Written by
Nayantara Sahgal, prize-winning novelist and political commentator,
Jawaharlal Nehru presents an intimate view of the influences, encounters and defining historical moments that forged the vision of India's first prime minister. Drawing from the Nehru and the Vijayalakshmi Pandit Papers, and from Nehru's letters to
Sahgal, his niece, this book combines history with personal recollections to show how Nehru helped navigate India's transition from a colony to an influential, modern nation.
Discussing the significant issue of independent India's foreign policy characterized by the non-alignment principle and the establishment of relations with the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China Sahgal reveals much about Nehru political astuteness, realism and aversion to rigid economic doctrines, as well as the profound impact India's non-aligned policy had on the world of the time.
Perceptive, original and stimulating,
Jawaharlal Nehru draws much-needed attention back to the man and his unmatched ability to engineer a consensus among seemingly irreconcilable sides.
About The Author
Nayantara Sahgal is the author of nine novels, five non-fiction works and wide-ranging literary and political commentary. She has received the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Sinclair Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Eurasia. She is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has held fellowships in the United States at the Bunting Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Humanities Center.
During the 1980s, she was vice-president of the People's Union of Civil Liberties, and in 1990 and 1991, she served as Chair on the jury of the Commonwealth Writer's Prize. A resident of Dehradun, she has been awarded the Doon Ratna, and has also received the Distinguished Alumna Award from Wellesley College, Massachusetts, in 2003 and from Woodstock School, Mussoorie, in 2004.
