What made Jawaharlal Nehru such good friends with Mohandas K. Gandhi?

Answer 1

Gandhi was born in 1869 and Nehru in 1889--the twenty-year differerence made Gandhi a benign paternal figure to the younger man. More than that, both believed passionately in the resurgence of an independent India. They first met in Lucknow in 1916, and by 1919 Nehru had come to believe in Gandhi's methods: a non-violent struggle for Indian freedom from British rule. Gandhi had spent 3 or 4 years in England as a law student, and Nehru 10 or so years. Nehru was a more worldly man than Gandhi, and although he respected Gandhi's simple and ascetic ways, he believed in a modern India and the power of science and industry to transform the country. Their association and friendship grew through the years of struggle and imprisonment. Gandhi anointed Nehru as independent India's political leader. Someone once said (it may have been Gandhi himself) that Rajaji was his brain (the power of thought), Patel his hand (the man of strong action) , and Nehru his heart (compassion for the masses). Their friendship lasted for more than thirty years, until Gandhi's assassination in Delhi on Jan. 30, 1948, the evening when Nehru addressed the nation and memorably declared, "A light has gone out of our lives."
Even though Nehru was secular and modern and Gandhi (who spun his own cotton, as did Nehru to show he understood) deeply spiritual, what bound them was a deep faith in India and love for its people.