NEHRU, PANDIT MOTILAL (1861-1931), Swarajist leader, a Kashmiri Brahman, was born on May 6, 1861. At the Allahabad Bar he came to the front, earning a large income, and exercising hospitality and friendly intimacy with European society. He was for some years a member of the United Provinces legisla tive council. After the World War, through repression of disorder in the Punjab in 1919, his views changed. In 1919 he founded the Independent, an aggressively Nationalist paper, and accepted the presidentship of what was now the extremist Indian National Con gress. His support of Gandhi's campaign of non-co-operation took the form of suspension of his lucrative practice at the bar and the abandonment of luxurious habits. At the close of 1921 he was imprisoned for six months for breaking the law against seditious assemblies. He so far modified his non-co-operation atti tude as to accept election to the second legislative assembly at the close of 1923, and took his place there as leader of the Swaraj party. On the death of C. R. Das in 1925 he was elected president
of the all-India Swaraj party, and under his guidance it was fused in the following year into the National Congress party. This or ganization promoted a boycott of the Simon Commission and took the lead in formulating under his chairmanship the All Parties Conference Report, otherwise known as the Nehru Report. It lays down a scheme of Dominion status for India. He presided at the 43rd annual National Congress at Calcutta in the last week of 1928, when acceptance of the scheme by the British Govern ment within a year was demanded as the alternative to widely organized non-co-operation. (F. H. BR.)