Happy Birthday to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

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Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889 in Allahabad in British India. Jawaharlal Nehru was the eldest of three children, two of whom were girls. Nehru described his childhood as a "sheltered and uneventful one". He grew up in an atmosphere of privilege at wealthy homes including a palatial estate called the Anand Bhavan. 

His father had educated him at home by private governesses and tutors. He is considered to be the architect of the modern Indian nation-state: a sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic. He was also known as Pandit Nehru due to his roots with the Kashmiri Pandit community while many Indian children knew him as Chacha Nehru Nehru became an ardent nationalist during his youth. 

The Second Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War intensified his feelings. Nehru went to Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1907 and graduated with an honours degree in natural science in 1910. After returning to India in August 1912, Nehru enrolled himself as an advocate of the Allahabad High Court and tried to settle down as a barrister. 

After return to India in 1912 he had attended an annual session of the Indian National Congress in Patna. Nehru was one of the first leaders to demand that the Congress Party should resolve to make a complete and explicit break from all ties with the British Empire. His resolution for independence was approved at the Madras session of Congress in 1927 despite Gandhi's criticism. At that time he also formed Independence for India league, a pressure group within the Congress. 

On 28 May, Nehru was cremated in accordance with Hindu rites at the Shantivan on the banks of the Yamuna, witnessed by 1.5 million mourners who had flocked into the streets of Delhi and the cremation grounds. Nehru, the man and politician made such a powerful imprint on India that his death on 27 May 1964, left India with no clear political heir to his leadership