Nehru’s India

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An iconoclastic history of the first two decades after independence in IndiaNehru’s India brings a provocative but nuanced set of new interpretations to the history of early independent India. Drawing from her extensive research over the past two decades, Taylor Sherman reevaluates the role of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, in shaping the nation. Sherman argues that the ideas, policies, and institutions most strongly associated with Nehru—nonalignment, secularism, socialism, democracy, the strong state, and high modernism—have lost their explanatory power. They have become myths.
Sherman examines seminal projects from the time and also introduces readers to little-known personalities and fresh case studies, including India’s continued engagement with overseas Indians, the importance of Buddhism in secular India, the transformations in industry and social life brought about by bicycles, a riotous and ultimately doomed attempt to prohibit the consumption of alcohol in Bombay, the early history of election campaign finance, and the first state-sponsored art exhibitions. The author also shines a light on underappreciated individuals, such as Apa Pant, the charismatic diplomat who influenced foreign policy from Kenya to Tibet, and Urmila Chowdhury, the rebellious architect who helped oversee the building of Chandigarh.
Tracing and critiquing developments in this formative period in Indian history, Nehru’s India offers a fresh and definitive exploration of the nation’s early postcolonial era.

US

Taylor C. Sherman teaches in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her books include Muslim Belonging in Secular India and State Violence and Punishment in India.

“Nehru’s India is a vital, exciting reassessment of one of the twentieth century’s most compelling figures. Written with great elegance, verve, and a sly sense of humor, this book offers a provocative deconstruction of some of the most pervasive and enduring misconceptions around Indian politics, society, and planning in the early decades of independence. A joy to read, this work promises to stoke great debate.”—Benjamin Siegel, Boston University“Tightly conceived and deliciously readable, this is a timely intervention into the urgent questions being raised about the direction of India today. With insightful and economical prose, Sherman identifies and deconstructs Nehruvian pillars of the postcolonial period. A masterly engagement with the available evidence, Sherman’s analysis urges us to revisit the Nehruvian era.”—Kama Maclean, University of Heidelberg

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