Eternal India Encyclopedia

At seventeen he entered Cambridge University. And at twenty he went down to London to take his law degree at the Inns of Court where Gandhi had studied some two decades earlier. After seven years in England Jawaharlal returned to India in 1912 to practise law with his father. Four years after his return to India Nehru married Kamala Kaul who came from a Kashmiri family settled in Delhi. Nehru met Gandhi for the first time in 1916 at the Indian National Congress Session in Lucknow. He was elected President of the 1929 Congress session held in Lucknow which proclaimed complete independence as India's political goal. Until then the goal had been dominion status. He made tours in remote village areas "experiencing the thrill of mass feeling, the power of influencing the mass". He went to jail for the first time in 1921. Over the next 24 years he was to spend a total of nine years in jail. A visit to the Soviet Union in 1926-27 impressed him with the achievements of the Soviet system and made him a firm believer in Democratic Socialism. From 1930 onwards he began to be regarded as Gandhi's heir apparent, although Gandhi did not officially designate him as his political heir until 1942. As Prime Minister of India after independence Nehru shaped India's foreign policy. He played a leading role in formulating the policy of non- alignment, the grouping of a third force of nations who were neither with the Soviet bloc nor with the US- led Western bloc. In domestic affairs he emphasised the importance of both democracy and socialism. Apart from his stress on socialism and the basic unity of India, Nehru was deeply concerned about carrying India into the modern age of scientific achievement and technological development. Friendship with China was one of the planks of Nehru's policy but this broke down when China invaded India in 1962 in pursuance of a long- standing border dispute. Nehru's health showed signs of deterioration after this. He died on May 27, 1964 after a fatal stroke. Born in Uttamanzai village of Peshwar District in the erstwhile North-West Frontier Province now apart of Pakistan. He had his early education at home and in the Mission High School at Peshawar. He could not pass the matriculation examination and was sent to Aligarh where he studied the Urdu newspapers. These readings created in him an interest in politics. His regular nationalist career started in 1919 when after his return Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988)

presence although he was aware that Gandhi was opposed to the habit. He became President of the Indian National Congress in 1923. In 1940 he again became President of the Congress and held that position through the War years till 1946 when he was succeeded by Nehru. He became free India's first Minister for Education after Independence. He was compared by Nehru to the "French encyclopedists, men of intellect, men of action. One is continually astonished at the odd hits of knowledge that came out of him almost unawares". Sir Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman (1888-1970) Nobel Prize winner and one of the most brilliant scientists of India. He was born on 7th November 1888 atTrichinopoly. While in college (Presidency College, Madras) he submitted his article on Mathematics and Physics to the Philosophical Magazine, London. He secured the 1st rank in the Finance Service examination and joined as Assistant Accountant-General at Calcutta. The turning point of his life came when he met Dr Amritlal Sarkar, Secretary of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. He allowed Raman to do research in the Association laboratories. He got very much involved in this work and worked on "Surface Tension" and "Propagation of Light". Sir Asutosh Mukherjee, Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, was so much impressed by young Raman's work that he offered him the Palit Chair of Physics at the University. He gave up his government job and joined as Palit Professor in 1917. His discovery of the Raman Effect brought him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930. In 1933 he was appointed Director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In 1948 he founded The Raman Research Institute in Bangalore. He was made the first National Professor in 1948 after Independence. A gifted speaker he was well versed in literary and religious classics. Raman died on November 21, 1970. Descended from Kashmiri Brahmins who had migrated to India early in the 18th Century, Jawaharlal Nehru was born in 1889 at Allahabad, where his father, Motilal Nehru was a highly successful High Court lawyer. He wrote of his childhood.: "An only son of prosperous parents is apt to be spoilt, especially so in India." He studied at home under English governesses and tutors. When he was fifteen his father sent him to Harrow. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)

necessary for him to find a job. He got a clerical job at the Madras Port Trust in 1911. He continued his interest in mathematics and contributed to the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. His work caught the attention of Professor G.H. Hardy of Cambridge. Meanwhile Dr. G.T. Walker, Director of Meteorology, Government of India, and a former lecturer of Mathematics in Trinity College, Cambridge was introduced to Ramanujan and his work by Sir. Francis Spring, Chairman of the Madras Port Trust. He at once recognised the quality of Ramanujan's work and arranged for a research studentship of Rs. 75 per month in 1912. Two years later Prof. Hardy succeeded in arranging a research scholarship for Ramanujan at Trinity College, Cambridge. He arrived in England in April 1914. The cold climate and his austere diet led to a deterioration in his health. He fell ill with tuberculosis and was admitted to various sanatoria. In 1918 his health showed signs of improvement. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 31, the second Indian to get this honour. In 1919, he returned home. But there was a relapse and he breathed his last in Madras on April 26,1920. Abul Kalam Mohiuddin Ahmed, as he was named, was born in Mecca in 1888. His father Maulana Khairuddin, an Arabic scholar and a divine, after about 30 years in Arabia settled down in Calcutta. He was married at 13 to a girl named Zuleikha. His father died when he was 21. Around this time he went through a phase of his life when there was "no licence and no heresy which I was not fated to experience". He gave himself the appellation of "Azad" or "free" after this. In 1906 Azad had attended the Dacca convention at which the Muslim League was founded but he did not favour the League's support for the British. He joined a revolutionary group in Bengal. In 1912 he started an Urdu jpurnal called Al Hilal which preached Hindu-Muslim cooperation. In 1916 Azad was externed from Calcutta. He went to Ranchi in Bihar where he was interned till 1920. It was in Ranchi that he began work on his translation of and commentaiy on 10 of the Quran's 30 chapters, a work which was finally completed in 1930. When the internment order was lifted Azad went to Delhi where he met Mahatma Gandhi and accepted his leadership of India's struggle. He also accepted non-violence but only as a policy not as an everlasting principle. However, he smoked freely in Gandhi's Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888- 1958)