Jawaharlal Nehru: A Communicator and Democratic Leader

Contents: Foreword to the Present Edition. Foreword to the First Edition. Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. The Years of Promise. 3. A Writer Arrives. 4. Reaching Out to the World. 5. The American Audience. 6. The Socialist Path, Asia's Slumbering Giant and Overseas Indians. 7. Office Acceptance: The Politics of Compromise. 8. The Saint and the Militant: Ideology and Loyalty. 9. The Coming of War: New Challenges. 10. Confrontation within Limits: Individual Satyagraha. 11. Uncertain World-Larkharati Duniya. 12. The Failure of a Mission. 13. The Zero Hour: Quit India. 14. Problems within a Peer Group-Ahmadnagar Fort. 15. Only Connect. Afterword. Index.

Jawaharlal Nehru: A Communicator and Democratic Leader explores multiple facets of Nehru’s experiments in communication as a speaker, writer and formulator of policy as a part of the Congress. In all this, we find, he is affectionately influenced by Gandhi; but, he remains himself, in his style, his attitude to socialism and secularism, his excitement about science and his urge to communicate his own anguish at the tragic divisions of the modern era as well as his hopes of a better world to the younger generation in his country. Simultaneously he discovers within himself a remarkable capacity to convey all this and much more through the written word—articles, dispatches, addresses and, most of all, books.

With a Foreword by Rudrangshu Mukherjee for this reissue, this book addresses a dimension of the personality of the first prime minister of India which still does not receive adequate attention. How a shy, if not inarticulate, public speaker became the destiny of the millions is an exciting story. In studying Nehru as an effective communicator, other facets of his interaction with people—his peers, his critics and his friends all over the world necessarily come into the ambit of this work; most important of all is relationship with Gandhi. This book therefore, ventures beyond communication to narrate the whole story of his evolution as a political activist, later to be crowned with success as a major statesman of the twentieth century.