Nehru's India Essays on the Maker of a Nation

Nehru's influence stretched beyond the Freedom Movement and the political and

bureaucratic boundaries of prime ministerhood. A man of letters, it was Nehru

who initiated the setting up of the Sahitya Akademi devoted to literature, the

National School of Drama and the National Institute of Design; just as, in the field

of technology and business management, he established the Indian Institutes of

Technology and the Indian Institutes of Management across the country. He was

equally the force behind the setting up of dams and factories, which he regarded

as the temples of modern India.

Today, the four key dimensions of Indian nationhood, as conceived and

implemented by Nehru-democracy, secularism, socialism and non-alignment-

have altered to a point where they have changed almost beyond recognition or

even abandoned altogether. As the debate continues between Nehru's supporters

who believe in his enduring contribution, and his detractors who attempt to deny

it, the definitive word, perhaps, comes from Nayantara Sahgal, who says in her

Introduction, 'No Nehru, no modern India. The ground we stand on was laid in

Nehru's time.'

This volume brings together an examination of the different aspects of Nehru's

personality and his legacy by some of our foremost thinkers, writers and activists:

Mani Shankar Aiyar, Kumar Ketkar, Aditya and Mridula Mukherjee,

Shiv Visvanathan, Rakesh Batabyal, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Hartosh

Bal, Aakar Patel, Kiran Nagarkar, Purushottam Agrawal, Syeda

Hameed, Ramachandra Guha, Neera Chandhoke and Shabnam

Hashmi.