Gangadhar Nehru


Gangadhar Nehru was an Indian police officer, who served as the last kotwal of Delhi in the court of the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II, before the position was abolished following the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
He was the father of Indian independence activist 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 Nehru was appointed the Kotwal 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. His youngest child, Motilal, was born posthumously, three months later.
Gangadhar's eldest son, Bansi Dhar Nehru worked in the judicial department of the British Government and, being appointed successively to various places, was partly cut off from the rest of the family. The second son, Nandlal, entered the service of an Indian State and was Diwan of Khetri State in Rajputana for ten years. Later he studied law and settled down as a practicing lawyer in Agra.

Conspiracy theory

There is a conspiracy theory that Gangadhar Nehru's original name was Ghiyasuddin Ghazi. It is said, in 1857, the city Kotwal Ghiyasuddin Ghazi ran away from Delhi along with his family fearing capture by the rampaging British troops. He was allegedly intercepted by the British soldiers at Agra because he wore the attire of a Mughal nobleman and looked like a Muslim functionary. But he managed to dodge them and escaped by claiming that he was a Kashmiri Hindu whose name was Pandit Gangadhar Nehru.