Description
Who is this Bharat Mata, whose victory you wish?’ asked Jawaharlal Nehru—a leading light of the Indian freedom movement who would become the country’s first prime minister—at a public gathering in 1936. And then he explained: the mountains and rivers, forests and fields were of course dear to everyone, but what counted ultimately were ‘the people of India…spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, [is] essentially these millions of people, and victory to her [is] victory to these people.’
This collection of writings and speeches by and on Nehru shows us the mind—the ideology, born of experience, observation and deep study—behind this democratic and inclusive idea of India. It is a book of particular relevance at a time when ‘nationalism’ and the slogan ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ are being used to construct a militant and purely emotional idea of India that excludes millions of residents and citizens.
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