There are numerous assertions circulating on social media regarding the lineage of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of the country. Among these claims, one that has gained significant traction is the one that his biological mother is Thusu Rahman Bai.
A user on X named Munna Yadav shared a graphical image on Twitter and wrote, “* must forward *
*History is witness to who was the Prime Minister of India and how he became. He ruled here in 70 years .
There goes Murari to become a hero *
*Nehru’s real Ammijan, Thusu Rahman Bai (Courtesan) with Nehru’s in his childhood photos.
Handed over the power, today’s plight of India is his gift.
*This is how India’s history has become weak *”
Hanuman Prasad Soni tweeted the same graphical image with the caption, “*Nehru’s real Ammijan”, “Thusu Rahman Bai”, “Nehru’s childhood photo”
Fact Check
In order to ascertain the truth of the viral claim, the DFRAC team conducted a reverse search of the graphic image using Google. We were able to locate this image on the photo service provider ‘agefotostock’. According to ‘agefotostock’, this image is believed to be from approximately 1891. It appears to depict India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, alongside his mother, Rani Nehru (Thussu).
The same picture is described in the caption of a news published by The Times of India, stating that,” Jawaharlal Nehru is seen with his father Motilal Nehru and mother Swarup Rani Nehru in his childhood”.
Afterwards, the DFRAC team conducted a search on Google about Swarup Rani Nehru and found information on her Wikipedia page. According to the information provided, Swarup Rani Nehru (Thussu) was born in 1868 in a Kashmiri Pandit family and came from Lahore, British India. She was a freedom fighter, barrister, and a Congress leader. After the death of Motilal Nehru’s first wife and during the birth of their child, he married Swarup Rani Nehru.
During the 1920s and 1930s, she played a prominent role in India’s freedom movement as a lawyer advocating civil disobedience against British rule and its salt laws. She also encouraged women to make salt.
Several media houses have also mentioned Swarup Rani Nehru in other news as Pandit Nehru’s mother.
During the process of gathering information about Pandit Nehru’s grandfather, the DFRAC team found that according to an article published by News18, it was mentioned by senior crime reporter Indra Vashishth that after the 1857 revolution, the British took control of Delhi and abolished the system of kotwali (police station) in Delhi.
During the reign of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, at that time, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s grandfather and father of Pandit Motilal Nehru, Pandit Gangadhar Nehru, were the kotwals of Delhi. After the British started mass killings in Delhi, Gangadhar, along with his wife Jio Devi and four children, went to Agra. In February 1861, Gangadhar died in Agra. Three months after Gangadhar Nehru’s death, Motilal Nehru was born.
According to the website imvashi.com, Gangadhar Nehru was born in Delhi in 1827 to a Kashmiri Kaul Brahmin family. His father’s name was Lakshminarayan Kaul who was a lawyer in the East India Company at the Mughal court in Delhi.
Conclusion
It is clear from this fact-check by DFRAC that the claim made by social media users regarding the mother of India’s first PM, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, is incorrect. This is because his mother, Swarup Rani Nehru, was born into a Kashmiri Brahmin family. After the death of freedom fighter and barrister Motilal Nehru’s first wife, Swarup Rani married him. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru’s grandfather, Gangadhar Nehru, was a police officer in Delhi and had gone to Agra during the 1857 period.
