Motilal passed the bar examination in 1883 and began practicing law at Kanpur. Three years later, he moved to
Allahabad to join the lucrative practice already established by his brother Nandlal. The following year, in April 1887, his brother died at the age of forty-two, leaving behind five sons and two daughters. Thus Motilal at the age of 25 became sole bread-earner of the extended Nehru family. His frequent visits to Europe angered the Kashmiri Brahmin community as he refused to perform the traditional
prayashchi, or reformation ceremony, after crossing the ocean (according to Strict Hinduism, one lost one's caste after crossing the ocean, and was required to perform certain penance rites to regain caste). In 1899, he was expelled from the caste for refusing to perform the penance ceremony. He was the first chairman of the board of directors of
The Leader, a leading daily published from Allahabad. On 5 February 1919 he launched a new daily paper,
The Independent, as a counterpoint to
The Leader, which was much too liberal for Motilal's standard and articulate thought in 1919.
Political career Motilal Nehru twice served as President of the Congress Party, once in Amritsar (1919) and the second time in Calcutta (1928). In December that year, he was elected to preside over the Amritsar Congress. Motilal was in the centre of the gathering storm which pulled down many familiar landmarks during the following year. He was the only front rank leader to lend his support to non-co-operation at the special Congress at Calcutta in September 1920. The Calcutta Congress (December 1928) over which Motilal presided was the scene of a head-on clash between those who were prepared to accept Dominion Status and those who would have nothing short of complete independence. A split was averted by a proposal by Mahatma Gandhi, according to which if Britain did not concede Dominion Status within a year, the Congress was to demand complete independence and to fight for it, if necessary, by launching civil disobedience. In 1923, Nehru was elected to the new
Central Legislative Assembly of
British India in New Delhi and became
leader of the Opposition. In that role, he was able to secure the defeat, or at least the delay, of Finance bills and other legislation. He agreed to join a Committee with the object of promoting the recruitment of Indian officers into the
Indian Army, but this decision contributed to others going further and joining the Government itself. In March 1926, Nehru demanded a representative conference to draft a constitution conferring full
Dominion status on India, to be enacted by the British parliament. This demand was rejected by the Assembly, and as a result Nehru and his colleagues resigned their Assembly seats and returned to the Congress party. The entry of Motilal's son
Jawaharlal Nehru into politics in 1916, started the most powerful and influential Indian political dynasty. When, in 1929,
Jawaharlal Nehru was elected as Congress president it greatly pleased Motilal and Nehru family admirers to see the son take over from his father. Jawaharlal had opposed his father's preference for dominion status, and had not left the Congress Party when Motilal helped found the
Swaraj Party. ==Nehru report==