Jawaharlal Nehru in the context of "Princely state"

The Fabian Society (/ˈfeɪbiən/) is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. It was historically related to some of the furthest left factions of radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.

As one of the founding organisations of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, and as an important influence upon the Labour Party which grew from it, the Fabian Society has strongly influenced British politics. Members of the Fabian Society have included political leaders from other countries, such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Lee Kuan Yew, who adopted Fabian principles as part of their own political ideologies. The Fabian Society founded the London School of Economics in 1895.

The history of independent India or history of Republic of India began when the country became an independent sovereign state within the British Commonwealth on 15 August 1947. Direct administration by the British, which began in 1858, affected a political and economic unification of the subcontinent. When British rule came to an end in 1947, the subcontinent was partitioned along religious lines into two separate countries—India, with a majority of Hindus, and Pakistan, with a majority of Muslims. Concurrently the Muslim-majority northwest and east of British India was separated into the Dominion of Pakistan, by the Partition of India. The partition led to a population transfer of more than 10 million people between India and Pakistan and the death of about one million people. Indian National Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India, but the leader most associated with the independence struggle, Mahatma Gandhi, accepted no office. The constitution adopted in 1950 made India a democratic republic with Westminster style parliamentary system of government, both at federal and state level respectively. The democracy has been sustained since then. India's sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world's newly independent states, despite its history being perforated by several crises and recent worries of democratic backsliding under the premiership of Narendra Modi.

The country has faced religious violence, corruption, poverty, unemployment, language conflicts, naxalism, terrorism, separatist insurgencies in North East India and gender-based violence. India has unresolved territorial disputes over Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh with China which escalated into a war in 1962 and 1967, Kashmir with Pakistan which resulted in wars in 1947–1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999 and Kalapani with Nepal. India was neutral in the Cold War, and was a leader in the Non-Aligned Movement. However, it made a loose alliance with the Soviet Union from 1971, when Pakistan was allied with the United States and the People's Republic of China.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 121 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. It was founded with the view to advancing interests of developing countries in the context of Cold War confrontation. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.

The movement originated in the aftermath of the Korean War, as an effort by some countries to counterbalance the rapid bi-polarization of the world during the Cold War, whereby two major powers formed blocs and embarked on a policy to pull the rest of the world into their orbits. One of these was the pro-Soviet socialist bloc whose best known alliance was the Warsaw Pact, and the other the pro-American capitalist group of countries, many of which belonged to NATO. In 1961, drawing on the principles agreed at the Bandung Conference of 1955, the Non-Aligned Movement was formally established in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, through an initiative led by Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah, Indonesian president Sukarno, and United Arab Republic president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India, was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations existing between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. Until its independence, India had been ruled as an informal empire by the United Kingdom. The empire, also called the British Raj and sometimes the British Indian Empire, consisted of regions, collectively called British India, that were directly administered by the British government, and regions, called the princely states, that were ruled by Indian rulers under a system of paramountcy, in favour of the British. The Dominion of India was formalised by the passage of the Indian Independence Act 1947, which also formalised an independent Dominion of Pakistan—comprising the regions of British India that are today Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Dominion of India remained "India" in common parlance but was geographically reduced by the lands that went to Pakistan, as a separate dominion. Under the Act, the King remained the monarch of India but the British government relinquished all responsibility for administering its former territories. The government also revoked its treaty rights with the rulers of the princely states and advised them to join in a political union with India or Pakistan. Accordingly, one of the British monarch's regnal titles, "Emperor of India," was abandoned.

The Dominion of India came into existence on the partition of India and was beset by religious violence. Its creation had been preceded by a pioneering and influential anti-colonial nationalist movement which became a major factor in ending the British Raj. A new government was formed led by Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister, and Vallabhbhai Patel as deputy prime minister, both members of the Indian National Congress. Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, stayed on until June 1948 as independent India's first governor-general; he was replaced by C. Rajagopalachari.

Subhas Chandra Bose (23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945) was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among many Indians, but his wartime alliances with Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan left a legacy vexed by authoritarianism, anti-Semitism, and military failure. The honorific 'Netaji' (Hindustani: "Respected Leader") was first applied to Bose in Germany in early 1942—by the Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion and by the German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin. It is now used throughout India.

Bose was born into wealth and privilege in a large Bengali family in Orissa during the British Raj. The early recipient of an Anglo-centric education, he was sent after college to England to take the Indian Civil Service examination. He succeeded with distinction in the vital first exam but demurred at taking the routine final exam, citing nationalism to be the higher calling. Returning to India in 1921, Bose joined the nationalist movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. He followed Jawaharlal Nehru to leadership in a group within the Congress which was less keen on constitutional reform and more open to socialism. Bose became Congress president in 1938. After reelection in 1939, differences arose between him and the Congress leaders, including Gandhi, over the future federation of British India and princely states, but also because discomfort had grown among the Congress leadership over Bose's negotiable attitude to non-violence, and his plans for greater powers for himself. After the large majority of the Congress Working Committee members resigned in protest, Bose resigned as president and was eventually ousted from the party.

The Line of Actual Control (LAC), in the context of the Sino-Indian border dispute, is a notional demarcation linethat separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory on their mutual border. The concept was introduced by Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in a 1959 letter to Jawaharlal Nehru as the "line up to which each side exercises actual control", but rejected by Nehru as being incoherent. Subsequently, the term came to refer to the line formed after the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

The LAC is different from the borders claimed by each country in the Sino-Indian border dispute. The Indian claims include the entire Aksai Chin region and the Chinese claims include Arunachal Pradesh/Zangnan. These claims are not included in the concept of "actual control".

Motilal Nehru (6 May 1861 – 6 February 1931) was an Indian lawyer, activist, and politician affiliated with the Indian National Congress. He served as the Congress President twice, from 1919 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1929. He was a patriarch of the Nehru-Gandhi family and the father of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister.

The Indian National Congress (INC), also known as the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a big tent political party in India. It is one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the oldest party in India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Empire in Asia and Africa. From the late 19th century, and especially after 1920, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress became the principal leader of the Indian independence movement. The Congress was one of the parties who led India to independence from the United Kingdom, and significantly influenced other anti-colonial nationalist movements in the British Empire.

The INC is a "big tent" party that has been described as sitting on the centre of the Indian political spectrum. The party held its first session in 1885 in Bombay where W.C. Bonnerjee presided over it. After Indian independence in 1947, Congress emerged as a catch-all, Indian nationalist and secular party, dominating Indian politics for the next 50 years. The party's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, led the Congress to support socialist policies by creating the Planning Commission, introducing Five-Year Plans, implementing a mixed economy, and establishing a secular state. After Nehru's death and the short tenure of Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi became the leader of the party. In the 17 general elections since independence, it has won an outright majority on seven occasions and has led the ruling coalition a further three times, heading the central government for more than 54 years. There have been six prime ministers from the Congress party, the first being Jawaharlal Nehru (1947–1964), and the most recent being Manmohan Singh (2004–2014). Since the 1990s, the Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the main rival of the Congress in both national and regional politics.