Jawaharlal Nehru was born on Nov. 14, 1889, in Allahabad into a proud, learned Kashmiri Brahmin family.

His father, Motilal Nehru, was a wealthy barrister and influential politician. The atmosphere in the Nehru home was more English than Indian; Under the influence of a tutor Nehru joined the Theosophical Society at 13.

 At the age of 15 Nehru left for England, where he

studied at Harrow and Cambridge and then for the bar in London. . He would proceed to study natural sciences at the Trinity College before choosing to train as a barrister at the Middle Templin London
In 1921 Nehru followed Gandhi in sympathy with the Khilafat

cause of the Moslems. Nehru was drawn into the first civil disobedience campaign as general secretary of the United Provinces Congress Committee. The year 1921 also witnessed the first of Nehru's many imprisonments. In prison his political philosophy matured, and he said that he learned patience and adaptability. Imprisonment was also a criterion of political success

In the late 1950s India began to conflict with China over the ownership of some largely uninhabited land along Indias northeastern border in Arunchal Pradesh and in the hill areas of northeastern Jammu and Kashmr. Until that time Indias relations with China had been generally amiable, and Nehru believed that the territorial dispute could be solved through friendly negotiations. The difficulty of mapping the area accurately, and the conflicts between the security interests of the two countries, however, proved to be thornier problems than Nehru had anticipated. By 1959 the dispute had begun heating up, and popular pressure not to yield territory to China grew. Nehrus government sent military patrols into the disputed territory.

The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence or Panchsheel are a series of agreements between the People's Republic of China and India. After the Central Chinese Government took control of Tibet, China came into increasing conflict with India. However, both nations were newly-established and interested in finding ways to avoid further conflict. Therefore in 1954 the two nations drew up the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Since June 1954, the Five Principles were contained in the joint communiqu issued by Premier Zhou Enlai of China and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, and have been adopted in many other international documents. As norms of relations between nations, they have become widely recognized and accepted throughout the world.

 Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity

and sovereignty Mutual non-aggression Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs Equality and mutual benefit Peaceful co-existence

Under Nehrus leadership, the government attempted to develop India quickly by embarking on agrarian reform and rapid industrialization. A successful land reform was introduced that abolished giant landholdings, but efforts to redistribute land by placing limits on landownership failed. Attempts to introduce large-scale cooperative farming were frustrated by landowning rural elites, whoas staunch Congress Party supportershad considerable political weight. Agricultural production expanded until the early 1960s, as additional land was brought under cultivation and some irrigation projects began to have an effect. The establishment of agricultural universities, modeled after land-grant colleges in the United States, also helped. These universities worked with high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, initially developed in Mexico and the Philippines, that in the 1960s began the Green Revolution, an effort to diversify and increase crop production. At the same time a series of failed monsoons brought India to the brink of famine, prevented only by food grain aid from the United States.

 Indias large diversity of languages contributed to

internal political problems during the 1950s and early 1960s. Although Gandhi had reorganized the Congress movement in 1920 to reflect linguistic divisions, and although the nationalist movement had always promised a reorganization of provincial boundaries once independence was achieved, Nehru resisted a demand to bring together the Telugu-speaking areas of the former British province of Madras and Hyderbd state. He yielded only when the leader of the movement fasted to death, and severe riots broke out. A States Reorganization Commission was appointed, and in 1956 the interior boundaries of India were redrawn along linguistic lines.

 Nehru was unable to resolve the hostility with Pakistan, rooted in the

Indian nationalists opposition to the creation of Pakistan and in the terrible bloodshed that accompanied the partition of the two countries at independence. The division of Jammu and Kashmr along the 1949 cease-fire line left each country claiming important territory held by the other. Diplomatic efforts at the UN and at bilateral meetings between Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, proved unsuccessful. Although India had agreed to hold a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmr state, it claimed that the plebiscite was dependent on the withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the region, and that the vote of the Jammu and Kashmr state legislature in the mid-1950s to integrate fully into India made a plebiscite unnecessary. Pakistan claimed that a mutual withdrawal of forces was necessary, and that one party to an agreement cannot unilaterally change it. Microsoft Encarta 2007. 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 Nehru's decision to reorganise the states on the basis

of languages, while being good-intentioned, perhaps germinated the seeds of the present centrifugal territorial demands,

 Jawaharlal Nehru First Prime Minister of Independent India Birth November 14, 1889 Death May 27, 1964 Place of Birth Allahabad Political

Party Indian National Congress Term 1947-1964 Known For Establishing India as a leader of the Nonaligned Movement through a policy of 'positive neutrality' Carrying on Mohandas Gandhi's legacy as leader of a newly independent India Milestones 1912 Returned to India after studying law in London 1919 Became involved with radical nationalists after learning of the Amritsar Massacre, in which British troops opened fire on Indian demonstrators 1920-1921 Traveled among the common people of India, urged by Gandhi to learn about his country after having spent much of his youth in Britain 1927 Returned to India after travels in Europe, having deepened his understanding of and commitment to socialism 1929 Succeeded his father as president of the Indian National Congress 1946 Was chosen by Gandhi to serve as interim head of state, overseeing the transition to independence from Great Britain leading up to the national elections of 1947 1950s Developed and practiced a foreign policy of 'positive neutrality,' not allowing India to be drawn into Cold War blocs centered around the United States and the Soviet Union Quote 'The light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere.' January 30, 1948, in a radio broadcast following Gandhi's assassination. Did You Know Before his death, Nehru arranged for his ashes to be scattered from an aircraft so that his remains could become 'an indistinguishable part' of India. Because of his family's close association with the British colonial authorities, Nehru considered himself more British than Indian until he experienced discrimination firsthand in England. Nehru described prison as 'the best of universities,' because during his several prison stints for civil disobedience he was able to focus on his studies and writings on political philosophy.

 . Prime Minister Nehru's Congress Party won an absolute majority of 119 seats

and was further strengthened by votes received by its allies in the election, the People's (Praja) Party and the Krishikar Lok Party. The three-party coalition, which campaigned as a united front against the Communists, captured 146 seats in all. Even the Congress Party, it might be said, was surprised by the decisiveness of the results. Although the Communists made an extremely poor showing in the seats won, they received over 2.6 million votes, or about 31 per cent of the popular vote, and were expected to continue in their campaign to exploit grievances in this generally impoverished area. The government announced a far-reaching plan for reorganizing the country's political framework. The present 29 states of India are to be reduced to 16, but the state boundary lines will be so drawn that all but two of the 14 language groups will have a state of its own. A government-appointed commission began work on the plan about three years ago in response to various pressures, principally from spokesmen for the several linguistic groups. There was widespread feeling that the state lines inherited from British India were inadequate for the country's present administrative and cultural needs.

 Though desirous of recognizing linguistic claims, the

government was apprehensive about encouraging separatist sentiments. For that reason, the plan took into account administrative factors, economic stability, and security. The plan seemed destined to run into sharp opposition from a number of disappointed groups, including the Maharashtrians of Bombay, the Naga tribesmen of Assam, and the Sikhs of the Punjab. The latter had been engaged in open agitation earlier in the year for a Sikh state of their own. This would involve organizing a state along communal or religious grounds, to which the country's present political leaders are unalterably opposed. There was no doubt that the country, as Mr. Nehru warned, faced a 'hard test,' perhaps the most important test of national unity since independence.

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