Nehru - The Making of India
M.J. AKBAR
A brilliant portrait of the architect of a new nation, which analyses within its ambit the volatile political forces that have dominated and shaped 20th-century India.
Hardback | 140 x 216mm (5.5 x 8.5") | 624 pp
ISBN 8174362053
Rs.495.00
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Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, was the ideological and political heir of Gandhi. Building on the Mahatma’s foundations, as leader both of the Congress and of independent India from 1947, Nehru shaped the new state: his story is India’s story.
Born in Allahabad on 14 November 1889, Nehru was a Kashmiri Brahmin, a member of India’s most aristocratic caste. M.J. Akbar examines with great perception the social and cultural milieu in which Nehru grew up, giving a fascinating picture of the man behind the public figure. Drawing on a wealth of material released from British government records and from Nehru’s own papers, Akbar also looks at Nehru’s life against the background of volatile political forces that have dominated twentieth-century India, providing a unique insight into the years of struggle, loss and ultimately, achievement. The last hundred years have seen the growth of a new independent nation of vast complexity, both political and social: the architect of that nation was Jawaharlal Nehru.
About the author
M.J. Akbar, one of India’s finest editors and the author of four books, was born in January 1951. An Indian Muslim, his father Sheikh Akbar Ali was from Bihar, while his mother, Imtiaz, was a Kashmiri. He studied at St Joseph’s Convent, Chandannagar and the Calcutta Boys’ School before graduating from the Presidency College, Kolkata. He joined The Times of India Group, and then The Illustrated Weekly of India in 1971 where he worked as sub-editor and features writer. Five years later, he moved to the Ananda Bazaar Patrika Group and launched a weekly newsmagazine, Sunday, which soon established itself as a leading journal of the country.
In 1982, Akbar conceived, designed and edited The Telegraph, India’s most successful newspaper in the past few decades. He took a short break from journalism when he joined politics in 1989 and was elected to parliament. In 1994, Akbar launched The Asian Age, India’s first international newspaper. His books include India: The Siege Within, Riot After Riot, The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity, and Kashmir: Behind the Vale.
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