With reference to three statesmen of India, Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948, Subhas Chandra Bose, 1897-1945, and Jawaharlal Nehru, 1889-1964.
This intellectual history of twentieth-century Indian nationalist thought examines the relationship between three key figures of modern Indian history and the influence their ideas had in the shaping of society and politics in independent India. As leaders of the anti-imperialist struggle, Gandhi, Bose and Nehru not only devised various strategies to overthrow colonial rule, but also grappled with vital issues–democracy, federalism, secularism, social justice, gender equality, modernity, national identity and international relations–regarding the future of India. They responded to the challenge of the ‘modernizing’ mission of the West by going through a process of self-scrutiny, introspection and reform. At the same time, they had to formulate programmes within the constraints of political consensus to advance their respective visions of a modern, progressive and independent India. In this fresh and insightful analysis, Reba Som contrasts and juxtaposes the thoughts and responses of the three leaders to changing political and social conditions—from Gandhi’s faith in local self-governance and village-centric institutions to Nehru’s liberal values of secularism, equity and democracy and his belief in a planned economy to Bose’s struggle to project India’s concerns on the international stage. She draws chiefly on their own writings and speeches to show the evolution of their thinking in all its ambivalence, complexity and contradiction. In the process, she also offers a reassessment of Bose, often seen as a challenger to Gandhi, and emphasizes that Gandhi and Bose, despite fundamental ideological and political differences, shared much in common in temperament, foundational values and beliefs, and styles of functioning than perhaps even they themselves acknowledged. In showing how the intellectual and political legacy of Gandhi, Bose and Nehru contributed to the making of the modern Indian mind, Reba Som’s book becomes as much an examination of our present as it is an analysis of India’s fight against colonial rule and the struggle to define the country’s post-independence identity as a socialist secular democratic republic.