Portrait of the Day: Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi

From the Delhi Press photo archives: Jawaharlal Nehru, the first and longest-serving prime minister of India, and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, the third prime minister of India.

A trained barrister, Nehru gave up that career when his interest in national politics took over. He became the president of the Indian National Congress in 1929, and along with Mahatma Gandhi, led the Indian struggle for freedom through the 1930s and 1940s. He became independent India’s prime minister in 1947 and the Congress went on to dominate Indian politics in the decades that followed. While Nehru was admired during his time as a champion of modernisation and socialism, Indira Gandhi, who twice served as prime minister, came to be known as an autocrat. The subsequent Gandhis who inherited their place in the party slowly began to drop lower and lower in people’s favour. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress, led by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, were routed by the BJP and its allies, leaving them with their lowest Lok Sabha seat tally—44—in the party’s history.

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru’s death.