Customer Reviews

Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny

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Jawahar Lal Nehru was undoubtably one of the most influential political figures in the history of India. His life, his habits, his passions, his beliefs all showed him to be a man who was obsessed in getting what he wanted.

About the book:
Fabolous, marvellous, well researched, insightful and beautifully written. A must read for any one who wishes to understand the history of the Indo Pak region. Stanley Wolpert has written a very honest account and has presented Nehru's good and bad sides without adding or taking away anything.

About the man:
Nehrus personality had the charm and attraction that pulled people to follow his words. He was the angry young man of India who wanted to 'do or die' but get the british out of India. His vigour and energy , as portrayed in the book, was exemplary.

He was a mans man - brave, intelligent, determined and having an eye for beauty [both natural and feminine] and was not shy in going after what he believed to be right and just. Like all human beings, he was not perfect and made oversights due to his ego and bias but he did change the course of history. He was no less then Che Guevera or Martin Luther King in leading 'his' people to freedom. An iconic man with an overwhelming personality !

This is a book which needs to be read with patience !

Over generalizes. Wolpert uses an innocent remark about a bath in the nude to suggest that Nehru had a homosexual encounter. Wolpert does not show any great insight in his synthesis of the material.

I laud Stanley Wolpert's scholarship in giving a detailed account of free India's first prime minister. All too often, historical accounts about Nehru have reflected on his intellect and idealism-shaped policies. However, Wolpert's work gives a balanced view that describes Nehru's failings as well. In the end, Wolpert argues, Nehru was not the most suitable person to lead a young democracy struggling to balance its often-competing priorities in an increasingly polar, post-war world.

I admit that I knew precious little about India prior to reading this book, and even less about Nehru. Author Stanley Wolpert, UCLA professor of Indian history, presents well-researched information. Wolpert was given access to private files and letters that make his text gleam with insightful tidbits of Nehru's life. There is no doubt that Nehru's influence on India was profound during his life and since his death in 1964.

I began to think of Nehru as a "rascal" and this label for him continued to cross my mind as I read further. Although Nehru studied law at Cambridge, he had little interest in it. What did interest him was wandering around Europe, sitting in hot tubs at Harrogate's hydro, and acting, dressed as a seductive woman, in Victorian tableaux. Whenever he needed money to pursue his dalliances, he would ask his father for more. If Motilal would refuse, he would ask his mother to intercede.

Meanwhile, world events began to change India's attitude toward British colonialism. During World War I, over one million Indian troops fought for the British Empire, with over 100,000 killed. Not ones to show their gratitude, the British passed the Black Acts in 1915 that suspended Indian civil liberty and judicial due process. Nehru traveled through India with Gandhi to speak about Indian independence. Of the masses who greeted Gandhi, Nehru said that they were "dull...and uninteresting individually," but "produced a feeling of overwhelming pity and a sense of ever-impending tragedy."

By the late 1920's, Nehru was heavily entangled in Indian politics. Although he signed the Delhi manifesto, a compromise that gave India dominion status rather than full independence, he felt guilty about going against his inner voice. His fervent speeches about Indian independence led to years of incarceration. While in court in 1934 charged with sedition, Nehru stated his desire to "achieve the independence of India and to put an end to foreign domination." His approach to Indian independence became even more radical, moving further away from Gandhi's peaceful resistance. In public, however, Nehru did not admit his swing away from Gandhi's passivity. He recognized Gandhi's popularity as a guru. Gandhi, in turn, recognized Nehru's political support.

If ever a movie is made about Nehru, I am certain that the bulk of the story will be on his liaisons with Edwina, Claire Boothe Luce and others. Fortunately, author Stanley Wolpert does not dwell on this portion of Nehru's life in his book, but rather concentrates on Nehru's obvious impact upon India's government. Of course, a movie about Nehru's many years of incarceration would be quite boring. I found many parts of this book difficult to follow because Wolpert jumps around in time faster than a Quentin Tarantino movie. The absolute worst omission from the book is that there is no map of India or of south Asia. I am not the sort who carries a world map in my head, so when a book like this is chock-a-block full of references to geographical features and political strife, why is there is no map to which to refer? Other than this serious lack, the book is a thoughtful and well-researched focus on a great world leader.

Didn't shed any light on Nehru's personality in spite of Wolpert's psycho-historical approach.

This biography fails to show the life of Mr. J.L. Nehru in a true perspective and is very judgemental. The author's views are shaped totally on the impressions that he had while writing a book on the contemporary of Mr Nehru, Mr M.A. Jinnah. This book just seems to be an extension of the earlier one on Mr Jinnah, which certainly is a brilliant book written on a person that we know so less about. It seems while reading the book that the author is time and again trying to justify what he had written in the earlier biography and thus ends up showing Nehru in a worse light more often than not. A biography cannot be written on the basis of views of the opponents of the biographee. What the author fails to realize is that two people could have their own thinking that conflicts with one another and yet be great people. A bad book for an author of well written books like biographies of M.A. Jinnah and Z.A. Bhutto, and A New History of India. For those who are interested in reading a biography on Nehru I would recommend the one by M.J. Akbar which is brilliantly written.

I believe Prof. Stanley A. Wolpert has done intensive research on his book and has the concept of "free speech" in mind. Nehru an over-rated person has been defined truely in this book. This book is for the people who are free in their minds and for the people who can appriciate truth. I would recomend this book to all Indians who love their country in a true manner.

With his biography of Nehru, Stanley Wolpert has completed a trilogy of works on three of the key architects of Modern South Asian history (with Zulfikar Bhutto and Jinnah). Wolpert's insight, aided by his impressive access to research materials and interviews with supporting cast, provides a comprehensive view of India's first leader, and gives a keen, objective account of his life. It is refreshing to see an accurate, unbiased reporting, instead of the overly romanticized and effusive distortion espoused by Attenborough in his movie, Gandhi. Upon reading Wolpert's biographies of Nehru, Bhutto and Jinnah, one will be left with the conclusion that Jinnah was a man to be respected and admired; Bhutto was a man whom one could admire but not respect; and Nehru was a man whom one could neither respect nor admire. The book shows Nehru to be a duplicitous charlatan who hid behind the guise of his pompous upbringing and education, and was more concerned with the sexual conquest of the wives of powerful men than with the concerns of his countrymen. These three biographies should be required reading for anyone interested in South Asian history and politics, particularly in light of the recent developments of India's and Pakistan's nuclear programs. One may better understand the genesis of the underlying hostility between these two nations through an examination of those who helped shape things.

another failed piece about South Asia by a known orientalist scholar. If you like being in a fantasy world then this book is for you.