VP Singh a Janata Dal leader became Prime Minister on Dec. 2,1989 and continued till Nov. 10, 1990 (344 days). He took a major decision in implementing the Mandal Commission recommendations. Chandra Shekar (1990-1991) Known as the 'Young Turk' became Prime Minister on Nov. 10,1990 and continued till June 21, 1991 (224 days). PV Narasimha Rao (1991-1996) The first ever leader from South to hold this office, he ruled for full five years, from June 21, 1991 to May 10, 1996 (1, 785 days), despite a hung Parliament, initially. AB Vajpayee (1996) Vajpayee is the first 'bachelor' Prime Minister of India.

He was at the helm for 16 days from May 16 to June 1, 1996, creating a record for the shortest stint in office. HD Deve Gowda (1997) The second Government of the 11th Lok Sabha was headed by Haradanahalli Dodde Deve Gowda, who was in office from June 1, 1996 to April 21, 1997 (for roughly 11 months). IK Gujral (1997) Inder Kumar Gujral became Prime Minister on April 21, 1997. He resigned office on Nov. 28. 1997. AB Vajpayee (1999-2004) He assumed charge for the second time on Mar 19, 1998. He took the oath on Oct 13, 1999 after General Election. He submitted resignation on May 13, 2004.

Dr Manmohan Singh (2004-2009) Former Finance Minister and a globally renowned economist Dr Manmohan Singh completed five years term as PM of India. He assumed charge on May 22, 2004 and resigned on May 18 2009. Dr Manmohan Singh (2009-Lok Sabha terms ends by 2014) Manmohan Singh was sworn-in as the Prime Minister of India for the second consecutive term. He is the first PM to retain the post for the second consecutive term after Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the India's first Prime Minister. OneIndia News Read more about: Other articles published on May 22, 2009 Please Wait while comments are loading... Gallery of Prime Ministers of India Gallery of Prime Ministers of India PRIME MINISTERS OF INDIA PT. JAWAHARLAL NEHRU The first Prime Minister of Independent India, also holds the record for continuously being in the office for the longest period (Aug.

15, 1947 to May 27, 1964) about 17 years, or 6,131 days - to be precise! Born in Allahabad, November 14, 1889; died on May 27, 1964. A prolific writer ("Discovery of India") and a great orator, he was the co-founder of Non-Aligned Movement. Conferred Bharat Ratna (1955). GULZARI LAL NANDA A Gandhian to the core, was interim Prime Minister on two occasions - after the sudden demise of Pt. Nehru (from may 27, 1964 to June 9, 1964), for 14 days, and again after the sudden demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri (from January 11 to 24, 1966), again for a period of 14 days. Born in Sialkot (now in Pakistan), July 4, 1898; died on January 15, 1998, as a centenarian.

Was a leading light in the labour movement. Conferred Bharat Ratna (1997). LAL BAHADUR SHASTRI Though he came to power under the shadow cast of the ever-famous Pt. Nehru, he quickly won the hearts of all Indians, especially after routing Pakistan in the 1965 war. Indian still reverbrates with his slogan "Jai Jawan ! Jai Kisan !". He held office for 582 days, from June 9, 1964 to January 11, 1966. Born in Moghalsarai (Varanasi), October 2, 1904; died in Tashkent (USSR) on January 11, 1966 , while negotiating peace talks with Pakistan. Conferred Bharat Ratna (posthumous, 1966). INDIRA GANDHI Proved her mettle as the chip of the old block; held office from Jan. 24, 1966 to March 24, 1977 and again |from Jan. 14 to Oct.

31,1984, for a total of 5,831 days, just 300 days short of her father, Pt. Nehru. Abolition of privy purse, nationalization of banks, birth of Bangladesh are some of her achievements. Born in Allahabad, Nov. 19, 1917; died on Oct. 31,1984. Conferred Bharat Ratna in 1971. MORARJI DESAI The first non-congress Prime Minister since Independence, Morarji Desai headed the Janata Party Government for 857 days, from March 24, 1977 to July 28, 1979. He was one of those rare Gandhians. Born on 29th February, 1896, in Bahadesli Village, Gujarat; a centenarian, he passed away on April 10, 1995. Conferred Bharat Ratna in 1991.

CHARAN SINGH A "kisan" Prime Minister from Uttar Pradesh, he never faced Parliament, even though he was in office for 171 days, from July 28, 1979 to Jan. 14, 1980. Within days of assuming office, one of the supporting parties withdrew its support, after which he continued as caretaker P.M , till fresh elections were held. Born in Noorpur, Meerut Dist., U. P. on Dec.23, 1902; died in 1987. RAJIV GANDHI The youngest Prime Minister so far, this grand son of Pt. Nehru assumed office at the age of 41, the day his mother was assassinated (Oct. 31,1984). In the 1985 elections, he led his party to a big win and continued as P. M. till Dec. 1,1989, when his party lost the hustings. Born in Bombay (Mumbai, now) on Aug.

20, 1944; died in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991, at the hands of a human bomb. Conferred Bharat Ratna (posthumous, 1991) V.P. SINGH Riding the wave of the Janata Dal, V. P. Singh became Prime Minister on Dec. 2,1989 and continued till Nov. 10, 1990 (344 days). He took a major decision in implementing the Mandal Commission recommendations. Born in Allahabad on June 25, 1931. CHANDRA SHEKHAR The " Young Turk" became Prime Minister on Nov. 10,1990 and continued till June 21, 1991 (224 days). Born in Village Ibrahimpatti in Ballia District, U P., on July 1, 1927. P. V.

NARASIMHA RAO The first ever from South to hold this office, he ruled for full five years, from June 21, 1991 to May 10, 1996 (1, 785 days), despite a hung Parliament, initially. A literature, Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao was born in Vangara, Karimnagar District, Andhra Pradesh, on June 28, 1921. He launched the Economic Liberalisation Programme. A. B. VAJPAYEE The first "bachelor" Prime Minister, he was at the helm for 16 days from May 16 to June 1, 1996, creating a record for the shortest stint in office. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born in Gwalior (M. P) on 25th December, 1926. A prolific writer and a great orator.

H D DEVE GOWDA The second Government of the 11th Lok Sabha was headed by Haradanahalli Dodde Deve Gowda, who was in office from June 1, 1996 to April 21, 1997 (for roughly 11 months). Deve Gowda was born on May 18, 1933, in Haradanahalli Village, Hassan District, Karnataka. I. K. GUJRAL Inder Kumar Gujral became Prime Minister on April 21, 1997. He resigned office on Nov. 28. 1997. Gujral was born on December 4, 1919, in Jhelum (in the undivided Punjab, now in Pakistan). A. B. VAJPAYEE He assumed charge for the second time on March 19, 1998. He took the oath on October 13, 1999 after General Election. He submitted resignation on May 13, 2004.

Independence Day in India Home Calendar Holidays India Independence Day Independence Day in India India celebrates Independence Day on August 15 each year. India became an independent nation on August 15, 1947, so a gazetted holiday is held annually to remember this date. India's Independence Day is celebrated nationwide on August 15. India's Independence Day is celebrated nationwide on August 15. ©iStockphoto.com/Anantha Vardhan What Do People Do? Independence Day is a day when people in India pay homage to their leaders and those who fought for India's freedom in the past. The period leading up to Independence Day is a time when major government buildings are illuminated with strings of lights and the tricolor flutters from homes and other buildings. Broadcast, print and online media may have special contests, programs, and articles to promote the day. Movies about India's freedom fighters are also shown on television. The president delivers the '"Address to the Nation" on the eve of Independence Day. India's prime minister unfurls India's flag and holds a speech at the Red Fort in Old Dehli. Flag hoisting ceremonies and cultural programs are held in the state capitals and often involve many schools and organizations.

Many people spend the day with family members or close friends. They may eat a picnic in a park or private garden, go to a film or eat lunch or dinner at home or in a restaurant. Other people go kite flying or sing or listen to patriotic songs. Public Life Independence Day is a gazetted holiday in India on August 15 each year. National, state and local government offices, post offices and banks are closed on this day. Stores and other businesses and organizations may be closed or have reduced opening hours. Public transport is usually unaffected as many locals travel for celebrations but there may be heavy traffic and increased security in areas where there are celebrations. Independence Day flag raising ceremonies may cause some disruption to traffic, particularly in Dehli and capital cities in India's states. Background The struggle for India's Independence began in 1857 with the Sepoy Mutiny in Meerut. Later, in the 20th century, the Indian National Congress and other political organizations, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, launched a countrywide independence movement. Colonial powers were transferred to India on August 15, 1947.

The Constituent Assembly, to who power was to be transferred, met to celebrate India's independence at 11pm on August 14, 1947. India gained its liberty and became a free country at midnight between August 14 and August 15, 1947. It was then that the free India's first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru gave his famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech. People across India are reminded of the meaning of this event - that it marked the start of a new era of deliverance from the British colonialism that took place in India for more than 200 years. Symbols The sport of kite flying symbolizes Independence Day. The skies are dotted with countless kites flown from rooftops and fields to symbolize India's free spirit of India. Kites of various styles, sizes and shades, including the tricolor are available in the marketplaces. The Red Fort in Dehli is also an important Independence Day symbol in India as it is where Indian Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru unveiled India's flag on August 15, 1947.

India's national flag is a horizontal tricolor of deep saffron (kesaria) at the top, white in the middle and dark green at the bottom in equal proportion. The ratio of the flag's width to its length is two to three. A navy-blue wheel in the center of the white band represents the chakra. Its design is that of the wheel which appears on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka. Its diameter approximates to the white band's width and it has 24 spokes. Independence Day Observances Note: During a gazetted holiday, government offices and most businesses are closed so people have a day off work. Holiday currently only shown for years 2005–2017. Weekday BBC - History - Historic Figures: Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) Historic Figures z Jawaharlal Nehru, June 1953 © Nehru was an Indian nationalist leader and statesman who became the first prime minister of independent India in 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru was born in Allahabad, the son of a lawyer whose family was originally from Kashmir.

He was educated in England, at Harrow School, and then at Trinity College, Cambridge. He studied law at the Inner Temple in London. He returned to India in 1912 and practised law for some years. In 1916, he married Kamala Kaul and the following year they had a daughter, Indira. In 1919, Nehru joined the Indian National Congress which was fighting for greater autonomy from the British. He was heavily influenced by the organisation's leader Mohandas Gandhi. During the 1920s and 1930s Nehru was repeatedly imprisoned by the British for civil disobedience. In 1928, he was elected president of the Congress. By the end of World War Two, Nehru was recognised as Gandhi's successor. He played a central role in the negotiations over Indian independence. He opposed the Muslim League's insistence on the division of India on the basis of religion. Louis Mountbatten, the last British viceroy, advocated the division as the fastest and most workable solution and Nehru reluctantly agreed. On 15 August 1947, Nehru became the first prime minister of independent India.

He held the post until his death in 1964. He implemented moderate socialist economic reforms and committed India to a policy of industrialisation. Nehru also served as foreign minister of India. In October 1947, he faced conflict with Pakistan over the state of Kashmir, which was disputed at independence. Nehru sent troops into the state to support India's claim. A United Nations ceasefire was negotiated, but Kashmir remains deeply unstable to this day. Against the background of the Cold War, Nehru developed a policy of 'positive neutrality' for India. He became one of the key spokesmen for the non-aligned countries of Africa and Asia, many of which were former colonies that wanted to avoid dependence on any major power. Despite efforts at cooperation by both countries, Indian-Chinese border disputes escalated into war in 1962 and Indian forces were decisively beaten. This had a significant impact on Nehru's declining health. He died on 27 May 1964. Two years later Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, became prime minister. With an interruption of only three years, she held the post until her assassination in 1984.

Her son Rajiv was prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989, but he too was assassinated. Partition & Independence | The Story of India - Photo Gallery | PBS The Story of India Click for detailed map Anand Bhavan is the ancestral home of the Nehru family, in Allahabad. At midnight on August 14/15th, 1947, India and Pakistan became independent states. With Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister of the new democracy in India, the Indian National Congress —the country's strongest advocate for self-rule—became the dominant political party. Pakistan's emergence as an independent nation realized the ambitions of the Muslim League led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah . Along with the pressure exerted by Mahatma Gandhi , Nehru and Jinnah, and public outrage at events like the Amritsar Massacre , independence for India and Pakistan came as the result of developments in the region during World War II. After Britain declared itself and India at war with Germany, without consulting Indian legislatures, the Indian National Congress leaders demanded independence in return for wartime cooperation.

Britain, desperate for India's support, agreed to negotiate after the war, stipulating that no regions would be forced to join the independent state. In 1946, after negotiations between Britain, the Indian National Congress, and the Muslim League failed, a plan was adopted for partition of the subcontinent into the separate nations of India and Pakistan, which at the time also included what is now Bangladesh. Partition led to mass migrations of Muslims to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India, and violence in both countries that resulted in more than a half million deaths. For decades, territorial and religious disputes would characterize the relationship between the two countries. Indeed, in 2009, Indian and Pakistani troops still face each other across a ceasefire line in Kashmir, now divided between the two countries. Anand Bhavan Library in Anand Bhavan Anand Bhavan (House of Joy) in Allahabad , in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, was the ancestral home of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru , and was the site of much political activity in the years leading up to India's independence.

When Nehru was ten, his father, Motilal Nehru, a lawyer and leader of the Indian National Congress , acquired the lavish 42–room house. Nehru learned to swim in the house's indoor swimming pool and enjoyed its expansive garden. In 1917, Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter and Prime Minister of India from 1966–1971 and 1980–1984, was born in the house. In 1930, Motilal Nehru renamed the house Swaraj Bhavan (Independence House) and donated the property to the Indian National Congress, which used it as a hospital and headquarters for the All-Indian Congress Committee. The family moved into a smaller but still ornate two-story house nearby, also named Anand Bhavan, which was donated to the government in 1970 by Indira Gandhi. As centers of political activity, Anand Bhavan and Swaraj Bhavan were often searched by the British, and the latter was occupied in 1942 by the British government.

Today, both houses are part of a museum complex with exhibits detailing events related to India's independence and to the prominent members of the Nehru family, as well the room in which Mahatma Gandhi frequently stayed. Jawaharlal Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru (Panditji or Pandit Nehru), India's first prime minister, was a committed social reformer, skilled orator and Mahatma Gandhi's political heir. Born into a wealthy family and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (England), Nehru succeeded his father, Motilal Nehru, as leader of the Indian National Congress in 1929. Imprisoned nine times by the British for his nationalist campaigns during the 1930s and 1940s, Nehru wrote his first book, The Discovery of India, a history of India, during a prison term. Nehru served as prime minister from 1947 to 1964, and the first two decades of India's independence might be called the Age of Nehru. Social reforms during this period included land redistribution, removal of barriers to inter-caste marriage, and women gaining the right to sue for divorce.

To advance his economic ideals, Nehru formed and headed a National Planning Commission that developed three five-year economic plans focused on state-directed rural development, agriculture, and industry. In foreign policy, Nehru advocated nonalignment, taking the side of neither capitalism nor communism in the Cold War. Noninterference and peaceful co-existence were his goals with countries in the region, including China. However, that stance was untenable after China invaded Tibet in 1959, after which India gave the Dalai Lama asylum. Although still controversial, Nehru's legacy is one of faith in democracy, constitutional authority, and secularism. His daughter, Indira Gandhi, served as prime minister of India from 1966 to 1984. Democracy India Gate India is the world's largest democracy, with a diverse population—at least 22 different language groups are represented—of over one billion people. Federalism is integral to India's government, and the capital in New Delhi shares power with 28 states and 7 territories. The country's system of parliamentary democracy includes a parliament with two houses, Lok Sabha (House of the People) and Rajya Sabha (Council of States).

Members of the Lok Sabha are directly elected by the people, while those in the Rajya Sabha are elected mostly by state and territorial legislatures. The majority party in the lower house elects a prime minister while the president is elected by members of both houses. Although the Indian National Congress has been the dominant political party, in power since India's independence in 1947, approximately 200 political parties exist in the country. India's constitution, developed between 1947 and 1950, incorporates ideas from Western democracies, including universal suffrage, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. The constitution also guarantees citizens freedom from caste discrimination, although caste continues to strongly influence an individual's social status. Nehru conceived of India as a secular democracy in which the state does not participate in or promote religious activities. To support that principle, Nehru chose a lion from the age of Ashoka as the national symbol, evoking the religious tolerance that proliferated under that emperor's rule.

Indian National Congress Members of the first Indian National Congress, 1885 Founded in 1885, the Indian National Congress political party was central to India's independence movement and has been the dominant ruling party since 1947. Over 70 self-appointed delegates from across India participated in the Congress's first meeting in December 1885. By 1887, the Congress included 600 members, a number that grew to 2,000 in 1889; delegates were Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, and Jain and belonged to the middle or upper classes. In its first decades, the Congress agitated for increased Indian representation in the civil service and government, jobs held at the time mostly by British citizens. Under Mahatma Gandhi in the 1920s and 1930s, the Congress Party made purna swaraj (complete independence) and a representative form of government its primary objectives. To that end, the Congress supported satyagraha , civil disobedience campaigns, against British taxes.

After Britain unilaterally declared Britain and India at war with Germany in World War II, the Congress passed a "Quit India" resolution in 1942 that demanded the British government give all political power to the Indian people in return for India's cooperation in the war effort. Instrumental in negotiations for independence, the Congress became independent India's first ruling party. By 1947, the Congress was a diverse party, including members of various castes and linguistic and religious groups. Jawaharlal Nehru , the country's first Prime Minister, led the Congress from 1946 until his death in 1964. He championed state-led economic reforms and a foreign policy of nonalignment while in office. In 1966, Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, assumed the party's mantle until she was defeated in 1977, bringing to a close 30 years of Congress rule. Over the following decades, the party would be in and out of power; Indira Gandhi would again lead the party (1980-1984) as would her son, Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989).

In the election of 2004, at which nearly 400 million people voted, Congress was returned to power. Muslim League Mohammad Ali Jinnah, president of the Muslim League The Muslim League was a political organization formed in December 1906 to defend the rights of Muslims in India during British colonial rule . The League helped establish the independent nation of Pakistan. In 1916, the League entered into an agreement, the Lucknow Pact, with the Indian National Congress that called for greater Indian self-government, with separate Hindu and Muslim electorates. After 1920, the relationship between the two organizations grew more contentious as their interests and methods to achieve self-rule diverged. (The League did not support Congress leader Gandhi's calls for non-violent resistance against the British.) The League's political activity gained momentum in the 1930s under the leadership of Mohammad Ali Jinnah , who became its president in 1934, and after the introduction of the Government of India Act of 1935, which allowed for the election of Indian representatives to provincial assemblies.

The League won few seats in the elections of 1937; most went to the Congress, which retained the support of India's Muslims. However, the Congress's governance in the provinces came to be viewed as too preferential to Hindus and led many Muslims to switch allegiance to the League. Jinnah increasingly lost faith in the Congress's ability to represent Muslim interests, and in 1940, the League adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of an independent Muslim nation, Pakistan, comprised of the northwestern and northeastern areas of India. During the years that Britain fought in World War II, membership in the League increased, thanks to Jinnah's advocacy, as did Muslim support for an independent Muslim state. (At the same time, the Congress's leaders were jailed for engaging in civil disobedience campaigns.) In the 1946 provincial elections, the League won the vast majority of the Muslim vote, and subsequently reached an agreement with the British and the Congress to partition the subcontinent into the separate nations of India and Pakistan upon independence . On August 14, 1947, Pakistan was established and Jinnah became its first governor general, with Liaquat Ali Khan as the nation's first prime minister.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah Mohammad Ali Jinnah Mohammad Ali Jinnah was Pakistan's first governor-general following the partition of Britain's South Asian colony into India and Pakistan in 1947. In 1896, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress but by 1913 he had left the Congress and joined India's Muslim League , the leading organization for Muslims. Jinnah became popular for winning both Indian National Congress and League support for the Lucknow Pact, a proposal that called for Britain to give India dominion status at the end of World War I. Disillusioned with politics, disunity in the Muslim League, and the Congress under Mahatma Gandhi , Jinnah left political life in 1931. He returned to the League in 1934 and became its head in 1937. A charismatic and eloquent politician, Jinnah was elected the League's permanent president and given the title Qaid-e-Azam, or "great leader," by his followers. In subsequent years, Jinnah would increasingly lose faith in the Congress's ability to represent Muslim interests and distanced himself from the idea of a united Hindu-Muslim independent state of India.

In 1940, the League adopted a Muslim homeland resolution calling for the establishment of Pakistan (an acronym for the proposed territories in the provinces of Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan). In 1946, the British, the League, and Congress came to an agreement that divided the territory united under British rule into India and Pakistan. The partition led to a mass migration of Muslims to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India, which was accompanied by unprecedented communal violence that led to the deaths of between 500,000 and 1 million people. It was also the source of the territorial disputes that characterized the relationship between the two countries for decades. Jinnah was a proponent of parliamentary democracy and was against the idea of Pakistan as a theocracy. Considered the father of the nation, Jinnah led the independent nation of Pakistan for just over a year before dying in 1948. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), known as Mahatma ("Great Soul"), was the great political leader and social reformer who founded India's nonviolent movement against British colonial rule.

Born the son of a state minister in Gujarat in 1869, Gandhi moved to South Africa after studying law in London. While practicing law in South Africa, between 1893 and 1914, he became a social reformer and mobilized diverse South African communities to protest British laws, such as the poll tax, that discriminated against Indians. While in Africa, he developed the practice of satyagraha , or nonviolent protest, based on the ethical ideal of ahimsa ("no-harm" or non-violence) a precept deeply rooted in the three faiths that originated in India— Hinduism , Buddhism , and Jainism . In 1909, he wrote his landmark work, Hind Swaraj, or Freedom of India, that discussed nonviolent non-cooperation as a means to end British colonial rule. After returning to India in 1915, Gandhi organized satyagrahas against poverty and unfair taxes, championing boycotts and peaceful strikes. In the 1920s, Gandhi reorganized the Indian National Congress and wrote its constitution that prioritized Congressional representation for rural India and created a permanent committee to agitate for independence.

He also adopted a simpler way of life, eschewing European clothes for the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, which he spun on a charkha; adhering to a strictly vegetarian diet; and undertaking fasts that he also employed in social protest. From 1920 to 1948, Gandhi organized a series of campaigns that successfully mobilized Indians across the country against British rule. A non-cooperation movement in the early 1920s that urged citizens to boycott civic services and withhold tax revenues led to thousands of arrests and a government ban on public meetings. In 1930, he led a satyagraha against the British salt tax, marching 240 miles from his Sabarmati ashram to Dandi beach, in Gujarat. After picking up a lump of sea salt on the beach, Gandhi was arrested for breaking the law and 60,000 to 90,000 others would be arrested over the next few months. Before Gandhi could organize a "Quit India" campaign against British rule in 1942, he was arrested and detained in jail for the duration of World War II.

On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi by a radical Hindu nationalist, Naturam Godse. India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru famously said after Gandhi's assassination: "The light has gone out of our lives." His methods of nonviolence would influence civil rights movements around the world and figures including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

Question: Who became the first prime minister of India on its independence in 1947?
Answer: (Jawaharlal) Nehru