Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru is sworn in as independent India's first prime minister
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Before Nehru could take his oath, a judge had to swear in the former viceroy as independent India's governor-general — and the Red Fort ceremony everyone pictures came the next morning.
Government House, the morning of 15 August 1947
Independence took effect on 15 August 1947, creating the Dominion of India, and Louis Mountbatten consequently served as governor-general rather than viceroy.
At Government House in New Delhi, Justice H. J. Kania first administered the oath to Mountbatten. Mountbatten then swore in the ministers individually, beginning with Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister.
The Government House ceremony was scheduled for 8:30 a.m.
Head of a dominion, not a republic
The Indian Independence Act had made 15 August the appointed day for the creation of the independent Dominions of India and Pakistan, which is why Mountbatten had to take office and install the new ministry that morning.
Nehru now headed the government of an independent dominion. India did not become a republic until 1950: the Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949 and came into force on 26 January 1950.
The speeches on either side of the oath
The midnight Constituent Assembly session and the "Tryst with Destiny" address preceded the morning oath-taking rather than accompanying it.
The celebrated Red Fort flag-hoisting and address came the following morning, 16 August 1947, though later Independence Day observances use 15 August. Nehru's official prime-ministerial tenure runs from 15 August 1947 to 27 May 1964.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes Date corrected
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
Date corrected. The research places this at 1947-08-15.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The date is firm. Some Government of India web summaries compress the midnight independence proceedings and the later swearing-in into one midnight event, but the contemporary account and published ceremonial schedule place the Government House oaths in the morning of 15 August.