Word: krishna
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There has never been any doubt about the inner urge of India's cultured, handsome Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who wrote these words (from jail) to his sister, Krishna. This great & good friend of Mohandas K. Gandhi has spent nearly half of his 55 years in British prisons. Not nearly so familiar is the fact that his entire family-father, mother, two sisters, wife and brother-in-law-have also gone to jail in the cause of India's freedom. Krishna Nehru's brief, informal autobiography provides an intimate introduction to the First Family of Indian passive resistance...
...Father Motilal Nehru was the leading lawyer and one of the richest men in Allahabad. He bought a great, rambling show place, raised his three children in grand British Raj style with "many horses, dogs, cars and carriages" and a strict English governess for the two girls, Swarup and Krishna. Jawaharlal, 18 years Krishna's senior, was the family favorite. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge, he went home in 1912. With his return began the joint family life of dedication to their country's Nationalist cause...
...gave up his law practice, and with it most of his income and all of its luxurious appurtenances. Life in the Nehru household became a chaos of conferences and political comings & goings, punctuated by arrivals of the police to pack Jawaharlal or his father off to jail. Says Krishna, "This was the beginning of a new life-a life of uncertainty, of sacrifice, of heartache. . . . Since then, going in and out of jail has become an incurable habit with most of the members of my family...
Happy Days. In 1925, soon after Father became President of the Swaraj (Self-Rule) Party, Jawaharlal's wife fell ill and had to be taken to Switzerland. Krishna joined her brother there, and went from one international conference to another as his secretary. "The happiest time I spent was in Switzerland and Paris," she writes. "Often I have wished I could go back to those days and meet old friends again...
...Krishna never did. Later their father joined them for a vacation, and the four accepted a Russian invitation to visit Moscow for the tenth-anniversary celebration of the Revolution. There they were especially impressed by the clean, pleasant interior of a prison...