Nehru: The Invention of India

This is a very good book for those who do not know much about Nehru. Mr. Tharoor's style is simple and brings out the essential facts in a simple understandable manner. People who know more about Nehru may take issue with him as they might feel he is too kind towards him. But, this book I think is factual and certainly not a scholarly work as Mr. Tharoor himself mentions. I liked it.

good read

For anyone looking for an excellent, fairly brief book on Nehru, this is the one to get. The book moves along quickly, with nice analysis and is quite entertaining to read.

I am a huge fan of Jawaharlal Nehru The Architect of Modern India. I sincerely believe that Nehru is a blessing to India just like Mahatma Gandhi.Nehru's contribution to India reached deep roots and empowered lot of people in the first decade of Independence. This book is an unbiased portrayal of Nehru's life.I believe that Shashi Tharoor did an amazing job in this book. I am a huge fan of Shashi Tharoor English writing style.

Shashi Tharoor's review on Nehru is outstanding with regard to his assessment on Nehru's incovenient relationship he had shared with Mahatma Gandhi - besides vairous other Leaders who fought for the Freedom of India.

good

It is not easy to write a biography of a towering and complex personality like Nehru and not end up short. Everyone interested in India and its history has an opinion on Nehru and often they are diametrically opposite to one another. Tharoor, like me, is an admirer of Nehru and believes that his contribution to India is immense. This naturally, has its effect on his portrayal of Nehru and so this book should not be viewed as a comprehensive study of the man or of all his achievements and failures. I see this book as another perspective on Nehru and a well-written one.Nowadays, in India and particularly in the Indian diaspora, it is fashionable to denounce Nehru as the 'lotus-eater' from Kashmir and as one who ruined India's economic development and also as one who encouraged a pseudo-secular culture in India. Tharoor challenges this well in his book and shows the legacy of Nehru and the India that he tried to build on the pillars of democratic institution-building, staunch pan-Indian secularism, socialist economics at home and a foreign policy of non-alignment. In addition, I found that Tharoor brings out certain aspects of the past which are generally not highlighted in the teaching of history in our schools in India.For example, it was his father Motilal Nehru whose liberal and rationalist temperament that gave the son his scientific inclinations and agnosticism. Motilal had no time for the self-appointed guardians of any faith, abhorred bigotry and had contempt for Hindu communalism which mirrored the Muslim League. Motilal was also moderate and believed in compromise to find common ground. One can see that Jawaharlal Nehru imbibed all these qualities. I had never known that Motilal was such a significant personality.For all those Indians who talk ill of Nehru's independent thought process, Tharoor gives some interesting snippets. Nehru wrote in 1927, "England, in order to save herself from extinction, will become a satellite of the US and incite American imperialism to fight by her side". On China in the 1940s, he writes that a communist victory would not necessarily mean a rule by the principles of Marx; the role of the 'small peasant' would ensure a departure from 'pure communism'. He also speculates in the 1940s that Britain and the US will join together to create a powerful Anglo-Saxon bloc to dominate the world.Tharoor writes about another little-known and interesting snippet about Nehru's democratic instincts. Nehru himself penned an pseudonymous essay in the Modern Review in the late 1930s, warning the countrymen to put a check on Nehru and stop him from becoming a Caesar as he has all the makings of a dictator in him! This was because he was conscious of the risk that power, and in particular mass adulation, could turn one's head.There have been many who denounce on his conduct of foreign policy. Still, I am in agreement with Shashi Tharoor when he says: " Nehru projected a different ideal for India on the world stage. The force of example, the nobility of aspiration and the articulation of India's interests as those of a humanistic universalism, all served to give Nehru's India stature. India did not speak in terms of nation-state rivalry or patriotic chauvinism ; Nehru sought a loftier place for India on the world stage. For all its flaws, this credibility was not easily achieved.". Such idealism obviously does not pay much dividends nor is it possible for any nation to sustain it consistently. But it shows Nehru's vision of an India, inspired by his tutelage under Gandhi and at the dawn of India's independence in the late 1940s, there was a case for such idealism.The book brings out Tharoor's passion for India through Nehru. Tharoor himself is a citizen of the world and was an UN official and through his literary abilities, he paints a composite picture of Jawaharlal Nehru. With the rising middle-class in India, which like elsewhere, tends to be more right-wing, sectarian and parochial, this book is a good balancer for the young of India to understand the ideals of the 'Nehru-Gandhi' vision of India.

Nehru was a great blend of idealism and 'courage to act' on that idealism. This book provides various examples of Nehru's courage including:1) When Nehru physically fights a Hindu attacking a Muslim during the riots (shortly after India's independence). When the attacker realizes who it is - he backs away - the story spreads - leading most Muslims to start trusting Nehru over their own communal leaders.2) Nehru openly and fiercely attacked Mussolini, Nazis and every form of fascism in Europe. He predicted that if the fascists were not stopped - it would lead to a 2nd world war. He also blamed England (Churchill) for having the power to stop these madmen but not doing enough before the start of the war. There are specific examples in this book about the 'its business as usual' attitude of Britain towards the ongoing Nazi brutalities prior to 1939.3) It seems Nehru was truly blind to any form of discrimination. He adamantly refused to accept any communal division in India - claiming that there was no 'Hindu Indian' or 'Muslim India' - just one united India - regardless of how much ever the British tried to create communal divide. Talk about ungraceful exits - the British ensured that they made the task of managing a free India (after their departure) a nightmare. They did everything they could to fuel communal tensions (including providing legislature seats based specifically on 'religion'. Granted - Jinnah's contribution to requesting these type of seats was part of the equation - however - the British leadership had the power to not buy into any communal divide.) While younger generations in India blame Nehru somewhat for his socialist tendencies - and not doing enough - anyone who reads this biography will be convinced that Nehru did more than one man's fair share (he spent over 9 years of his life in jail - and continually courted arrest rather than back down on his stance or withdraw his anti-British statements). Shashi Tharoor's writing style makes this book flow well - and his touches of humor are brilliant.