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The Discovery of India Foujia Hasan
Written By Jawaharlal Nehru ID:193-26-1510

Written in a prison cell, this book is a discovery of his past by a troubled yet
resolute mind. It is an admission of the failings of one’s land, but not with a sense
of helplessness and self-pity but with a sense of responsibility, hope and action.
This book is the product of the times when an ancient civilisation encumbered by
the burden of its past, shamed by its present status of stagnation and slavery was
coming to terms with harsh realities of the present and intimidating challenges of
the future. That was a moment of transition. And in those moments national mind
runs the risk of getting overwhelmed; it craves for an anchorage, a civilisational
aspiration. And Jawaharlal Nehru tries to establish that anchorage. He ventures into
past and traces the roots of our country. Though not deeply, he examines the
culture, the literature, the science, the philosophy and the vital force which drove
India as one nation, one people. One might sense a tinge of self-glorification
during this part of the book but that can be forgiven for the honesty and self-
realisation of his failings on the part of the writer. This journey to the past is not
for the romance of the past or the nostalgia, it is a purposeful journey; a journey to
consolidate one’s ancient heritage and wisdom; to frankly face one’s mistakes and
failings; and to prepare oneself for the change.
To classify this book as one of the historical accounts of India will be an
incomplete assessment. Nehru is wrestling with many themes in this book- the vital
links that connect past with the present and portend future trajectories; an
individual’s sense of self and civilsational values he inhabits; and larger journey of
humanity. The book tries to understand the pathways through which these themes
feed into one another.
The approach Nehru adopts is an amalgam of pragmatism and idealism, of
normative and empirical; of inner and physical; of visible and invisible. The clarity
of thoughts in this book astonishes the reader. And so does the realisation by the
author of his limits of comprehension.
It is an indispensable account to come to terms with the idea of modern India and
the promise of an ancient civilisation.
First of all the first thing in this book is
“To know and understand India one has to travel far in time and space, to forget
for a while her present condition with all its misery and narrowness and horror,
and to have glimpses of what she was and what she did. 'To know my country',
wrote Rabindranath Tagore, 'one has to travel to that age, when she realized her
soul and thus transcended her physical boundaries, when she revealed her being
in a radiant magnanimity which illumined the eastern horizon, making her
recognized as their own by those in alien shores who were awakened into a
surprise of life; and not now when she has withdrawn herself into a narrow
barrier of obscurity, into a miserly pride of exclusiveness, into a poverty of mind
that dumbly revolves around itself in an unmeaning repetition of a past that has
lost its light and has no message for the pilgrims of the future.”
Does it achieve such a grand objective? It sweeps across Indian history on very
able wings and the history unfolds with irresistible drama and with the glow of a
golden splendor. India of old comes alive for the reader in all its old grandeur. But
this is dazzle. Does the expedition go beyond that and ‘discover’ India? It does and
it doesn't. The India glimmers and fades - reappearing every time Nehru takes an
unbiased look back and disappearing every time he turns his gaze eagerly to the
present.
The second half of the books quickly descends into a political commentary from
being a historical study - and in this transition from history to the present, the
‘discovery’ is left incomplete in the urgency to expostulate on current happenings.
This is a minor failure and Nehru is quite aware of it.
The conclusion is a fitting one (though this passage is not really the conclusion). It
was ultimately not about the Discovery of India as India is too diverse and
manifold, it was an inquiry into the soul of a generation, a Discovery of their India,
of the India then, of that generation, the greatest generation perhaps in our living
memory.
If only we could also figure a path to save ourselves from triviality. If only we too
could Discover the moving spirit of our own Generation.

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