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.
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