As a part of Quit India Movement of 1942, many freedom fighters were imprisoned by British government. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested and was send to jail for three years. The greatest work of Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘The discovery of India’ was written during this period. This book was written in the period of 5 months from April 1944 to September when Nehru was in Ahmedabad jail. He started the first episode of this book in 1944 April 13. By that time, 20 months had already passed in jail. It was for the ninth time Nehru went to jail, when 1.5 years of punishment was already completed.

This book includes 10 chapters and Ahmed Nagar Fort is described in the first chapter. He tells about his philosophy of life in this chapter. He says that he is interested in present world and life and not some other world. He also says that future life is less significant to him. While he described the history of Ahmed Nagar Fort, he introduces a lady Chand Beebi in the first chapter of the book. She was a brave lady who led the warriors from front against Akbar of Mughal Empire.

Second chapter belongs to the places Badenweiler and Losan. Badenweiler is a place of Gremany where his wife was undergoing treatment in a sanatorium. When her condition became worse, Nehru was set free from jail. This chapter also includes political life of Kamala. The third chapter begins with the search of India. There is an interesting observation in this chapter. Once when a procession was going on with people uttering words, ‘Bharat mata ki jai’, he asked them, who Bharat Mata is. But they couldn’t answer his question. Nehru says that crores of Indians is ‘Bharat matha’ and their victory means, victory of Bharat Matha. In this chapter, taking the examples of Pathan and Tamilians, he proved ‘Unity in diversity’ of Indians, in simple language. He also tells about the influence of different religions in Indian culture, relationship with neighbouring nations and traditional art forms in this chapter. Basement of modern mathematics was started in India; he presented its proof in this chapter.

Next chapter gives an introduction of village panchayats and arrival of Arabs, Mongolians and Afghanis to India. Gandhiji’s entry to freedom struggle was told in 8^th chapter. He described how Gandhiji through his words conquered millions of Indian hearts. 9^th chapter describes Indian perspective to Second World War. In the last chapter, he concludes with a few events related to Ahmed Nagar Fort.

Through this book, any reader can easily understand how Nehru discovered a unified India, though it’s assimilation of many cultures, languages and tribes of people. Through this book, with proof he corrected certain mistakes written history and hence it’s a ‘must-read book’ to very Indian.   

Article Posted By : Sandhya Rani  On April 14, 2013lView All Articles

I love to read this book

Article Source :

http://www.veethi.com/articles/discovery-of-india-by-jawaharlal-nehru-article-1989.htm

Keywords :
Discovery of India , Jawaharlal Nehru , Chand Beebi , Bharat Matha