Nehru: The Invention of India

Who’s Who: Short Biographical Notes on Personalities Mentioned

Sheikh Abdullah (1905–1982): Kashmiri leader; founded the National Conference in Kashmir state in 1938, opposing the maharajah on a secular, democratic platform as an ally of Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress; prime minister of Kashmir, 1948–53, then arrested and imprisoned; chief minister of Kashmir, 1975–82

Maulana Muhammad Ali (1878–1931): nationalist Muslim; leader of Khilafat agitation; president of the Congress, 1923

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956): leader of the Harijans (formerly “Untouchables,” now called Dalits); leading framer of India’s Constitution; law minister, 1947–51

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888–1958): Muslim scholar and Indian nationalist leader; president of the Congress, 1923, and again, 1940–46; devoted much of his political life to promoting Hindu-Muslim unity and seeking to prevent the partition of India; minister for education, 1947–58

Annie Besant (1847–1933): British-born “Indian” nationalist and theosophist; started Indian Home Rule League; president of the Congress, 1917

Ghanshyam Das (G. D.) Birla (1894–1992): Indian industrialist; supporter and frequent host of Mahatma Gandhi

Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945): Indian nationalist hero, known as “Netaji,” or “Respected Leader”; resigned from the Indian Civil Service in 1921 to oppose British rule; president of the Congress, 1938–39; escaped British internment to travel to Germany in 1941; organized the Indian National Army to fight the British in Burma; died at war’s end in crash of a Japanese airplane

Sir Stafford Cripps (1889–1952): British Labour Party leader and government negotiator on Indian affairs; solicitor-general, 1930–31; ambassador to the USSR, 1940–42; minister of aircraft production, 1942–45; president of the Board of Trade, 1945–47; chancellor of the Exchequer, 1947–50; led two unsuccessful missions to India to discuss the country’s constitutional future

Chitta Ranjan (C. R.) Das (1870–1925): leading Calcutta lawyer who cofounded the Swaraj Party within the Congress in 1922; president of the Congress, 1922

Feroze Gandhi (1912–1960): Congress Party volunteer and aide of Kamala Nehru; married Jawaharlal’s daughter, Indira, 1942; member of Parliament, 1951–60

Indira Nehru Gandhi (1917?1984): daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru and his official hostess after 1947; president of the Congress Party, 1959; minister of information and broadcasting in Prime Minister Shastri’s cabinet, 1964–66; prime minister of India, 1966–77 and 1980?84; declared state of emergency and arrested political opponents, 1975–77

Mahatma Gandhi (1869?1948):?Father of the Nation?; India?s preeminent nationalist leader; devised philosophy of nonviolent resistance embodied in satyagraha; served as political and spiritual guide of the Congress while refusing to accept office himself; insisted means and ends had to be equally just; sought to calm the fires of communal violence; assassinated by a Hindu fanatic shortly after independence

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915): leading Indian “Moderate” nationalist; teacher and social reformer who founded the Servants of India Society in 1905; president of the Congress, 1905; admired by Mahatma Gandhi for his reasoned and temperate advocacy of India’s freedom

Sir Mohamed Iqbal (1876?1938): highly respected philosopher and poet in Persian and Urdu; author of nationalist song “Sare Jahan se Achha Hindustan hamara”; later an advocate of Pakistan as a Muslim homeland within India

Lord Irwin (1881–1959): British politician; viceroy of India, 1926–31; concluded Gandhi-Irwin Pact, 1931; later, as Earl Halifax, foreign secretary, 1938–40, and British ambassador to the United States during World War Two, 1941–46

Mohammed Ali Jinnah (1876–1948): father and “Qaid-e-Azam” of Pakistan; president of the Muslim League, 1916, 1920, 1934–48; leading advocate of Congress-League cooperation and Hindu-Muslim unity who later began to advocate the partition of the country; governor-general of Pakistan, 1947–48

Chaudhuri Khaliquzzaman (1889–1973): close friend and contemporary of Jawaharlal Nehru and leading member of the Congress until 1937, when he joined the Muslim League; migrated to Pakistan upon partition

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1891–1991): the “Frontier Gandhi”; Congress leader of the North-West Frontier Province, organized nonviolent resistance group called the Khudai Khidmatgars; opposed partition and was repeatedly jailed for long periods by the government of Pakistan

Liaquat Ali Khan (1895–1951): leader of the Muslim League and its general secretary, 1936?47; minister of finance in India’s interim government, 1946–47; prime minister of Pakistan, 1947–51; assassinated by an Afghan Muslim gunman

Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan (1892–1942): secular Muslim statesman; deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, 1935–37; leader of the Unionist Party and chief minister of Punjab, 1937–42

Rafi Ahmed Kidwai (1894–1954): close friend and political associate of Jawaharlal from his home state, U.P.; minister in U.P., 1937–39 and 1946–47; intermittent member of Nehru’s cabinet, 1947–54; resigned from the Congress Party after independence but was later reconciled

Acharya J. B. Kripalani (1888–1982): general secretary of the Congress, 1934–46; president in 1946; resigned from the Congress after independence

Lord Linlithgow (1887–1952): Second Marquis of Linlithgow and viceroy of India, 1936–43; declared war on Germany in 1939 without consulting elected Indian leaders, thereby triggering resignation of Congress ministries in the provinces

Syed Mahmud (1889–1971): friend and contemporary of Jawaharlal’s at Cambridge; close associate, including as Congress minister in Bihar, 1937–39 and 1946–52

K. D. Malaviya (1904–1981): Allahabad lawyer and Congress activist

V. K. Krishna Menon (1896?1974): Indian nationalist; secretary of the India League in London, 1929?47; Indian high commissioner in London, 1947?52; led Indian delegations to the United Nations throughout the 1950s; member of Nehru cabinet, 1956?62, including as minister of defense, 1957–62

Edwina Mountbatten (1901–1960): British heiress who married Lord Louis Mountbatten, 1922; close friend of Jawaharlal Nehru

Lord Mountbatten of Burma (1900–1979): member of British nobility; served as Supreme Allied Commander Southeast Asia in World War Two, 1943–46; viceroy of India, March to August 1947; governor-general of India, August 1947 to June 1948; retired after further military service; assassinated by Irish Republican Army

Padmaja Naidu (1900–1975): daughter of Sarojini Naidu and close friend of Jawaharlal; governor of West Bengal, 1969–70

Sarojini Naidu (1879?1949): nationalist, poet, and feminist; as India’s leading woman poet, was dubbed the “Nightingale of India”; close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru; first Indian woman to become president of the Congress, 1925; governor of Uttar Pradesh, 1947–49

Jayaprakash Narayan (1902–1979): leading Congress socialist; broke with Jawaharlal Nehru after independence and led the Socialist Party; inspired a movement for “Total Revolution” in 1974–75 that led Indira Gandhi to declare a state of emergency

Kamala Kaul Nehru (1899–1936): wife of Jawaharlal, whom she married in 1916, mother of Indira, and mentor of Feroze Gandhi; died of tuberculosis at age thirty-six

Motilal Nehru (1861?1931): father of Jawaharlal; leading Allahabad lawyer; president of the Congress, 1919 and 1928; cofounded (with C. R. Das) the Swaraj Party within the Congress and led it in the Central Assembly, 1924–26

Bipin Chandra Pal (1858–1932): “Extremist” leader of the Congress; editor of Motilal Nehru’s newspaper the Independent; resigned from the Congress after disagreeing with Gandhi’s approach

Ranjit Pandit (1893–1944): brother-in-law of Jawaharlal Nehru; married Vijayalakshmi (“Nan”) Nehru in 1921; imprisoned for participation in noncooperation movement; jail companion of Jawaharlal

Vijayalakshmi Pandit (1900–1990): sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, known as “Nan”; married Ranjit Pandit in 1921; Congress activist, minister in U.P. government, 1937?39 and 1946; ambassador to the USSR, 1947?49, and to the USA, 1949?51; first woman president of the United Nations General Assembly, 1953–54; high commissioner to Britain, 1954–61; governor of Maharashtra, 1962–64; in later years, fierce critic of her niece, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950): close associate of Mahatma Gandhi from his earliest political campaigns and elder statesman of the Congress Party under Jawaharlal; formidable administrator and organizer of conservative leanings; president of the Congress, 1931; as deputy prime minister and home minister, 1947–50, organized and led the integration of the princely states into the Indian Union and consolidated the new state

Rajendra Prasad (1884?1963): early supporter of Mahatma Gandhi and associate of Patel; president of the Congress, 1934, 1939, and 1947?48; president of the Constituent Assembly, 1946–50; first president of the Republic of India, 1950–62

Lala Lajpat Rai (1865?1928): leading?Extremist? Congressman, known as the “Lion of the Punjab”; president of the Congress, 1920; died of injuries inflicted by police during nationalist demonstration against Simon Commission, 1928

C. Rajagopalachari (1878–1972): early supporter of Gandhian noncooperation and leading member of the Congress who never held the presidency; chief minister of Madras, 1937–39 and 1952–54; disagreed with Quit India movement and resigned from the Congress, 1942, but rejoined, 1946; governor of West Bengal, 1947–48; governor-general of India, 1948–50; cabinet minister, 1950–51; resigned from the Congress in protest against Jawaharlal Nehru’s policies and founded conservative Swatantra Party, 1959

Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru (1875–1949): Liberal Party leader; law member of the Viceroy’s Council, 1920–23

Sardar Baldev Singh (1902–1961): Sikh leader in the Punjab; member of the interim government, 1946–47; minister of defense, 1947–52

Purushottam Das Tandon (1882–1962): conservative Congress leader of Hindu traditionalist leanings; candidate for mayor of Allahabad, 1923, but supplanted by Jawaharlal Nehru because of his unacceptability to Muslims; elected president of the Congress, 1950, but forced to resign because of differences with Jawaharlal

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856?1920): major Indian nationalist figure and leader of the?Extremists?; lecturer and journalist in Poona, edited newspapers in both English and Marathi; sentenced to long periods of imprisonment by the British; author of scholarly works in history and philosophy

Atal Behari Vajpayee (1924–): leader of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (now Bharatiya Janata Party) and skilled parliamentarian; minister of external affairs in Janata Party government, 1977–79; prime minister of India, 1996 and 1998–present

Lord Wavell (1883–1950): British general, commander in chief of British forces in the Middle East, 1939–41, and in India, 1941–43; viceroy of India, 1943–47

Lord Willingdon (1866?1941): British colonial administrator; governor of Bombay, 1913–19, and of Madras, 1919–24; governor-general of Canada, 1926–31; viceroy of India, 1931–36