ABSTRACT
Nehru was a multi-faceted personality. He was a great writer and orator as well as a practical statesman. He was the main architect of the nation-building process in India and combined Western methods with local tradition, culture, and needs. He stood for democracy, development, socialism, and secularism. Thus, he was a statesman among politicians and a politician among statesmen. This chapter familiarises the reader with the life and works of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. It examines his models of nation-building, his views on parliamentary democracy, Nehruvian secularism, his ideas on democratic socialism, planned economy, nationalism, internationalism, and more. Nehru’s long career of 17 years laid the foundation for a new India with parliamentary democracy, planned economic development, social justice, the promotion of science and technology for the benefit of the people, power to the people through participatory democracy under Panchayati Raj, a passion for a change of mindset, and poverty alleviation. Nehru created a space for India in world politics. His policy of Panchsheel became the country’s new mantra for international relations. His love for people living in rural India was evident in his initiative for agriculture and enhancing agriculture production, agro-industries, irrigation, river valley projects, and, above all, community development for the empowerment of people. Of course, there was a gap between his expectations and his achievements. But considering the early stage of an exploited post-colonial society with crores of people living under poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, and fear, Nehru’s initiatives needed popular approval by the later society. He laid a solid foundation for our parliamentary democracy, federal polity, use of science and technology for economic empowerment, industrialisation for generating employment, focussing the attention of the world towards India’s worldview, and creating non-alignment as a counter to military blocs.
