MR NEHRU Undefeated In Failure, Humble In Victory

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30452, 28 May 1964, Page 15

MR NEHRU Undefeated In Failure, Humble In Victory

Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister of India in August, 1947, when India became a sovereign state.

For more than a quarter of a century he had devoted himself to the cause of his country’s independence, and he spoke movingly on the day when he took office: “Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny. Now the time comes when we redeem our pledge. . . .”

Jawaharlal Nehru was born in 1889 at Allahabad, the son of the distinguished lawyer Motilal Nehru. Mr Nehru, sen., a liberal and an admirer of Western culture, sent his son to England to be educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in natural science. On leaving Cambridge he read law and was called to the English bar, and on his return to India practised for a time in Allahabad. From his early youth Jawaharlal Neliru was moved by nationalist ideals, and about the time of the first I world war he began to take an active part in political life. He joined the All-India Congress, and was in 1918 elected to its Committee, though in those days he found it too passive a body for his taste. He took an interest in the Kisan (peasant) movement in Oudh, where he first gained the reputation of a compelling speaker swaying large crowds. Meanwhile, he had come under the influence of Mahatma Ghandi, and the two men, in many ways so unlike in tem-

perament, formed a partnership behind which millions of Indians rallied. From 1919, when the Satyagraha movement began, with its programme of civil disobedience, Jawaharlal Nehru inevitably came into- conflict with the Government; indeed the Congress leaders could be said to’ have invited arrests as part of their campaign. Nehru spent many years of his life in gaol. ■ He became a more and more ; important figure in Congress, i and between 1923 and 1939 ■ held both its secretaryship and its presidency three times. i He studied not only Indian I but world affairs, travelled I many times to Europe and t visited some of the danger i pots of the ’thirties—Spain and Czechoslovakia; in 1939 . he went to China. 1 When the Second World i War broke out, he said to that . lifelong friend of India, Edward Thompson, “Everyone > knows that your cause .is i right.” • 1 However, he maintained ; that the war was not yet . India’s war, since she had not - attained full independence; i and that remained his attii tude throughout. -; It brought him to prison

again, in 1940 and again at' the beginning of the August Movement in 1942. After the war he was released, and took part in the negotiations with Lord Waveil and the British Cabinet Mission. No settlement was found to please ail parties, but an interim Indian Government was set up with Nehru as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth Relations and Vice-President of the Viceroy's Executive Council. He had also once again taken up the Presidency of Congress. He held the Presidency again after becoming Prime Minister, from 1951 to 1954. Finally, during Lord MountI batten’s term of office as Vice'roy, there came the agreement which set up the two self-governing states. India and Pakistan. Both in foreign affairs and at home Mr Nehru pursued the policy of peace and conciliation, for which he had repeatedly declared, India stood. He played an important part in the negotiations which led to the end of hostilities in Korea and Indo-China. ' His belief that India should not align herself with any world bloc caused him to keep his country from taking nart in the South-east Asia Treaty Organisation. He was the moving spirit organising the African-Asian conference at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955. Jawaharlal Nehru was among the ranks of Sir Walter Raleigh. Jchn Bunyan and other famous prisoners who have made contributions to literature.

During his pre-war terms in gaol, he wrote a history for his daughter, published later as “Glimpse of World History”. a survey of all world history for several thousand years, and also his own auto-biography-something of a tour de force, cut off as he was from most sources of reference.

“The Discovery of India,” a. survey of Indian civilisation during the ages, was written in his later terms of imprisonment.

. Mr Nehru married In 1916. and his only child, Indira, was born the year after. His wife died in 1935. On his visit to the United Kingdom in 1953, Mr Nehru was made an honorary LI.D of Cambridge University and two years later the Univer sity Union made him an honorary life member. His courage and statesmanship, his sympathy, humanity and humour have won for Nehru a peculiar place in the esteem and affection not only of his own countrymen but among the people of many nations.

During his first visit as Prime Minister to the United Kingdom he received from Lord Pethick-Lawrence. on the occasion of an India League gathering, the following tribute:—

“His is one pf those great minds which bridge the barriers human beings set up between one another, a guide between East and West Malice is unknown to him. Bitterness does not belong to him. Failure has never defeated him. Victory has never unduly elated him.”