PREFACE
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) is remembered as a major leader of
the Indian nationalist movement and the first prime minister of inde-
pendent India (1947–64). As a left-leaning leader of an anti-colonialist
nationalist movement and an internationalist, he became well-known
outside India in the 1920s and 1930s, speaking out against imperialism
in other countries and expressing solidarity with anti-fascism and
the republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. By the time of Indian
independence in 1947, he was already a world leader of some stature. His
importance grew, particularly in the context of the aspirations of other
emergent nationalisms in the colonial and former colonial world, who
looked to India as an example, and of the Cold War, which made the
superpowers’ desire to have India, strategically placed both geographically
and ideologically, on their side. Within India, his reputation as one of the
giants of the Indian nationalist movement and his credentials as Mahatma
Gandhi’s acknowledged political heir made him a dominant figure in
Indian politics before and after independence.
It would not be untrue to say that educated Indians have a love-
hate relationship with the figure of Jawaharlal Nehru. Much has been
said, all with much emotion and involvement, about his legacy, his career,
his mistakes, his failure to understand India, and so on. It is an extremely
involved relationship, of filial homage or symbolic parricide in a deeply
patriarchal society. He was in so many ways a positive figure: if not some-
one you actually admired, someone you might so easily have admired.
He was the public face of India to the world for so many years – so many
crucial years for our self-respect, our sense of independence, of being free.
We might have wanted him to be someone else – very often: firmer, more
self-assertive in his dealings with the lesser mortals, the self-interested
mediocrities of his party; more radical in carrying out his various pro-
gressive pronouncements; readier to move with the left than to sit with
the right; more far-sighted on Kashmir – everyone has his or her list. Few
have allowed themselves to doubt his good intentions. His political
opponents must bear much of the responsibility for disarming themselves
in his presence: they were half in love with him themselves. ‘He was our
beautiful but ineffectual angel,’ wrote the communist, Hiren Mukerjee,