Death and state funeral of Jawaharlal Nehru
Open-knowledge reference entry
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, died in the afternoon of 27 May 1964, at the age of 74, of a heart attack.
Death
Nehru had been in declining health for some time. He suffered a serious stroke in early 1964. From 23 to 26 May, he went to Dehradun for a short rest, returning to his official residence at Teen Murti Bhawan in New Delhi. He woke early the next morning and after complaining of a pain in his back, suffered a stroke at 6:25 and fell unconscious and without having regained consciousness he died at 13:44.
Aftermath
During the evening of 27 May, Indian Army engineers prepared a cremation ground, levelling a plot of land situated near the Yamuna River about 300 yards north of the Raj Ghat and constructing a link road from the main road leading to the area. From 18:00 that evening until the following morning, flag officers representing the Indian Armed Forces maintained a constant vigil by the body of Nehru while it lay in state, rotating every hour. The officers were:
Major General Amrik Singh (Military Secretary, Indian Army)
Major General R. N. Nehra (Deputy Quartermaster-General, Indian Army)
Major General D. B. Chopra (Chairman, Joint Planning Commission, Indian Army)
Major General S. P. Vohra (Director of Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Indian Army)
Major General S. N. Mubayi (Director of Ordnance, Indian Army)
Air Vice-Marshal Ramaswamy Rajaram (Deputy Chief of Air Staff, Indian Air Force)
Air Vice-Marshal H. N. Chatterjee (Air Officer-in-Charge Maintenance Command, Indian Air Force)
Air Vice-Marshal B. V. Malse
Commodore Douglas St. John Cameron (Chief of Personnel, Indian Navy)
Funeral
Nehru was accorded a state funeral with full military honours. The three chief pall bearers were the chiefs of each branch of the Indian Armed Forces: General Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri (Indian Army), Vice Admiral Bhaskar Sadashiv Soman (Indian Navy) and Air Marshal Aspy Engineer (Indian Air Force).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Death and state funeral of Jawaharlal Nehru” is open-knowledge reference entry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Death, state and funeral, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “open-knowledge reference entry” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q96376096. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1964.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Death and state funeral of Jawaharlal Nehru”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Death and state funeral of Jawaharlal Nehru primary sources, Death and state funeral of Jawaharlal Nehru archive and Death research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Death and state funeral of Jawaharlal Nehru”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Death and state funeral of Jawaharlal Nehru” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.