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This engaging new biography dispels many myths surrounding Nehru, and distinguishes between the icon he has become and the politician he actually was. Benjamin Zachariah places Nehru in the context of the issues of his time, including the central theme of nationalism, the impact of Cold War pressures on India and the transition from colonial control to a precarious independence. How did Jawaharlal Nehru come to lead the Indian nationalist movement, and how did he sustain his leadership as the first Prime Minister of independent India? Nehru's vision of India, its roots in Indian politics and society, as well as its viability have been central to historical and present-day views of India. Connecting the domestic and international aspects of his political life and ideology, this study provides a fascinating insight into Nehru, his times and his legacy.
336 pages, Paperback
First published June 24, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 9, 2007
An interesting take on modern Indian history through the political life of Nehru. As you read this book, two things become obvious - one, the version of history that we are taught in schools is over-simplified and tends to create a larger than life image of the major figures of the last 100 years, none more so than Nehru and Gandhi. Secondly, some of the major fault lines that you see in Indian public life today were prevalent then as well and the popular myth that the politics in India were clean in the 1940s-60s and then fell from grace starting in the 1970s can be safely thrown out of the window. Corruption and inept politicians were a big headache even before independence; the larger-than-life figures of Nehru/Patel spawned a sense of sycophancy in the Congress and more importantly, the Congress top was never questioned, leave alone challenged and most disturbingly, religion was already a big issue that most politicians were exploiting for narrow gains (combination of Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha and the explosive Gandhian mix of religion and politics). And so one thing becomes apparent - the current rot of the political system had set in much earlier than we normally think.
Nehru himself seemed ahead of the rest of his colleagues on many issues and his well thought out positions on issues like linguistic division of states (he opposed it - with good reason), mixing of religion and politics (he steadfastly refused to ban cow slaughter), central planning (his single-handedly drove the entire top-down economic growth agenda)tends to leave the reader impressed and a little worried (what was the rest of the cabinet/ bureaucrats/technocrats doing).
In the ultimate analysis, you cannot help feeling that Nehru was indeed a great man but there is only so much one individual could have done and in the end, it may have been that in his attempts to focus on too many issues, the Nehruvian vision never came to be fully defined and executed.
And of course, there are juicy tidbits about the spats between Nehru and Gandhi - it is interesting how often they disagreed and that too on fundamental issues. So much so, that they had virtually stopped speaking to each other on most political/economic issues from the late 1930s.
Nehru himself seemed ahead of the rest of his colleagues on many issues and his well thought out positions on issues like linguistic division of states (he opposed it - with good reason), mixing of religion and politics (he steadfastly refused to ban cow slaughter), central planning (his single-handedly drove the entire top-down economic growth agenda)tends to leave the reader impressed and a little worried (what was the rest of the cabinet/ bureaucrats/technocrats doing).
In the ultimate analysis, you cannot help feeling that Nehru was indeed a great man but there is only so much one individual could have done and in the end, it may have been that in his attempts to focus on too many issues, the Nehruvian vision never came to be fully defined and executed.
And of course, there are juicy tidbits about the spats between Nehru and Gandhi - it is interesting how often they disagreed and that too on fundamental issues. So much so, that they had virtually stopped speaking to each other on most political/economic issues from the late 1930s.
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February 2, 2014this books is every well
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews