Jawaharlal Nehru as a Freedom Fighter

Jawaharlal Nehru is best remembered as India’s first Prime Minister. But long before that, he was a working freedom fighter. He was arrested nine times by the British. He spent close to nine years of his life in jail. This article covers his pre-1947 role in the independence movement, not his years in government.

Into the Freedom Struggle Need to Know

• Nehru was born on 14 November 1889, in Allahabad. His father, Motilal Nehru, was a leading lawyer and a senior Congress figure.
• He studied in England, at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He trained as a barrister at the Inner Temple.
• He returned to India in 1912 and joined the Indian National Congress.
• Gandhi’s ideas, and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, pulled him into full-time politics.
• He worked as the Uttar Pradesh provincial Congress secretary during the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-22).
• The British arrested him for the first time on 6 December 1921. He spent 88 days in Lucknow jail.
• Across his freedom-struggle years, Nehru was arrested nine times, spending close to nine years in jail in total, between 1921 and 1945.

Purna Swaraj and Quit India Need to Know

• In 1928, Nehru co-founded the Independence for India League with Subhas Chandra Bose, pushing Congress toward full independence rather than dominion status.
• Congress elected him President at its Lahore session in December 1929. This session adopted the Purna Swaraj (complete independence) resolution.
• On 31 December 1929, Nehru hoisted the tricolour on the banks of the river Ravi in Lahore.
• He served as Congress President four times in all: 1929, 1936, 1937, and 1946.
• Congress passed the Quit India resolution on 8 August 1942. The British launched “Operation Zero Hour” the next morning, arresting Nehru, Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, and other top leaders without trial.
• Nehru was moved to Ahmednagar Fort, where he stayed from August 1942 until June 1945, his longest and last term in prison.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. In which year did British authorities first arrest Jawaharlal Nehru, starting his prison record in the freedom struggle?

1921

1919

1930

1942

 Loading…

 

The Wider Story Great to Know

• Nehru wrote three major books in jail, not just one. “Glimpses of World History” (letters to his daughter Indira) and his autobiography “Toward Freedom” came from earlier terms.
• “The Discovery of India” came from his longest term, at Ahmednagar Fort, in 1944.
• His prison record looks different from Gandhi’s. Gandhi’s resistance often took the form of long fasts and a few high-profile terms.
• Nehru’s took the form of nine separate arrests, spread across 25 years, adding up to years lost to organizing and agitation.
• The British released Nehru from Ahmednagar Fort in June 1945, just ahead of the Simla Conference, where Britain and Congress discussed transferring power.
• He went on to lead the Interim Government in 1946, then became independent India’s first Prime Minister on 15 August 1947.