Nehru Memorial Lecture

The Nehru Memorial Lecture was endowed by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Trust in 1969 as an annual lecture to be given in memory of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru by a distinguished scholar, scientist or administrator from the UK or India.

The lecture has been given by former Prime Ministers, senior political figures, esteemed scholars and leading figures in the fields of commerce and the arts. See the full list of speakers until 2016. 

In 2016, management of the Nehru Memorial Lecture was transferred to King’s India Institute.

2023 Nehru Memorial Lecture by Professor Madhavan K Palat

Professor Madhavan K Palat, editor of the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, spoke on Nehru’s thoughts and dilemmas on democracy at the 2023 Nehru Memorial Lecture titled ‘Nehru’s democratic dilemmas’.

Watch the replay

India’s Big Man vs. Everyman political histories

The Nehru Memorial Lecture on 3 March was followed by a debate event on 7 March on the merits of the 'Big Man vs Everyman' styles of writing India's political history. The debate was moderated by Professor Niraja Gopal Jayal with Professors Madhavan K Palat and Christophe Jaffrelot arguing for 'Big Man' historiography and Drs Milinda Banerjee and Anastasia Piliavsky arguing for 'Everyman' historiography.

The debate was partly made possible by grants from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme for the project on 'India's politics in its vernaculars'.