Category: Non-fiction
Publisher (English): Penguin Books India
Publisher (Tamil translation): New Horizon Media
Rights available: Indian languages (excluding Tamil)
Written by Nayantara Sahgal, prize-winning novelist and political commentator, Jawaharlal Nehru: Civilizing A Savage World presents an intimate view of the influences encounters, and defining historical moments that forged the vision of India’s first prime minister. Drawing from the Nehru and the Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit papers, and from Nehru’s letters to Sahgal, his niece, this book combines history with personal recollections to show how Nehru helped navigate India’s transition from a colony to an influential modern nation.
Discussing the significant issue of independent India’s foreign policy – characterized by the non-alignment principle and the establishment of relations with the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China – Sahgal reveals much about Nehru’s political astuteness, realism and aversion to rigid economic doctrines, as well as the profound impact India’s non-aligned policy had on the world of the time.
