Jawaharlal Nehru
Also: Pandit Nehru, first Prime Minister of India
Background and evolution
Nehru was born in Allahabad into a well-off Kashmiri Pandit family; his father, Motilal Nehru, was a leading lawyer and later a Congress president himself. The son was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and trained as a barrister at the Inner Temple in London. He returned to India in 1912, but the law never held his interest. The turning point came with the Rowlatt agitation and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, after which he threw himself into politics under the influence of Gandhi.
Through the 1920s he became the voice of the younger, more radical wing of the Congress. A visit to Europe in 1926–27, including the Brussels Congress of Oppressed Nationalities, widened his outlook and drew him towards socialist ideas and anti-imperialist solidarity. Along with Subhas Chandra Bose he pressed for complete independence rather than dominion status. When he presided over the Lahore session in December 1929, the Congress adopted Purna Swaraj as its goal, and the tricolour was hoisted on the banks of the Ravi. He spent roughly nine years in British prisons across several spells, and wrote much of his best-known work behind bars.
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Last reviewed: 23 October 2026 · Original UPSCPrep.in content.