'Uncle' Nehru's Us Legacy

Jawaharlal Nehru Is Better Known for His Role in the Independence Movement and as Independent India’s First Prime Minister. However, His Love for Children – Which Is Less Known Outside the Country – Is the Reason Why India Celebrates November 14, His Birth Anniversary, as Children’s Day

“I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing with them. For the moment I forget that I am terribly old and it is very long ago since I was a child.” So said Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first Prime Minister. He was writing an open letter to children, dated December 3, 1949, in a weekly magazine.

Nehru loved the innocence, the openness, the simplicity of children, and the fact that, unlike adults, they don’t build barriers of colour, caste, community, country and language, they accept people as they are.

Nehru’s special bond with children has gone down in Indian history as a soft, endearing facet of this Harvard educated astute London bar-at-law, who turned steely fighter for independence and attained the stature of influential global leader. So, to commemorate this affinity, India celebrates Children’s Day on November 14, his birth anniversary, while Universal Children’s Day falls on November 20, the anniversary of both the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the signing of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the international community.

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