Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, statesman and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a principal leader of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. Upon India's independence in 1947, he became the 1st Prime Minister of India, serving for 16 years. Nehru promoted parliamentary democracy, secularism, and science and technology during the 1950s, powerfully influencing India's arc as a modern nation. In international affairs, he steered India clear of the two blocs of the Cold War. A well-regarded author, his books written in prison, such as Letters from a Father to His Daughter (1929), An Autobiography (1936), Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India (1946), have been read around the world. The honorific Pandit has been commonly applied before his name.