The Discovery Of India - Jawaharlal Nehru

Have read this book in Mid 90's fascinated and was introduced to it, from the DD serial Bharath ek Khoj. Took this up again as 28th of 2020 for couple of reasons - viz. felt like the book was calling me from the book shelf, no wonder could be because was thinking about Nehru and India with claims from Blind Bhakth's  of it being a dark era until 2014. Also thought worth documenting the key notes from this book. Another compelling force to do it was listening to Shashi Tharoor and Subramania Swami mention about this book, one saying this is one of his favorite top 5 books, and other  going at length to describe why it was not written by Nehru. 

The book in 10 chapters, starts and ends with the Ahmadnagar Fort, and is dedicated to colleagues and co prisoners in the Ahmadnagar. Nehru was in  Prison Camp from 9 August 1942 to 28 March 1945; this was written over five months, when Nehru was imprisoned there, and Published after release in 1946. In this book Nehru brings alive, an ancient culture, that has seen the flowering of the world's great traditions of philosophy, science and art, and almost all its major religions; analysis-es ancient texts like Vedas and Arthashastra, speaks about great personalities like Buddha and Gandhi with deep humanity and lucid style. 

When the world was going through the world war 2 and the famine; Nehru was imprisoned, and had a great urge for action. He pondered over the past in its relation to the present. Another reason for doing so, was he had lost his wife Kamala. On Life Philosophy, he mentions:

| The future is dark, uncertain. But we can see part of the way leading to it and can tread it with firm steps, remembering that nothing that can happen is likely to overcome the spirit of man which has survived so many perils; remembering also that life, for all its ills, has joy and beauty, and that we can always wander, if we know how to, in the enchanted woods of nature.  

Chorus from The Bacchae of Euripides, Gilbert Murray's translation:

    What else is wisdom? What of man's endeavour

            Or God's high grace, so lovely and so great?

            To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait;

            To hold a hand uplifted over hate;

    And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever?

About The problem of Human relationship which is vital according to him; he says:

 It should be possible to have a union of pose and inner and outer progress, of the wisdom of the old with the science and the vigour of the new.  Indeed we appear to have arrived at a stage in the world's history when the only alternative to such a union is likely to be the destruction and undoing of both. 

On General elections, he was a convinced believer of adult franchise. In the quest, he felt, he lived two lives.  From chapter four begins the discovery of India, beginning with The Indus valley civilisation, Buddha upto Ashoka. Central idea of our culture was Dharma, which was part of Rita. 'Through the ages', takes us through the era of Guptas, and India's relationship with various nations in the world.  How Sanskrit, Greek and Latin have common words, and could be from common source; why we would have started the practise of idol worship from Greek, while Vedic period it was opposed. The six systems of philosophy followed were Nyaya, Vaishesika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta. Romain Rolland wrote:

"If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India".

Chapter Six deals with the new problems, beginning with the Arabs and Mongols upto the arrival of British.  Four legendary figures/great conquerors were Sikander (Alexander0, Sultan Mahmud, Chengiz Khan, and Timur. Arab culture flowered here long before they started their conquest; as we traded with them. There were different people who tried to conquer starting with Mogols, followed by Arabs, Afghans and Turks. Mahmud of Ghazni looted India couple of Times but reached only the north - Punjab. It was the lineage of Babar to Akbar who first captured Delhi and started the process of Indianization. Till them South Was always separate - with links to Jaya, Indonasia, Combodia - comming under Chola Dynasty and different rulers. Aurangzeb put the clock back and there was growth of Hindu Nationalism. There was decline all along the line - intellectual, philosophical, political, in technique and methods of warfare, in knowledge of and contacts with the outside world, and there was a growth of local sentiments and feudal, small-group feeling at the expense of the larger conception of India as a whole and a shrinking economy. In 1739 Nadir Shah of Persia swept down to Delhi, killing and plundering and carrying off enormous treasure including the famous peacock throne. A consequence of this raid was separation of Afghanistan from India. The real protagonists for power in India during the 18th century were Marathas, Haider Ali, British and French. 

Chapter's seven to nine covers the British rule, their ideology, revolts, challenges, frustrations and wars. When the book was written in 1944, the British had been in the city of Madras a little over 300 years, ruled Bengal/Bihar etc for 187 years, in south over 145 years, United Provinces - central and western India about 125 years ago, and spread to Punjab 95 years ago. The East India company had received permission from the Mughal Emperor to start a factory at Surat early in the 17th century, later they purchased land in the south and founded Madras, in 1662 the island of Bombay was presented to Charles II of England by way of dowry from Portugal, and he transferred it to the Company. In 1690 the city of Calcutta was founded. The battle of Plassey in 1757 brought vast area under their control.  

There are alternating tendencies for self-glorification and self-pity, both are undesirable and ignoble. It is not through sentimentality and emotional approaches that we can understand life, but by a frank and courageous facing of realities. We cannot lose ourselves in aimless and romantic quests unconnected with life's problems, for destiny marches on and does not wait for our leisure. Nor can we concern ourselves with externals only, forgetting the significance of the inner life of man. There has to be a balance, an attempt at harmony between them. 'The greatest good', wrote Spinoza in the seventeenth century;

is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole of nature....The more the mind knows the better it understands its forces and the order of nature; the more it understands its forces or strength, the better it will be able to direct itself and lay down rules for itself; and the more it understands the order of nature the more easily it will be able to liberate itself from useless things, this is the whole method

'Oftentimes', says Lao Tzu:

Oftentimes, one strips oneself of passion

        In order to see the Secret of Life;

Oftentimes one regards life with passion,

        In order to see its manifold results. 

In our individual lives also we have to discover a balance between the body and the spirit, and between man as part of nature and man as part of society. Perfection is beyond us for it means the end, and we are always journeying, trying to approach something that is ever receding. And in each one of us are many different human beings with their inconsistencies and contradictions, each pulling in a different direction. There is the love of life and the disgust with life the acceptance of all that life involves and the rejection of much of it. It is difficult to harmonize these contrary tendencies, and sometimes one of them is dominant and sometimes another. 

In the Epilogue he writes:

"India is a geographical and economic entity, a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads. Overwhelmed again and again, her spirit was never conquered, and today when she appears to be the plaything of a proud conqueror, she remains unsubdued and unconquered. ..She is a myth and an idea, a dream and a vision, and yet very real and present and pervasive. ......The world of today has achieved much, but for all its declared love for humanity, it has based itself far more on hatred and violence than on the virtues that make man human. War may be unavoidable sometimes, but its progeny are terrible to contemplate. Not mere killing, for man must die, but the deliberate and persistent propagation of hatred and falsehood, which gradually become the normal habits of the people. It is dangerous and harmful to be guided in our life's course by hatred and aversions, for they are wasteful of energy and limit and twist the mind and prevent it from perceiving the truth. Unhappily there is hatred today in India and strong aversions, for the past pursues us and the present does not differ from it. It is not easy to forget repeated affronts to the dignity of a proud race. Yet fortunately, Indians do not nourish hatred for long, they recover easily a more benevolent mood. .......

For only they can sense life who stand often on the verge of it, only they whose lives are not governed by the fear of death. In spite of all the mistakes that we may have made, we have saved ourselves from triviality and an inner shame and cowardice. That, for our individual selves, has been some achievement. 

Man's dearest possession is life, and since it is given to him to live but once, he must so live as not to be seared with the shame of a cowardly and trivial past, so live as not to be tortured for years without purpose, so live that dying he can say: " All my life and my strength were given to the first cause of the world - the liberation of mankind" - Nicolai Ostrovsky.