Motilal Nehru

Motilal Nehru , 1861-1931, Indian political leader, father of Jawaharlal Nehru. A successful attorney, he joined the Indian National Congress and served as its president in 1919. In 1923, however, he entered the national legislature as leader of the Swaraj [independence] party, formed to wreck the constitution by obstruction from within. After returning (1926) to the Congress party, he was chairman of an all-party commission to draft a constitution for India; its report (1928), which proposed dominion status for India and ruled out separate Hindu and Muslim electorates, was rejected by the Indian Muslim leaders.

Bibliography: See his selected speeches, ed. by K. M. Panikkar and A. Pershad (1961); biographies by B. R. Nanda (1964) and B. Lamb (1967).

Nehru, Motilal (1861–1931) Indian political leader. Together with C. R. Das (1870–1925), he organized the Swaraj (Independence) Party in 1922. This set out to participate in the Indian legislative councils but aimed to oppose the British by wrecking the councils from within, as an alternative to Gandhi's NON-COOPERATION movement. In 1928 Nehru chaired the All Parties' Committee which produced the Nehru Report, setting out a proposed new Indian constitution with dominion status for India.

Nehru, Motilal (b. 6 May 1861, d. 6 Feb. 1931). Indian nationalist Born in Agra, he studied law and built up an enormously successful legal practice in Allahabad. Politically active since the imprisonment of Annie Besant in 1917, he joined his son, Jawaharlal Nehru, in Gandhi's non- cooperation movement (1920–2). When the Indian National Congress (INC) declined into inactivity during the 1920s, together with C. R. Das (b. 1870, d. 1925) he organized the Swaraj Party in early 1923, which was recognized by the INC as its political wing in 1925. It gained a majority in the Central Legislative Assembly, as well as in some provincial assemblies, though despite his very able leadership, he found it difficult to exercise much influence upon the colonial administration. He devised the Nehru Report of 1928 and presided over the important INC Calcutta Congress of 1938, where Gandhi achieved a compromise in demanding Dominion status within one year, and independence if this was not granted. He took part in Gandhi's Salt March in 1930, when he was arrested. He was released shortly before his death.