. Durgapur,
Rourkela and
Bhilai were three integrated steel plants set up under India's
Second Five-Year Plan in the late 1950s. According to
Bhikhu Parekh, Nehru can be regarded as the founder of the modern Indian state. Parekh attributes this to the national philosophy Nehru formulated for India. For him, modernisation was the national philosophy, with seven goals: national unity, parliamentary democracy, industrialisation, socialism, development of the scientific temper, and non-alignment. In Parekh's opinion, the philosophy and the policies that resulted from this benefited a large section of society such as public sector workers, industrial houses, and middle and upper peasantry. However, it failed to benefit the urban and rural poor, the unemployed and the
Hindu fundamentalists. Nehru is credited with having prevented civil wars in India. Nehru convincingly succeeded in secularism and
religious harmony, increasing the representation of minorities in government.
Economic policies and
Deutsche Bank chairman
Hermann Josef Abs during a state visit to West Germany in June 1956. in the Punjab, 1953 manufacturing facility,
Poona, 1956 Nehru implemented policies based on
import substitution industrialisation and advocated a
mixed economy where the government-controlled
public sector would co-exist with the
private sector. He believed the establishment of basic and heavy industry was fundamental to the development and modernisation of the Indian economy. The government, therefore, directed investment primarily into key
public sector industries—steel, iron, coal, and power—promoting their development with subsidies and protectionist policies. Nehru's vision of an
egalitarian society was "a co-operative ideal, a one world ideal, based on social justice and economic equality". In 1928, Nehru had affirmed that "Our economic programme must aim at the removal of all economic inequalities". Later in 1955, he declared that "I also want a classless society in India and the world." He identified his concept of economic freedom with the country's
economic development and material advancement. The policy of non-alignment during the
Cold War meant that Nehru received financial and technical support from both power blocs in building India's industrial base from scratch.
Steel mill complexes were built at
Bokaro and
Rourkela with assistance from the Soviet Union and
West Germany. There was substantial industrial development. India's share of world trade fell from 1.4% in 1951–1960 to 0.5% between 1981 and 1990. However, India's export performance is argued to have shown actual sustained improvement over the period. The volume of exports grew at an annual rate of 2.9% in 1951–1960 to 7.6% in 1971–1980. GDP and
GNP grew 3.9 and 4.0% annually between 1950 and 1951 and 1964–1965. It was a radical break from the British colonial period, but the growth rates were considered anaemic at best compared to other industrial powers in Europe and East Asia. India lagged behind the miracle economies (Japan, West Germany, France, and Italy). However, this mixed development strategy allowed native industrialisation to gain ground. While India's economy grew faster than both the United Kingdom and the United States, low initial income and rapid population increase meant that growth was inadequate for any sort of catch-up with rich income nations. India saw significant improvements in health, literacy and life expectancy since its independence.
Agriculture policies Under Nehru's leadership, the government attempted to develop India quickly by embarking on
agrarian reform and rapid industrialisation. A successful
land reform was introduced that abolished giant
landholdings, but efforts to redistribute land by placing limits on landownership failed. Attempts to introduce large-scale cooperative farming were frustrated by landowning rural elites, who formed the core of the powerful right-wing of the Congress and had considerable political support in opposing Nehru's efforts. Agricultural production expanded until the early 1960s, as additional land was brought under cultivation and some irrigation projects began to have an effect. The establishment of agricultural universities, modelled after land-grant colleges in the United States, contributed to the development of the economy. These universities worked with high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, initially developed in Mexico and the Philippines, that in the 1960s began the
Green Revolution, an effort to diversify and increase crop production. At the same time, a series of failed monsoons would cause serious food shortages, despite the steady progress and an increase in agricultural production.
Social policies Education Nehru was a passionate advocate of education for India's children and youth, believing it essential for India's future progress. His government oversaw the establishment of many institutions of higher learning, including the
All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the
Indian Institutes of Technology, the
Indian Institutes of Management and the
National Institutes of Technology. Nehru also outlined a commitment in his
five-year plans to guarantee free and compulsory primary education to all of India's children. For this purpose, Nehru oversaw the creation of mass village enrolment programs and the construction of thousands of schools. Nehru also launched initiatives such as the provision of free milk and meals to children to fight
malnutrition. Adult education centres and vocational and technical schools were also organised for adults, especially in the rural areas.
Hindu code bills and marriage laws Under Nehru, the Indian Parliament enacted many changes to
Hindu law through the
Hindu code bills to criminalise
caste discrimination and increase the legal rights and social freedoms of women. The Nehru administration saw such codification as necessary to unify the Hindu community, which ideally would be a first step towards unifying the nation. They succeeded in passing four Hindu code bills in 1955–56: the
Hindu Marriage Act,
Hindu Succession Act,
Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and
Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act. Those who practise
Sikhism,
Jainism, and
Buddhism are categorised as Hindus under the jurisdiction of the Code Bill. Nehru specifically wrote Article 44 of the Indian constitution under the
Directive Principles of State Policy which states: "The State shall endeavor to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India." The article has formed the basis of secularism in India. However, Nehru has been criticised for the inconsistent application of the law. Most notably, he allowed
Muslims to keep their personal law in matters relating to marriage and inheritance. In the small state of
Goa, a civil code based on the old Portuguese Family Laws was allowed to continue, and Nehru prohibited Muslim personal law. This resulted from the
annexation of Goa in 1961 by India, when Nehru promised the people that their laws would be left intact. This has led to accusations of selective secularism. While Nehru exempted Muslim law from legislation and they remained unreformed, he passed the
Special Marriage Act in 1954. The idea behind this act was to give everyone in India the ability to marry outside the personal law under a
civil marriage. In many respects, the act was almost identical to the
Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, demonstrating how secularised the law regarding Hindus had become. The Special Marriage Act allowed Muslims to marry under it and keep the protections, generally beneficial to Muslim women, that could not be found in the personal law. Under the act,
polygamy was illegal, and inheritance and succession would be governed by the Indian Succession Act, rather than the respective Muslim personal law. Divorce would be governed by secular law, and maintenance of a divorced wife would be along the lines set down in civil law.
Language policy The Constituent assembly debated the question of national language between 1946 and 1949. Within the assembly there were two blocs, pro-Hindi and anti-Hindi. The pro-Hindi bloc was further divided between supporters of
Hindustani led by Nehru, and supporters of
Modern Standard Hindi based on
Sanskrit. The anti-Hindi bloc was generally in favour of promoting English to an official status. After an exhaustive and divisive debate, Hindi was adopted as the official rather than national language of India in 1950, with English continuing as an associate official language for 15 years, after which Hindi would become the sole official language. To allay their fears, Nehru enacted the
Official Languages Act in 1963 to ensure the continuing use of English beyond 1965. The text of the Act did not satisfy the DMK and increased their scepticism that future administrations might not honour his assurances. The Congress government headed by Indira Gandhi eventually amended the Official Languages Act in 1967 to guarantee the indefinite use of Hindi and English as official languages. This effectively ensured the current "virtual indefinite policy of
bilingualism" of the Indian Republic.
Foreign policy Throughout his long tenure as the prime minister, Nehru also held the portfolio of
External Affairs. His idealistic approach focused on giving India a leadership position in nonalignment. He sought to build support among the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa in opposition to the two hostile superpowers contesting the Cold War.
The Commonwealth with Nehru and other Commonwealth leaders, taken at the
1960 Commonwealth Conference,
Windsor Castle After independence, Nehru wanted to maintain good relations with Britain and other British Commonwealth countries. As prime minister of the
Dominion of India, he acquiesced only after Krishna Menon's redrafting of the 1949
London Declaration, under which India agreed to remain within the
Commonwealth of Nations after becoming a republic in January 1950, and to recognise the British monarch as a "symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth". The other nations of the Commonwealth recognised India's continuing membership of the association.
Non-aligned movement and
Josip Broz Tito in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1961 On the international scene, Nehru was an opponent of military action and military alliances. He was a strong supporter of the United Nations, except when it tried to resolve the Kashmir question. He pioneered the policy of non-alignment and co-founded the
Non-Aligned Movement of nations professing neutrality between the rival blocs of nations led by the US and the USSR. The term "non-alignment" was coined earlier by
V. K. Krishna Menon at the United Nations in 1953 and 1954. India recognised the People's Republic of China soon after its founding (while most of the Western bloc continued relations with
Taiwan). Nehru argued for its inclusion in the United Nations and refused to brand the Chinese as the aggressors in the West's conflict with Korea. He sought to establish warm and friendly relations with China in 1950 and hoped to act as an intermediary to bridge the gulf and tensions between the communist states and the Western bloc. Nehru was a key organiser of the
Bandung Conference of April 1955, which brought 29 newly independent nations together from Asia and Africa, and was designed to galvanise the nonalignment movement under Nehru's leadership. He envisioned it as his key leadership opportunity on the world stage, where he would bring together emerging nations. He was one of the key participants of the
1st Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 in
Belgrade,
FPR Yugoslavia.
Defence and nuclear policy While averse to war, Nehru led the campaigns against Pakistan in Kashmir. He used military force to annex
Hyderabad in 1948 and Goa in 1961. While laying the foundation stone of the
National Defence Academy in 1949, he stated:We, who for generations had talked about and attempted in everything a peaceful way and practised non-violence, should now be, in a sense, glorifying our army, navy and air force. It means a lot. Though it is odd, yet it simply reflects the oddness of life. Though life is logical, we have to face all contingencies, and unless we are prepared to face them, we will go under. There was no greater prince of peace and apostle of non-violence than Mahatma Gandhi...but yet, he said it was better to take the sword than to surrender, fail or run away. We cannot live carefree assuming that we are safe. Human nature is such. We cannot take the risks and risk our hard-won freedom. We have to be prepared with all modern defence methods and a well-equipped army, navy, and air force." Many hailed Nehru for working to defuse global tensions and the threat of
nuclear weapons after the
Korean War (1950–1953). He commissioned the first study of the
effects of nuclear explosions on human health and campaigned ceaselessly for the
abolition of what he called "these frightful engines of destruction". He also had pragmatic reasons for promoting de-nuclearisation, fearing a nuclear arms race would lead to over-militarisation that would be unaffordable for developing countries such as his own.
Defending Kashmir At
Lord Mountbatten's urging, in 1948, Nehru had promised to hold a
plebiscite in
Kashmir under the auspices of the UN. Kashmir was a disputed territory between India and Pakistan, the two have
gone to war over it in 1947. However, as Pakistan failed to pull back troops in accordance with the UN resolution, and as Nehru grew increasingly wary of the UN, he declined to hold a plebiscite in 1953. His policies on Kashmir and the integration of the state into India were frequently defended before the United Nations by his aide, V. K. Krishna Menon, who earned a reputation in India for his passionate speeches. In 1953, Nehru orchestrated the ouster and arrest of
Sheikh Abdullah, the prime minister of Kashmir, whom he had previously supported but was now suspected of harbouring separatist ambitions;
Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad replaced him. Menon was instructed to deliver an unprecedented eight-hour speech defending India's stand on Kashmir in 1957; to date, the speech is the longest ever delivered in the
United Nations Security Council, covering five hours of the 762nd meeting on 23 January, and two hours and forty-eight minutes on the 24th, reportedly concluding with Menon's collapse on the Security Council floor.
China in Beijing, China, October 1954 In 1954, Nehru signed with China the
Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, known in India as the Panchsheel (from the Sanskrit words,
panch: five,
sheel: virtues), a set of principles to govern relations between the two states. Their first formal codification in treaty form was in an agreement between China and India in 1954, which recognised Chinese sovereignty over
Tibet. They were enunciated in the preamble to the "Agreement (with the exchange of notes) on Trade and Intercourse between Tibet Region of China and India", which was signed at Peking on 29 April 1954. Negotiations took place in Delhi from December 1953 to April 1954 between the Delegation of the
People's Republic of China (PRC) Government and the Delegation of the Indian Government on the relations between the two countries regarding the disputed territories of
Aksai Chin and South Tibet. By 1957, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai had also persuaded Nehru to accept the Chinese position on Tibet, thus depriving Tibet of a possible ally, and of the possibility of receiving military aid from India. The treaty was disregarded in the 1960s, but in the 1970s, the Five Principles again came to be seen as important in
China–India relations, and more generally as norms of relations between states. They became widely recognised and accepted throughout the region during the premiership of Indira Gandhi and the three-year rule of the
Janata Party (1977–1980). Although the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence were the basis of the 1954 Sino-Indian border treaty, in later years, Nehru's foreign policy suffered from increasing Chinese assertiveness over border disputes and his decision to grant
asylum to the
14th Dalai Lama.
United States at Parliament House, 1959 In 1956, Nehru criticised the joint invasion of the
Suez Canal by the British, French, and Israelis. His role, both as Indian prime minister and a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, was significant; he tried to be even-handed between the two sides while vigorously denouncing
Anthony Eden and co-sponsors of the invasion. Nehru had a powerful ally in the US President Dwight Eisenhower who, if relatively silent publicly, went to the extent of using America's clout at the
International Monetary Fund to make Britain and France back down. During the
Suez crisis, Nehru's right-hand man, Menon attempted to persuade a recalcitrant
Gamal Nasser to compromise with the West and was instrumental in moving Western powers towards an awareness that Nasser might prove willing to compromise. == Assassination attempts and security ==