Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad | Pair of signed photos, presented to Clement Attlee, 1956

Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, and Rajendra Prasad, President of India

Pair of signed photographs, presented to Clement Attlee:

i) Jawaharlal Nehru, photographic portrait, 204 x 246mm., head and shoulders, depicting Nehru in a characteristic "Gandhi Cap", facing right, mounted, signed by the photographer in pencil and by the sitter in ink ("Jawaharlal Nehru"), in a silver frame, 282 x 338mm.

ii) Rajendra Prasad, photographic portrait, 188 x 234mm., quarter-length, depicting him in a "Gandhi cap", facing right, signed on the image in English and Devanagari, and dated 29 October 1956, in a silver frame with the Presidential insignia of India, 270 x 386mm.

A PAIR OF SIGNED PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE FIRST PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENT OF INDEPENDENT INDIA, PRESENTED TO THE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER WHO OVERSAW INDEPENDENCE. Attlee was the Labour Party's spokesman on Indian affairs from 1934 onwards, and was in charge of Indian affairs during World War II. He went into the 1945 General Election promising "self-government" to the subcontinent and was quick to understand that the British Empire could no longer be sustained in the Post-War world. It was Attlee who sent Lord Mountbatten to India to oversee the end of the Raj. Unlike Churchill, Attlee was sympathetic to Nehru and the Congress leadership, and also to Gandhi, of whom he said, in the aftermath of his assassination: " For a quarter of a century, this one man has been the major factor in every consideration of the Indian problem.’’ 

The photograph by Prasad was given to Attlee during his visit to India in 1956, after his retirement. 

For Clement Attlee, see also lots 253, 291, 293, 315, 316, and 375