Nehru

The Debates That Defined India

By: Tripurdaman Singh, Adeel Hussain

Narrated by: Shubhankar

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

A history of Nehru that dives deep into the debates of his era to understand his ideology - and that of his contemporaries and opponents, asking what India would look like had another bold young mind with fiercely held views led during the country’s formative years of independence.

Sixty years after the death of Jawaharal Nehru, the independence activist and first prime minister of India continues to be deified and vilified in equal measure. And still in contemporary political debate, the ideological spectrum remains defined by the degree of divergence from Nehru’s ideas. With the Nehruvian ideals increasingly juxtaposed against the positions of Nehru’s erstwhile contemporaries and questions asked about what might have happened on the Indian subcontinent had another hero of that era taken leadership, this book explores his encounters with key contemporaries to excavate and evaluate the views that were in circulation.

It examines the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his cause of Hindu-Muslim unity, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee of the Hindu Mahasabha and his fierce defence of the constitution, the Congress leader Sardar Patel, with whom Nehru often disagreed about the threat of China, and Mohammad Iqbal, the poet and politician whose letters on Muslim solidarity were often issued from a prison cell.

The correspondence and interactions that Nehru had with these key personalities captures the essence of how post-independent India was projected as a nation, and the early directions it took towards self-definition.

©2021 Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Nehru: The Debates That Defined India is an important contribution to the continuing evaluation of Nehru’s role in the crafting of modern India. Examining four key debates between Nehru and the leading figures of his age on religion, foreign policy and civil liberties, Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain allow Nehru and his interlocutors to express themselves in their own words. Delving lucidly into the most significant ideological battles of the era, this book deftly outlines the thinking and dialogue that laid the foundations of the republic - and which remain deeply relevant and contentious today." (Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire)

"[A book that] [r]eminds us of an era when Indian politics thrummed with ideas and arguments, articulated with conviction and civility. There is much to learn from, and in turn to argue with, in this timely anthology of some of modern India's most contentious - and still continuing - debates." (Sunil Khilnani, author of The Idea of India and Incarnations)

"This innovative book allows us to understand Nehru's legacy by focussing on some of the most important debates of his career. Putting together his correspondence and conversation with powerful rivals and colleagues, ranging from Jinnah to Sardar Patel, the authors have for the first time made available in a single volume the intense arguments that went into the making of modern India. The result is a nuanced exploration of the strengths and weaknesses of the country's first prime minister." (Faisal Devji, professor of history at the University of Oxford and author of Muslim Zion)