ABSTRACT
Jawarharlal Nehru is one of the great men of the twentieth century. His biographer, Michael Brecher, wrote, ‘Few statesmen in the twentieth century have achieved the stature of Jawarharlal Nehru. Nehru was Prime Minister and Sardar Patel Deputy Prime Minister. In India, Nehru could not understand religious bigotry and its resulting violence. He was determined that India should be a secular state, but he never dismissed what was best in all religions. Nehru had always accepted that Muslims were as Indian as Hindus and therefore entitled to the same rights. The new Indian constitution of 1950 was largely drafted by Dr Ambedkar, the Untouchables’ leader, but it was illuminated all through with Nehru’s philosophy and western liberal ideas. Nehru was the driving force behind establishing democracy in India; he certainly succeeded in establishing a parliamentary system of government and fair and free elections.
