Nehru And The Spirit Of India

Jawaharlal Nehru was Platos philosopher king who discovered an India that remains an undiscovered possibility. Nehru and the Spirit of India is a critical and nuanced perusal of his intellectual and political legacy. From the politics of friendship between Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah Nehrus defense of secularism in the Constituent Assembly Debates to what propelled Nehru to curb free speech in the First Amendment Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee draws from political history to illuminate fierce debates in India today: Kashmir the CAA and hate speech. Be it contemporary events like the miracle of Ganesha drinking milk and the use of Vedic astrology in Chandrayaan-2 or the agonising suicide of a doctor the author examines the fractured nature of Indian modernity which Nehru had suggestively called a garb. Bhattacharjee bolsters Nehrus view that India is enriched by the encounter of cultures and that we must not discard the past but engage with it. As a second-generation refugee Bhattacharjee argues for a minoritarian approach to national politics. Breaking ideological and disciplinary protocols he compels us to learn from the insights of poets and thinkers. Lucidly written this provocative book offers an original perspective on Nehru and Indian history.