In this article, you will read an essay on Jawaharlal Nehru for students and children in 1500 words. It includes his early life, struggle, career, work, and death.
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Essay on Jawaharlal Nehru for Students & Children (1500 Words)
Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of Independent India. He was also an Indian independence activist and one of the central figures in Indian politics both before and after the Independence of India.
Nehru Ji was the prime minister of India from 1947 until his death in 1964. Jawaharlal Nehru also had a lot of love and affection for children and he did many welfare works for her in life.
Keeping this in mind, his birthday was celebrated as Children’s Day. Because of this, people used to call him affectionately as Chacha Nehru or Chacha ji.
Early Life of Jawaharlal Nehru
On 14 November 1889, Jawaharlal Nehru was born in Allahabad to Motilal Nehru & Swarup Rani Nehru (Thussu). His father belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community and was a self-made wealthy barrister and also served as the president of the Indian National Congress.
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was the eldest of the three children; he had two younger sisters. Nehru’s childhood was sheltered and uneventful one. He was educated by private tutors and lived in a privileged atmosphere.
During his youth, he became an ardent nationalist. He was influenced by the Second Boer War and Russo–Japan war. Nationalist ideas filled his mind, and he mused Indian freedom from the British Empire.
G. M. Trevelyan’s Garibaldi books influenced Nehru, and he idolized him as a hero. Jawaharlal Nehru graduated with an honors degree in National science in 1910 from Trinity College Cambridge. He also studied politics, history, and economics.
In August 1912, he returned to India and enrolled as an advocate of Allahabad High Court and tried to settle down as a barrister. But he was not interested and did not relish the profession or the company of the other lawyers.
Struggle by Chacha Nehru for Indian Independence
When he was in Britain, he developed an interest in Indian politics. After returning to India in 1912, he attended an annual session of the Indian Congress in Patna. He was disconcerted as he saw much of the English speaking upper-class affair in the session.
He had his doubts about the effectiveness of Congress but agreed to work for the Indian Civil rights movement led by the Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa. When world war 1 broke out, Jawaharlal Nehru had mixed feelings about it.
He volunteered for the St. John Ambulance and worked as the provincial secretaries of the organization in Allahabad. He emerged from the war as a leader whose political views were radical.
Jawaharlal Nehru openly spoke for the noncooperation movement and resigning from honorary positions in government. He also ridiculed Indian Civil Service for its support of British policies.
After the death of Gopal Krishna Gokhale in 1915, his moderate views, which didn’t think of Independent India, started fading. Leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak & Annie Besant call for National Movement for Independence, but it got rejected.
At the onset of the Non-Cooperation movement in 1920 was his first significant involvement in the National Independent movement. He led the campaign in Uttar Pradesh and was arrested in 1921 on charges of anti-government activities, and he was released after a few months.
A rift was caused because of the Chauri Chaura incident during the Non-Cooperation Movement; he followed Gandhi rather than joining the new Swaraj Party created by his father and C R Das.
The international outlook for the Indian Independence struggle was developed by Jawaharlal Nehru. He sought foreign allies for Indian and forged links for the Independence of India.
The Indian National Congress was invited to Congress of oppressed nationalists in Brussels in Belgium to plan a common struggle against imperialism.
Nehru worked closely with Subhas Chandra Bose for developing close relationships with the government of free countries, but later, they split since Bose started taking the help of fascists to drive British from India. He was one leader who realized the sufferings of the people under the princely states.
An All India States Peoples Conference organization was formed in 1927, and Jawaharlal Nehru was made the president in 1939 since he had been supporting the cause of the people in the princely states for many years.
The body would play an important role in integrating the princely states in republic India, helping Indian leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel and V. P. Menon.
Declaration of Independence
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the first leaders who demanded from the Congress party to break all ties from the British Empire. His resolution was approved in the 1927 Madras session of Congress.
Nehru’s demand for the British to grant India dominion within two years was passed, if they failed the deadline, Congress would call to fight for complete Independence in 1928. British rejected the dominion status in 1929.
Jawaharlal Nehru assumed the presidency of Congress on 29 December 1929 and introduced the resolution calling for complete Independence.
He drafted the Indian declaration of Independence and on the midnight of new year’s eve 1929 Nehru hoisted the tricolor flag of India upon the banks of Ravi in Lahore.
A pledge for Independence was readout. The tricolor flag was hoisted by Congress all over India, and the plan for mass civil disobedience was also planned.
Architect of India: Nehru Ji as National Leader
He formed the policies which would guide the future of Congress in 1929. The policies were created religion freedom, freedom of expression of thought, equality before law for every individual without distinction of caste, color, creed or religion, regional languages and cultures protections, safeguarding the interests of the peasants and labor, removal of untouchability, imposition of prohibition, nationalization of industries, socialism, and establishment of a secular India. The above aims formed the core of the Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy, which were ratified in 1931 at the Karachi Session of Congress.
Within the Congress, there were two factions, one of the right-wing which comprised Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, and C. Rajagopalachari and a socialist group which was under Jayaprakash Narayan, Narendra Deo and others.
Though Nehru never joined these groups, he was a bridge between the socialist group and Gandhi. He had the support of the Left-wing leaders like Maulana Azad and Subhash Chandra Bose.
They ousted Dr. Prasad as the Congress president, and Jawaharlal Nehru was elected as the president and then was succeeded by Bose & Azad. After the ouster of Bose from the mainstream Indian politics, the power struggle between conservatives and balanced socialist out.
After the death of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in 1950, Nehru was the only iconic leader remaining, and he implemented many of his policies without hinderances.
Prime Minister of India:
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister of India for 18 years, which is the longest tenure of any Indian Prime Minister. He and his colleague were released by the British Empire before the 1946 cabinet Mission to India to propose the plan for transferring power. As per the agreed plan, the elections were held in 1946 in the provisional assemblies.
Congress won most seats and headed interim government with Nehru as the Prime Minister. Co Before Independence, there were communal outbreaks and the Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah were demanding for separate Muslim state of Pakistan. After a failed bid to form a coalition, Jawaharlal Nehru reluctantly supported the partition of India.
Governing and Economic Policies:
Jawaharlal Nehru was considered as the founder of the modern Indian state. The seven goals which formed the national philosophy were national unity, parliamentary democracy, development of the scientific temper, industrialization, socialism, and non-alignment.
Nehru Ji implemented policies that advocated mixed policy and the government-controlled the public sector, which would co-exist in the private sector. The policy of non-alignment during the cold war meant that India received financial & technical aid from both the block in building India’s industrial base from scratch.
The government attempted to develop agrarian reform and rapid industrialization. New agriculture universities were established, which worked on wide yielding varieties of wheat and rice, which began the green revolution in 1960, which helped to diversify and increase crop production.
Chacha Nehru was passionate about Indian children and youth education, which he believed was essential for the future of India. The education establishment, like All India Institute of Medical Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management, and the National Institute of Technology, was established by his government.
A system of reservation was created in government services and educational institutions to eradicate social inequalities faced by the scheduled caste and tribes.
Even though he was an adverse toe war, he led to an actual campaign against Pakistan concerning Kashmir; he used overwhelming force to seize Hyderabad in 1948 and Goa in 1961. He established the Atomic Energy Commission of India in 1948 and entrusted complete authority to Dr. Homi J. Bhabha over all nuclear-related affairs.
Nehru signed with China five principles of peaceful coexistence, which is set to govern the relationship between the two states, which is commonly known as Panchsheel in India.
There was an assassination attempt on Jawaharlal Nehru, of which four were known. The first attempted during the partition in 1947, second by a knife-wielding rickshaw-puller in Nagpur, third happened in Bombay, and the fourth one was a failed bombing of train tracks in Maharashtra 1961. Despite threats, he despised too much security around him.
Death of Jawaharlal Nehru
His health started deteriorating from 1962, and he spent most of his time recuperating in Kashmir in 1963.
Many attribute the sudden decline in his health because of the surprise Sino Indian war, which he considered as a betrayal of trust. On 27 May 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru died after complaining of pain in back after he returned from the bathroom.
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