The history of India and its leaders which was taught over the last 70 odd years has been so full of false narratives and outright lies, that one is bound to question all holy truths.  These include not only the lies about Mughals and Sufis, but also about the ruling elite of post freedom India.  Therefore, the narrative built around the Nehru-Gandhi ancestary cannot escape this scrutiny either.  

There are various stories doing the rounds questioning whether the family was really as worthy of respect and appreciation as we were made to believe over decades. One such question is about the birth of Jawahar Lal Nehru, his place of birth and the circumstances surrounding this.  It was generally believed that Moti Lal Nehru, father of Jawahar Lal, was a self made well established lawyer with a roaring practice.  However, the couner narrative to this also exists, according to which, Moti Lal Nehru had come to Prayagraj to earn a living after getting married at a very young age. He chose Meerganj as the area to live in, which was a designated area for “Dulhans of the city”, a monikkar given to prostitutes at the time.  Here, Moti Lal Nehru started his career by becoming a Hukka pesh in the area.  Moti Lal then met with a lawyer called Mubarak Ali, who hired him as a Mukhtar in the court during day time.  It was here in Kotha Number 44, that Moti Lal’s third wife gave birth to Jawahar Lal Nehru.  The narrative that we are more familiar with regarding the birth place of Jawahar is that he was born in Anand Bhavan, Ishrat Mahal, but there is no evidence of this place being in existence in the late 1800s, when Jawahar was born.  In 2016, a ‘social worker’ by the name of Sunil Choudhry filed a PIL in the Allahabad High Court to remove the red light district from Meerganj, Prayagraj, and was succeeful in getting this done.  The same Sunil Choudhry also worked relentlessly to renovate the Nehru Park, put a large statue of Jawahaer there and campaigned for the government to declare the birthplace of Nehru as a national heritage site. There is no doubt that the whole purpose of this exercise was to transform Meerganj not for the people who live there, but so that the new narrative would aim to erase the truth about the place of birth of Jawahar. At the same time, the decision by the High Court puts a seal on the fact that Jawahar Lal Nehru was indeed born in the brothel of Prayagraj.

Another source suggests that after the death of Mubarak Ali, Moti Lal had married his wife Thussu Rahman Bai, and she already had Jawahar Lal with Mubarak Ali.  Presumably his name was Jawahar, a name which is also kept by Muslims and Zorastrians alongside Hindus.  Incidently, it is mentioned in many publications that Moti Lal Nehru was not doing ery well financally at the beginning of his career, and this fact is not disputed in any narrative.  Mubarak Ali was a well settled lawyer who had no financial problems.  Moti Lal marrying his wife post his death in mysterious circumstances resulted in financial progress for him too.  If factual, this in turn will also challenge the notion that Jawahar Lal Nehru was a Kashmiri Pandit.

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