Happy Children’s Day: Few lesser known facts about Chacha Nehru

Happy Children’s Day: Few lesser known facts about Chacha Nehru While we all are celebrating Diwali this weekend, there’s also one beautiful celebration awaiting on November 14. This day is celebrated as Children’s Day in India in honour of the birthday of our first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru loved kids, and that’s why he was also called Chacha Nehru, or Uncle Nehru, lovingly. Let’s know a few more lesser-known facts about Nehruji. Jawaharlal Nehru came from an educated family. His father was a lawyer and so was he. He did his studies from the Trinity College in Cambridge in 1910. Not only that, his elder sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the first female president of the United Nations General Assembly and his youngest Krishna Hutheesing was a noted author. But after coming in touch with Gandhiji, he became a full-time freedom fighter. He was a member of Congress party which was a front runner in India's struggle for Independence. During India’s struggle for freedom from the British, Pandit Nehru was imprisoned 9 times. He was put behind bars by the British for a total of 3259 days which adds up to 9 years of his life spent in jail. He was an accomplished lawyer and used to even practice at the Allahabad High Court. Jawaharlal Nehru spent his childhood days and grew up in Anand Bhavan. The earlier name of Anand Bhavan was Swaraj Bhavan which was constructed by his father Motilal Nehru in 1930. It was later converted to a Museum and Nehru Planetarium by his daughter Indira Gandhi in 1970. During his lifetime, Pandit Nehru survived four attempts to assassinate him. Conspirators tried to kill him first during the partition of India. Following independence, they attempted to assassinate him once in 1955, then in 1956, and then again in 1961. Nehru was nominated a total of 11 times for the Nobel Peace Prize between 1950 to 1955 for his contributions to maintaining and promoting peace in the Indian subcontinent. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has authored several books in English including ‘The Discovery of India’, ‘Glimpses of World History’, and his autobiography, ‘Toward Freedom’. He was inspired by the Socialist ideas of the former USSR and modelled many Indian policies on socialism and equality. He even brought the concept of secularism in our Constitution.