My father's three books — Glimpses of World History, An Autobiograpy and The Discovery of India — have been my companions through life. It is difficult to be detached about them.
Indeed Glimpses was' written for me. It remains the best introduction to the story of man for young and growing people in India and all over the world. The Autobiography has been acclaimed as not merely the quest of one individual for free-dom, but as an insight into the making of the mind of new India. I had to correct the proofs of Discovery while my father was away, I think in Calcutta, and I was in Allahabad ill with mumps! The Discovery delves deep into the sources- of India's national personality. Together, these books have moulded a whole generation of Indians and inspired persons from many other countries.
Books fascinated Jawaharlal Nehru. He sought out ideas. He was extraordinarily sensitive to literary beauty. In his writings he aimed at describing his motives and appraisals as meticulously as possible. The purpose was not self-justification or rationalization, but to show the Tightness and inevitability of the actions and events in which he was a prime participant. He was a luminous man and his writings reflected the radiance of his spirit.
The decision of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund to bring out a uniform edition of these three classics will be widely welcomed.
Indira Gandhi
New Delhi 4 November 1980
PREFACE (By Jawaharlal Nehru)
This book was written by me in Ahmadnagar Fort prison during the five months, April to September 1944. Some of my colleagues in prison were good enough to read the manuscript and make a number of valuable suggestions. On revising the book in prison I took advantage of these suggestions and made some additions. No one, I need hardly add, is responsible for what I have written or necessarily agrees with it. But I must express my deep gratitude to my fellow-prisoners in Ahmadnagar Fort for the innumerable talks and discussions we had, which helped me greatly to clear my own mind about various aspects of Indian history and culture. Prison is not a pleasant place to live in even for a short period, much less for long years. But it was a privilege for me to live in close contact with men of outstanding ability and culture and a wide human outlook which even the passions of the moment did not obscure.
My eleven companions in Ahmadnagar Fort were an interesting cross-section of India and represented in their several ways not only politics but Indian scholarship, old and new, and various aspects of present-day India. Nearly all the principal living Indian languages, as well as the classical languages which have powerfully influenced India in the past and present, were represented and the standard was often that of high scholarship. Among the classical languages were Sanskrit and Pali, Arabic and Persian; the modern languages were Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Sindhi and Oriya. I had all this wealth to draw upon and the only limitation was my own capacity to profit by it. Though I am grateful to all my companions, I should like to mention especially Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, whose vast erudition invariably delighted me but sometimes also rather overwhelmed me, Govind Ballabh Pant, Narendra Deva and M. Asaf Ali.
It is a year and a quarter since I finished writing this book and some parts of it are already somewhat out of date, and much has happened since I wrote it. I have felt tempted to add and revise, but I have resisted the temptation. Indeed I could not have done otherwise for life outside prison is of a different texture and there is no leisure for thought or writing. It has been difficult enough for me to read again what I have written. I wrote originally in long-hand; this was typed after my release. I was unable to find time to read the typescript and the publication of the book was being delayed when my daughter, Indira, came to my rescue and took this burden off my shoulders. The book remains as written in prison with no additions or changes, except for the postscript at the end.
I do not know how other authors feel about their writings, but always I have a strange sensation when I read something that I had written some time previously. That sensation is heightened when the writing had been done in the close and abnormal atmosphere of prison and the subsequent reading has taken place outside. I recognize it of course, but not wholly; it seems almost that I was reading some familiar piece written by another, who was near to me and yet who was different. Perhaps that is the measure of the change that has taken place in me.
So I have felt about this book also. It is mine and not wholly mine, as I am constituted today; it represents rather some past self of mine which has already joined that long succession df other selves that existed for a while and faded away, leaving only a memory behind.
Jawaharlal Nehru
Anand Bhawan, Allahabad 29 December 1945
(TO BE CONTINUED)
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