An alternative history of the Jawaharlal Nehru family I received on WhatsApp

I’m republishing the WhatsApp update that I received because of the interesting narrative. Besides, these days people are giving lots of stress on the importance of accepting alternative versions of history. I’m not claiming that what I’m publishing below is correct or factual, but it can be considered as “alternative version”. I repeat, this is NOT my claim. I’m simply reproducing the WhatsApp message that I have received.

This alternative version of the Jawaharlal Nehru family-tree describes different relationships in bulleted format. I’m using my own way of writing but the central theme of the message remains intact. Here it goes:

1. Motilal Nehru had one legal wife and 4 illegal wives (or illegitimate wives, or whatever).
2. Mrs. Swaroop Rani (married wife) bore two children.
3. Thussu Rahman Bai who already had two children from her previous marriage with Mubarak Ali (he was Motilal Nehru’s employer).
4. Mrs. Manjari — she had a child named Mehar Ali Shokhta who became a renowned Arya Samaji leader.
5. An Iranian woman with whom Motilal had a child named Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
6. A cook with whom Motilal had a child named Sheikh Abdullah.

The legal wife, Mrs. Swaroop Rani, produced two children:

1. Mrs. Krisna who later on became the wife of Jaisukhlal Hathi (he was the Punjab governor and a union minister).
2. Mrs. Vijaylaxmi Pandit

Vijaylaxmi Pandit, before getting married to Mr. R. S. Pandit, had eloped with her half-brother Syed Hussain. She had a daughter with Hussain named Chandralekha, who was later on adopted by Mr. Pandit.

Thussu Rahman Bai, as mentioned above, was originally the wife of Motilal’s employer Mubarak Ali who died under mysterious circumstances. Motilal inherited the wealth and the wife of Mubarak Ali. Motilal and Thussu Rahman Bai had two children:

1. Jawaharlal Nehru whose real father was Mubarak Ali.
2. Syed Hussein.

Jawaharlal Nehru got married to Kamla Kaul. The marriage never got consummated as Nehru hatred Hindus and Kamla Kaul was a Kashmiri Pandit.

Kamla was forced to live her life as a domestic help. She and Manzoor Ali (this character pops up suddenly but he is being referred to as Jawaharlal’s brother) became close and gave birth to a daughter named Pridarshini Nehru (Indira Gandhi).

Nehru didn’t like Pridarshini and that’s why she used to be very quiet while Nehru was alive. But for public appearances, he politically supported her.

Indira Pridarshini Nehru alias Mamuna Begum Khan got married to Jehngir Feroz Khan. Gandhi advised him to change his name to Feroz Gandhi.

She had two sons named Rajiv Khan (father Feroz Jehngir Khan) and Sanjeev Khan.

Nehru divided India into three parts:

1. India for himself and his successors
2. Pakistan for his brother Jinnah
3. Kashmir for his half-brother Sheikh Abdullah

Then the whatsapp message goes on to the Ghiyasuddin story almost everybody has read by now.

These excerpts, supposedly, are from the autobiography of M. O. Mathai, who was Jawaharlal Nehru’s personal assistant.

I’m not sure whether this story is true or false, but someone has spent considerable amount of time bringing all the historical characters together to weave a singular narrative. If not true, quite creative. If true, people should know about this because this has had a devastating impact on the country and also on the Indian subcontinent.