JAWAHARLAL NEHRU'S WRITINGS

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One of the books Nehru had written was Discovery of India. This book was written by him when he was in Ahmadnagar Fort prison in 1944. He took five months from April to September 1944 to complete the book. The proofing of the book was done by his daughter Indira Gandhi as he had no time to read the typescript. The book remains as written in prison with no additions or changes, except for the postscript at the end.

As Nehru said about the book: "It is mine and not wholly mine, as I am constituted today; it represents rather some past self of mine which has already joined the long succession of other selves that existed for a while and faded away, leaving only the memory behind."

Indira Gandhi's views on her father's writings

The [book] delves deep into the sources of India's personality. In his writings, he aimed at describing his motives and appraisals as meticulously as possible. The purpose was not self-justification or rationalisation, but to show the rightness and inevitability of the actions and events in which he was a prime participant.

Extracts from the book Discovery of India

Life's Philosophy

Religion merges into mysticism and metaphysics and philosophy. There have been great mystics, attractive figures, who cannot easily be disposed of as self-deluded fools. Yet mysticism (in the narrow sense of the word) irritates me; it appears to be vague and soft and flabby, not a rigorous discipline of the mind but a surrender of mental faculties and a living in a sea of emotional experience. The experience may lead occasionally to some insight into inner and less obvious processes, but it is also likely to lead to self-delusion.

The future is dark, uncertain. But we can see part of the way leading to it and can trend it with firm steps, remembering that nothing that can happen is likely to overcome the spirit of man which has survived so many perils; remembering also that life, for all its ills, has joy and beauty, and that we can always wander; if we know how to, in the enchanted woods of nature.

`What else is wisdom? What of man's endeavour
Or God's high grace, so lovely and so great?
To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait;
To hold a hand uplifted over Hate;
And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever?'

What is Hinduism?

Hinduism, as a faith, is vague, amorphous, many-sided, all things to all men. It is hardly possible to define it, or indeed to say definitely whether it is a religion or not, in the usual sense of the word. In its present form, and even in the past, it embraces many beliefs and practices, from the highest to the lowest, often opposed to or contradicting each other. Its essential spirit seems to be to live and let live. Mahatma Gandhi has attempted to define it: `If I were asked to define the Hindu creed, I should simply say: Search after truth through nonviolent means. A man may not believe in God and still call himself a Hindu. Hinduism is a relentless pursuit after truth ... Hinduism is the religion of truth. Truth is God. Denial of God we have known. Denial of truth we have not known'

Whatever the word we may use, Indian or Hindi or Hindustani, for our cultural tradition, we see in the past that some inner urge towards synthesis, derived essentially from the Indian philosophic outlook, was the dominant feature of Indian cultural, and even racial, development.

Bhagwad Gita

The Gita deals essentially with the spiritual background of human existence and it is in this context that the practical problems of everyday life appear. It is a call to action to meet the obligations and duties of life, but always keeping in view that spiritual background and the larger purpose of the universe. Inaction is condemned, and action and life have to be in accordance with the highest ideals of the age, for these ideals themselves may vary from age to age.

The message of the Gita is not sectarian or addressed to any particular school of thought. It is universal in its approach for everyone, Brahimn or outcaste: `All paths lead to Me,' it says.

More extracts from the book Discovery of India

Old Indian Art

Indian art is so intimately associated with Indian religion and philosophy that it is difficult to appreciate it fully unless one has some knowledge of the ideals that governed the Indian mind. In art, as in music, there is a gulf which separates eastern from western conceptions. Probably the great artists and builders of the middle ages in Europe would have felt more in tune with Indian art and sculpture than modern European artists who derive part of their inspiration at least from the Renaissance period and after. For in Indian art there is always a religious urge, a looking beyond, such as probably inspired the builders of the great cathedrals of Europe.

Gandhiji

Gandhiji was like a powerful current of fresh air that made us stretch ourselves and take deep breaths; like a beam of light that pierced the darkness and removed the scales from our eyes; like a whirlwind that upset many things, but most of all the working of people's minds. He did not descend from the top; he seemed to emerge from the millions of India, speaking their language and incessantly drawing attention to them and their appalling condition. Get off the backs of these peasants and workers, he told us, all you live by their exploitation; get rid of the system that produces this poverty and misery.

We did not grow much more truthful perhaps than we had been previously, but Gandhi was always there as a symbol of uncompromising truth to pull us up and shame us into truth. What is truth? I do not know for certain, and perhaps our truths are relative and absolute truth is beyond us. Different persons may and do take different views of truth, and each individual is powerfully influenced by his own background, training, and impulses. So also Gandhi. But truth is at least for an individual what he himself feels and knows to be true. According to this definition I do not know of any person who holds to the truth as Gandhi does. Gandhi influenced millions of people in India in varying degrees.

Vitality and Persistence of Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a language amazingly rich, efflorescent, full of luxuriant growth of all kinds, and yet precise and strictly keeping within the framework of grammar which Panini laid down two thousand six hundred years ago. It spread out, added to its richness, became fuller and more ornate, but always it stuck to its original roots.

The modern Indian languages descended from the Sanskrit, and therefore called Indo-Aryan languages, are: Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujrati, Oriya, Assamese, Rajasthani (a variation of Hindi), Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Kashmiri. The Dravidian languages are: Tamil, Telugu, Kanarese, and Malayalam. These fifteen languages cover the whole of India, and of these, Hindi, with its variation Urdu, is far the most widespread and is understood even where it is not spoken.

Bharat Mata

Sometimes as I reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome would greet me: Bharat Mata ki Jai - `Victory to Mother India.' I would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry, who was this Bharat Mata, Mother India whose victory they wanted? My question would amuse them and surprise them, and then, not knowing exactly what to answer, they would look at each other and at me. The question and answer went on, till they would ask me impatiently to tell them all about it. I would endeavour to do so and explain that India was all this that they had thought, but it was much more. The mountains and the rivers of India, and the forests and the broad fields, which gave us food, were all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people of India, people like them and me, who were spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, was essentially these millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these people. You are parts of this Bharat Mata, I told them, you are in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata, and as this idea slowly soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up as if they had made a great discovery.

Epilogue

Because of this business of thinking and trying to give some expressions to my thoughts, I have drawn myself away from the piercing edge of present and moved along the wider expanses of the past and the future.

`But the rage for travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action ... We imitate .... Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean on and follow the past and the distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed .... Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.'

Nehruji took almost five months to complete this book. He had covered a thousand hand-written pages.