Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889, in Allahabad. His family descended from Kashmiri heritage. He was learning Hindi and Sanskrit while being taught in English.
What are some of the changes you made to India?
Well, to start things of I increased businesses and income taxes. I also helped with the farming bit because I made plans to build irrigation canals and better fertilizer. But most importantly I extended the electricity, water, health care and the roads across India. Educationally, I have started a 5 year project that every child in India should get a primary education. While I’m on the topic of village children I will have the provisions of free milk and meals everyday to avoid malnutrition. For the education of the adults I am going to make adult education centers, vocational and technological schools were also organized for adults, especially in the rural areas.
What do you think were the most significant changes you made?
Well personally, I think that the changes in the expansion of roads and teaching people about cleanliness and hygiene were the most significant. I know most of you will argue against me because you think that the most important thing was the education change. But the truth is we can survive without education in the 40’s and 50’s but without the better transport many more people would die of thirst or bleeding to death from lack of health care, and people are more educated about diseases, illnesses, etc…
Did it matter to you when you got jailed an unbelievable seven times?
I know it may sound like a lot to get jailed 7 times but when you are doing it for your country, it doesn’t matter to you. You just feel like giving up everything for your country. I knew that if I was jailed it might help India get its freedom from the British. For some of you I may have been a great hero for bringing India its independence but really, I can’t take all the credit. Gandhi also helped. He did more for this country’s freedom than I ever dreamed anyone would do. He refused to go safely to jail when they threatened to beat him with sticks and rods. Even after the beating he refused to go to jail but instead continued to pick up the farmers rightful salary out of the trash can. He was jailed and beaten for leading people to the beach to gather salt instead of buying salt and paying the high tax. When I met Gandhi he said that he knew nobody was brave enough to go against the British and if no one did they would never be free again. I did only a quarter of the work. It was Gandhi that did most of it.
What do you think about India today? Is it what you wanted it to be?
I think that India has gone under some changes that I did not expect. First, I didn’t expect that there would be so many beggars. I knew that it would be hard for India to pull out of poverty, but I didn’t expect it to grow so much. Second, thing that surprised me was that the food shortages have decreased significantly. That so many people in India just cared for themselves and not the environment. For example they don’t want to take the time to put new oil in their car so instead of spitting out horrible fumes it could be marked as a non-polluting vehicle. Also when I was in Delhi in 1941 there was not that much trash on the streets. I think that nowadays people are self-centered. They are just worried about getting somewhere and they will break the law if they have to.
Do you think your improvements when you where Prime Minister that your changes made a difference to India today?
I think that some of the improvements I made were good and some were not so good. For example, I think that when the roads were made that it is a half and half. The more roads equals more pollution but more roads equals faster commute so with that you could go either way in a long discussion. But one that made a major improvement was the better irrigation and fertilizer. You see when we had that in the early ages of India then we are developing better and better ways to make a larger quantity faster. One thing that didn’t help that much was I basically didn’t do much about the poverty solution and now that I see what is happening I regret that I didn’t do any thing about it.
Well folks that’s all we have for you today so I hope you learned something and I would like to thank Mr. Nehru for his time here.
Thank you for having me in this article.
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