Word: nehru
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Independence itself was won in part through the work of Motilal Nehru, an early and active backer of the concept. He begat Jawaharlal, who served for 17 years as the first Prime Minister of independent India. Jawaharlal begat Indira, who ruled for 16 of the 20 years of the post-Nehru era and, through her marriage, became the namesake, though not a relation, of the country's spiritual conscience, Mahatma Gandhi. Indira, known to many in the nation as Amma (mother), begat Rajiv and then Sanjay. When the prodigal younger son and heir apparent died in a plane crash...
...Motilal Nehru, the father of one of the founding fathers of modern India, was a prosperous and prominent lawyer. In the early '20s, however, Motilal shed his princely habits and anglophile tastes to become a leader in the Congress Party, which was lobbying for Indian independence. In 1929 Motilal passed the mantle to his only son, and together they joined Gandhi's crusade for social justice. By 1947, when the country finally won independence, Gandhi had hand-picked his superstar pupil, Jawaharlal, to become the nation's first Prime Minister...
With his patrician good looks and air of thoughtful intensity, his blend of Western rationalism and passionate nationalism, Nehru was an ideal-and idealistic-leader of the new India. He was cosmopolitan, commanding, charismatic. His interest in civil rights had been quickened by his friend and mentor Gandhi, his intellectual theories refined at Harrow and Cambridge. As Prime Minister, he ambitiously embarked upon a path of democratic socialism, hoping to bring industry, literacy and, above all, modernity to an India that was in many areas poverty stricken and backward. Abroad, as his own Foreign Minister, he pursued a policy...
Through three successive elections Nehru coasted to one handy victory after another. By 1958, however, the revered Panditji, then 69 and riding the crest of his popularity, wanted to step down. The cries of outrage were so overwhelming that he agreed to continue. Although the widowed Prime Minister retained his shy daughter Indira as one of his most trusted companions and made her president of the Congress Party, he continued to regard a monarchical succession as "undemocratic and undesirable...
...when Nehru's successor Lai Shastri died in 1966, after only 19 months in power, Indira was chosen as Prime Minister. Though self-effacing and inexperienced, she commanded the affectionate support of the country simply by virtue of being the only child of its beloved father figure...