Gangadhar Nehru

Gangadhar Nehru (1827 – February 1861) was an Indian police officer, who served as the last kotwal of Delhi (Chief of police) in the court of Bahadur Shah II, before the position was abolished following the Indian Rebellion of 1857. He was the father of freedom fighter Motilal Nehru and grandfather of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and thus part of the Nehru–Gandhi family.

Biography

During the early part of the 19th Century, Gangadhar's father, Lakshmi Narayan Nehru, worked as a scribe in Delhi for the East India Company. Gangadhar was appointed the Kotwal (a rank similar to Chief of police) of Delhi in the court of Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II. He was the last person to hold that post, as the institution was soon abolished as a result of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Later when the British troops began shelling their way into the city, he fled to Agra along with his wife Jeorani and their four children (two teenage sons, Bansidhar and Nandlal, and two daughters, Patrani and Maharani). The daughters' marriages into suitable Kashmiri Brahmin families were arranged soon after their arrival in Agra. Gangadhar died in February 1861 and his youngest child, Motilal, was born posthumously, three months later.