This biography of Nehru is also a political history of India over the forty years of Nehru's involvement in the freedom movement and the politics of the formative years of Indian nationhood. It traces Nehru's political and psychological development, exploring the complexities of his character. Brecher assesses Nehru as a leader and also his place in history. This well-researched book will appeal to all interested in biographies and modern Indian history.
Divided into eight sections, The Oxford India Nehru covers Nehru's writings spanning six decades and includes over 230 letters, articles, extracts from books, notes penned in jail, political statements, and diary entries, as also some of his very early personal correspondences. Apart from new writings, the current volume draws material from the two-volume The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru edited by S. Gopal and Uma Iyengar, which included within its covers some of Jawaharlal Nehru's most representative writings. The extraordinary felicity and elegance of these writings ranging from wildlife to culture, from communalism to science and technology, reveal the many facets of Nehru's personality-a devoted son working incessantly to achieve political freedom for his motherland; a committed statesman striving for a secular, egalitarian, and democratic society in a newly-independent India; a visionary laying a strong foundation for science and technology, and launching the atomic energy program; an aesthete delighting in the rains, natural beauty, and good books. Including this astonishing range of themes - be it metaphysics, brooms, horse breeding, governance, or the Hindu Code Bill - addressed by Nehru in thought and action is aimed at reaching out to a larger audience, including young readers.
Divided into eight sections, The Oxford India Nehru covers Nehru's writings spanning six decades and includes over 230 letters, articles, extracts from books, notes penned in jail, political statements, and diary entries, as also some of his very early personal correspondences. Apart from new writings, the current volume draws material from the two-volume The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru edited by S. Gopal and Uma Iyengar, which included within its covers some of Jawaharlal Nehru's most representative writings. The extraordinary felicity and elegance of these writings ranging from wildlife to culture, from communalism to science and technology, reveal the many facets of Nehru's personality-a devoted son working incessantly to achieve political freedom for his motherland; a committed statesman striving for a secular, egalitarian, and democratic society in a newly-independent India; a visionary laying a strong foundation for science and technology, and launching the atomic energy program; an aesthete delighting in the rains, natural beauty, and good books. Including this astonishing range of themes - be it metaphysics, brooms, horse breeding, governance, or the Hindu Code Bill - addressed by Nehru in thought and action is aimed at reaching out to a larger audience, including young readers.
Nehru's linguistic sophistication, his extraordinary sensitivity to language and his mastery of English prose, are traced back to his childhood in Allahabad through an examination of his personal letters, and the translations he did at school, as also his later reading and writing. In dealing with Nehru's crucial role in the area of Indian language politics the book rounds out our picture of India's first prime minister.
This is the first analysis of India-U.S. foreign policy during the formative period of their relations to be able to use the Nehru Papers, the seminal source for understanding the worldview of India's first Prime Minister and Minister of External Affairs, 1947-1964. Nehru established the twin pillars of Non-Alignment and Asianism as the foundation of India's foreign policy. Read alongside declassified U.S. documents and available declassified Chinese documents, they provide the foundational understanding of U.S.-India suspicion and India-China rivalry.
Judith Brown explores Nehru as a figure of power and provides an assessment of his leadership at the head of a newly independent India with no tradition of democratic politics.
Examines the emergence of anti-imperialist internationalism during the interwar years from the perspective of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Elegant, perceptive, and startlingly prophetic, Nehru: A Contemporary’s Estimate is one of the finest accounts of Nehru ever written. Walter Crocker, the Australian high commissioner to India, admired Nehru the man—his grace, style, intelligence and energy—and was deeply critical of many of his political decisions—the invasion of Goa, India’s Kashmir policy, the Five Year Plans. This book, written shortly after Nehru’s death, is full of invaluable first hand observations about the man and his politics. Many of Crocker’s points, too—especially the implications of the Five Year Plans and of the introduction of democracy to India—are particularly relevant today. Out of print for many years, this classic biography has been reissued with an authoritative foreword by Ramachandra Guha.
India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, left behind a legacy of both great achievements and surprising defeats. Most notably, he failed to resolve the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan and the territorial conflict with China. In the fifty years since Nehru's death, much ink has been spilled trying to understand the decisions behind these puzzling foreign policy missteps. Mahesh Shankar cuts through the surrounding debates about nationalism, idealism, power, and security with a compelling and novel answer: reputation. India's investment in its international image powerfully shaped the state's negotiation and bargaining tactics during this period. The Reputational Imperative proves that reputation is not only a significant driver in these conflicts but also that it's about more than simply looking good on the global stage. Considerations such as India's relative position of strength or weakness and the value of demonstrating resolve or generosity also influenced strategy and foreign policy. Shankar answers longstanding questions about Nehru's territorial negotiations while also providing a deeper understanding of how a state's global image works. The Reputational Imperative highlights the pivotal—yet often overlooked—role reputation can play in a broad global security context.
