Jawaharlal Nehru

Why is in news? PM pays tributes to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on his birth anniversary

Pandit Nehru or Chacha Nehru as he was affectionately called was a nationalist leader, social democrat, author, and humanist.

Nehru was known for his vision, administrative aptitude, and scholastic prowess. He was the first prime Minister of Independent India.

He was a prolific writer and authored books such as ‘The Discovery of India’ and ‘Glimpses of World History’.

Jawaharlal Nehru was born in Allabahad on November 14, 1889. He was born into a family of Kashmiri Pandits, who had migrated to Delhi early in the 18th century.

His father was Motilal Nehru, a renowned lawyer, and leader of the Indian independence movement.

He was influenced by Annie Besant and worked for her Home Rule League.

He was involved in the non-cooperation movement in 1920 and was imprisoned for the first time.

Nehru was committed to the establishment of a strong Indian nation where the concept of equal rights of citizens would override all societal divisions.

The nature of the Nehruvian way of politics (debate and deliberation) led to development of respect for parliamentary procedures, abiding faith in the constitutional system.

Through the planned economy approach, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru envisaged that in a land of extreme poverty and inequality, the objective of government policy must be the welfare of the poorest, most deprived and most marginalised of the people.

It wasPandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s who built the scientific base for India’s space and engineering triumphs today.

With the establishment of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), etc.

For Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s, Non-alignment (NAM) was the response to the bipolar divisions of the Cold War era.

The five principal pillars of Nehru’s legacy to India — Nation-building, Democratic institution-building, Secularism, Democratic Socialist economics, and a Novel foreign policy (Non-alignment, Panchsheel) still form the cardinal values of India.

The fears of growing intolerance, communalism and inequality which may disrupt social harmony; debates in Indian intelligentsia about the erosion of democratic values, freedom of speech and autonomy of public institutions; the emergence of a new era of the Cold War between the US and China, marks the relevance of Nehruvian ideology even today.