Young Jawaharlal’s first agitation was a demand for more frequent birthday parties. It was a demand which found favor with his mother. But authority, in the form of his father, frowned on the idea. You have a birthday party year, said his father, Motilal Nehru. Can’t I have one every month? Asked Jawaharlal. Definitely not, said his father. And so Jawaharlal had to be content with only one birthday a year. It is the sad lot of small boys throughout the world to have only one birthday party a year; but Jawaharlal was lucky to have even that, because in India most of the children were too poor for parties.
Motilal Nehru was a successful, hard-working lawyer. Whenever he gave a party for Jawaharlal it was a magnificent affair. Early in the morning the small boy would be weighed in a huge balance against some bags of wheat and other foodstuffs which were later given to the poor. He was then put into his new clothes. Early portraits show Jawaharlal in a variety of costumes: embroidered pantaloons and coat with jeweled slippers; sometimes a sailor-suit or a Scot kilt! After he had been dressed up he would be given his presents and then there would be a feast.
Jawaharlal was surrounded on all sides by grown-ups. He did not have other children to play with. And perhaps that’s why, as he grew older, he wanted to spend more and more time with children, the missing playmates of his childhood. There was his father, a strict but loving man who wanted his son to grow up to be like an Englishman and join the Indian civil service. The boy’s mother doted him. And it was to her that he went whenever he wanted some thing. Writing home from Naini Tal, where he was sent for a holiday in the summer of 1904 he asked his mother for books, he addressed her, “ if any book comes in my name it may be taken and the price paid. And these books that come should be sent here…”
He was a bookworm from a very early age. Swaroop Rani liked to have Jawaharlal all to herself and did not go out of her way to try and find friends for him. There were various aunts and uncles who came and went, but very few seemed interesting to the thoughtful, brooding boy. He had english governesses but they left little impression on him. Perhaps his best friend was an old man, Mubarak Ali, who had been with the family for many years. Not only did he tell Jawaharlal stories from the Arabian nights, but he also gave him vivid accounts of the happenings in 1857, when the first organized revolt against British rule had taken place and the uprising had been partly exterminated; but instead of had become sad and gentle and understanding. Jawaharlal looked upon the old man as a fount of wisdom.
His mother and one of his aunts also told him stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha, the great Indian epics; but he preferred reading to listening, and by the age of nine he was beginning to discover books for himself. His irish tutor, Brooks, did much to encourage and guide Jawaharlal’s literary tastes. Among his early favorites were Kipling’s jungle book and kim, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in wonderland and more. His love of books and the english language was to grow with the years, and one day he would be an author in his own rights. Until he was fifteen, Jawaharlal received most of his education at home; but it was Motilal’s ambition to send his son to a public school in England. What were the Nehrus doing in Allahabad in the year 1889, when Jawaharlal was born? Their ancestors came from Kashmir, that lovely mountain valley blessed by providence with green meadows,wild flowers, majestic glaciers and enchanted streams.
According to Motilal, his grandfather’s great grandfather was a Sanskrit and persian scholar of some eminence in Kashmir. He attracted the notice of Emperor Farruk when the latter was on a visit to Kashmir. The family migrated to the imperial city of delhi around 1716. Some villages and a house situated on the banks of a canal were granted in Jagir to Pandit Kaul. Because he lived beside the canal ‘nehru’ came to be attached to his name and he was known as Raj Kaul Nehru. In later years ‘Kaul’ dropped out and the family adopted ‘nehru’ as the surname. During the unsettled state of the throne and the country following the assassination of Farruk, the family fortunes suffered. The jagir dwindled into zamindari rights, the last holder being Motilal’s great grandfather, Pandit Mausaram Nehru.
Jawar=harlal’s grandfather, Pandit Gangadhar Nehru, was the Kotwal, or officer-in-charge of the police station at delhi. This was shortly before the revolt of 1857. A miniature painting of Pandit Gangadhar still exists. It shows him wearing Moghul court dress with a curved sword in his hand. He might easily have been taken for a moghul nobleman if his features had not been so distinctly Kashmiri. He was fair and had a red beard and gentle blue eyes. The Nehru family lost all its possessions during the revolt of 1857. Joining the exodus of refugees from delhi, the moved to Agra. There pandit Gangadhar died in 1861, only 34 years old. Three months later his son, Motilal, was born. The burden of looking after the family fell upon the Motilal’s elder brother, Nandlal, who was already earning a living.
Motilal’s early education was confined entirely to persian and arabic and he only began learning english in his early teens. When motilal grew up he joined ht muir central college at Allahabad where he was very popular with his British professors. Motilal always got on well with british, even when he was opposed to them. They admired his forthright nature, his manliness, and the ease with which he moved in their society. Until he joined the freedom movement, he always dressed like an Englishman. The legal profession provided lmost the only opening for young educated Indians, and so it was not surprising that Motilal decided to become a lawyer. He had just begun his legal practice when his elder brother, Nandlal, died. The burden of supporting the family now shifted to Motilal.
Motilal prospered. He started practice in the district courts of Cawnpore and, being eager to succeed, worked hard and established himself as a successful lawyer at an early age. In 1886 Motilal moved to Allahabad to practice in the high court. At first he lived in Mirganj in the old part of the city. Jawaharlal was born there, on 14th November 1889. Later they moved to the civil Lines where most of the Europeans lived. It was in 1889, when Jawaharlal was ten, that Motilal bought Anand Bhawan a big house with spacious lawns and a swimming pool. In later years Jawaharlal often remembered the swimming pool. “During the ling hot summer days”, he wrote, “ I would go for a dip at all odd hours, many times a day. In the evening many friends of my father’s came to the pool. It was a novelty, and the electric light that had been installed there and in the house was an innovation for Allahabad in those days”.
Jawaharlal became a good swimmer. But motilal, though full of enthusiasm, could just manage to get from one end of the pool to the other!. The house was dominated by motilal. So were the law courts. In a letter written in 1905 he proudly stated: “My absence from the High Court for any length of time does not make any difference to my practice. I am taken for a magician! To my mind it is simple enough. I want money, I work for it and I get it”. One does not hear so much of Jawaharlal’s mother; but she was a brave little woman who was one day to prove her mettle when both husband and son were caught up in the freedom movement.
Motilal had visited Europe several times. In 1905, he realized his ambition of having Jawaharlal admitted to Harrow, one of England’s most famous public schools. Jawaharlal Nehru did not travel alone. This united family was not to be separated so easily. Father , mother,son and baby sister, all set sail together.
To be continued….! See you in the next part about NEHRU!