The Discovery of India
By Pandit Jawaharlala Nehru
The Discovery of India was written by the Indian freedom fighter Jawaharlal Nehru during his incarceration in 1942–1945 at Ahmednagar Fort in present-day Indian state of Maharashtra by British colonial authorities before the independence of India. The book was written in 1944 but published in 1946.
India’s first prime minister showed little respect or empathy for the nation’s Hindu majority
This review critically examines Nehru’s mindset, as revealed in his best-selling book, The Discovery of India (Penguin Classics, 2004). Nehru was educated in the image of India’s British rulers, and, by his own admission, this education left him unconnected with his fellow Indians. He unreservedly accepted the European hypotheses about India’s ancient Civilization. Being an atheist obsessed with secularism and appeasing Islam, he showed little regard or empathy for Hindus, who were survivors of 500 years of physical and emotional torment by Muslim invaders and rulers, followed by 200 years of British control. His Western and pro-Muslim biases taint the entire narrative of an otherwise well-written book with an abundance of interesting facts and accounts of the civilizational history of India.