Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, lawyer and statesman who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a principal leader of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. Upon India's independence in 1947, he served as the country's first prime minister for 16 years. Nehru promoted parliamentary democracy, secularism, and science and technology during the 1950s, powerfully influencing India's arc as a modern nation. In international affairs, he steered India clear of the two blocs of the Cold War. A well-regarded author, he wrote books such as Letters from a Father to His Daughter (1929), An Autobiography (1936) and The Discovery of India (1946), that have been read around the world.

The son of Motilal Nehru, a prominent lawyer and Indian nationalist, Jawaharlal Nehru was educated in England—at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, and trained in the law at the Inner Temple. He became a barrister, returned to India, enrolled at the Allahabad High Court and gradually became interested in national politics, which eventually became a full-time occupation. He joined the Indian National Congress, rose to become the leader of a progressive faction during the 1920s, and eventually of the Congress, receiving the support of Mahatma Gandhi, who was to designate Nehru as his political heir. As Congress president in 1929, Nehru called for complete independence from the British Raj.

Nehru and the Congress dominated Indian politics during the 1930s. Nehru promoted the idea of the secular nation-state in the 1937 provincial elections, allowing the Congress to sweep the elections and form governments in several provinces. In September 1939, the Congress ministries resigned to protest Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's decision to join the war without consulting them. After the All India Congress Committee's Quit India Resolution of 8 August 1942, senior Congress leaders were imprisoned, and for a time, the organisation was suppressed. Nehru, who had reluctantly heeded Gandhi's call for immediate independence, and had desired instead to support the Allied war effort during World War II, came out of a lengthy prison term to a much altered political landscape. Under Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Muslim League had come to dominate Muslim politics in the interim. In the 1946 provincial elections, Congress won the elections, but the League won all the seats reserved for Muslims, which the British interpreted as a clear mandate for Pakistan in some form. Nehru became the interim prime minister of India in September 1946 and the League joined his government with some hesitancy in October 1946.

Upon India's independence on 15 August 1947, Nehru gave a critically acclaimed speech, "Tryst with Destiny"; he was sworn in as the Dominion of India's prime minister and raised the Indian flag at the Red Fort in Delhi. On 26 January 1950, when India became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, Nehru became the Republic of India's first prime minister. He embarked on an ambitious economic, social, and political reform programme. Nehru promoted a pluralistic multi-party democracy. In foreign affairs, he led the establishment the Non-Aligned Movement, a group of nations that did not seek membership in the two main ideological blocs of the Cold War. Under Nehru's leadership, the Congress dominated national and state-level politics and won elections in 1951, 1957 and 1962. He died in office from a heart attack in 1964. His birthday is celebrated as Children's Day in India.

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889 in Allahabad in British India to mother Swarup Rani née Thussu (1868–1938) and father Motilal Nehru (1861–1931). Both parents belonged to the community of Kashmiri Pandits, or Brahmins originally from the Kashmir valley. Motilal, a self-made barrister of wealth, served as president of the Indian National Congress in 1919 and 1928. Swarup Rani, raised in a family settled in Lahore, was Motilal's second wife, the first having died in childbirth. Jawaharlal was the firstborn. Two sisters followed, the elder of which, Vijaya Lakshmi, became the first female president of the United Nations General Assembly. The younger, Krishna Hutheesing, became a noted writer, authoring several books on her brother.

Nehru described his childhood as "sheltered and uneventful". He grew up in an atmosphere of privilege, which included life in the mansion Anand Bhavan in Allahabad. He was educated at home by private governesses and tutors. One of these was an Irishman, Ferdinand T. Brooks, who was interested in theosophy. The Irish Home Rule and Indian Home Rule leaguer Annie Besant initiated Jawaharlal into the Theosophical Society when he was thirteen. However, his interest in theosophy was not enduring, and he left the society shortly after Brooks departed as his tutor. Nehru was to write: "For nearly three years [Brooks] was with me and in many ways, he influenced me greatly".

Nehru's theosophical interests led him to study the Buddhist and Hindu scriptures. According to B. R. Nanda, these scriptures were Nehru's "first introduction to the religious and cultural heritage of [India]....[They] provided Nehru the initial impulse for [his] long intellectual quest which culminated...in The Discovery of India."

Nehru became an ardent nationalist during his youth. The Second Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War intensified his feelings. Of the latter he wrote, "[The] Japanese victories [had] stirred up my enthusiasm. ...Nationalistic ideas filled my mind. ... I mused of Indian freedom and Asiatic freedom from the thraldom of Europe." Later, in 1905, when he had begun his institutional schooling at Harrow, a leading school in England where he was nicknamed "Joe", G. M. Trevelyan's Garibaldi books, which he had received as prizes for academic merit, influenced him greatly. He viewed Garibaldi as a revolutionary hero. He wrote: "Visions of similar deeds in India came before, of [my] gallant fight for [Indian] freedom and in my mind, India and Italy got strangely mixed together."