Verdicts on Nehru: The Rise and Fall of A Reputation (e-Single) by Ramachandra Guha

Verdicts on Nehru: The Rise and Fall of A Reputation (e-Single) Reviews

• 
  Siddharth

  An interesting view of a Nehru fanboy, but totally ignored the indo-china war and by large the Kashmir issue for which Nehru is widely chastised for.
• 
  Krunal Ghelani

  Nice try to posture the character, but without proper examples and repeating few characteristics throughout the book, but it doesn't seems working. Facts are missing throughout the book.
• 
  Keerthi Kiran

  The book offers a summarized generous view of Nehru's legacy. Guha makes valid arguments for areas where Nehru achieves and exceeds but doesn't use the same artistry to dissect his failings.
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  Ravi Prakash

  The legacy of Nehru is so vast that it can't be manipulated by false propaganda any party in the veil of Nationalism or in more precise words, jingoism. Nehru was, Nehru is and Nehru will remain as the greatest builder of Modern India. Certainly he is not God, he had done mistakes, sometimes gross mistakes, but one should think that the situations in which he acted and lead the nation democratically, no other PM of India has ever done.
• 
  Arjun

  Summarily put. Why we may be unfair to Nehru in criticizing him over every decision he made. The author is unabashed about his admiration of Nehru. Good one to read in current times.
• 
  Deepu George

  At the time when once upon a time hero is looked down upon as a villian it's high time we revisit Nehrus legacy. In spite of all the missteps he took he is still the best person to be our prime minister during the first 10 years after independence. When you say that I would have been a tremendously successful person if my parents would gave brought me up in a better way.... they did there best during the resources and ideas that were available at that time.... rings true in case of Nehru also
  But about the book this is more of a superficial discussion on this topic.... nothing of a scholarly work nor a historical work. This is just R Guhas thoughts on our first prime minister
• 
  Abhidev H M

  To be honest this one's a little biased I would say.
• 
  Sudhir Pai

  Often, one generation's outcasts become another generation's hero. Owing to the unique place he has in independent India's history as her first and longest serving prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru's reputation took him in the opposite direction. So how did India's most popular statesman for nearly two decades see his reputation being tarnished long after his death?
  
  Personally, I'm an admirer of what Nehru achieved given the circumstances under which he was asked to lead a large nation and its countless complications in infancy. In his objective style, Ramchandra Guha dissects the great man's term with his accomplishments and failures alike to provide his assessment on how the nation fails to recognise it's best ever PM.
  
  But what makes his critical analysis a fantastic read is his ability to take the reader to an alternate history on occasions and help him formulate his own opinion. Here's a sample of what Guha feels Nehru could have done in his time to leave a stronger legacy -
  "He could have more actively sought out and nurtured second-rung leaders. His own preference was for non-political types like Homi Bhabha and T.T. Krishnamachari—people who shared his liberal and cosmopolitan world view. However, he did actively try to get brilliant young socialists like Jayaprakash Narayan back to the Congress. I think it a real pity that the best, that is, the most intelligent and idealistic of the young Indians, who were then in the socialist and Communist parties, set themselves up in opposition to Nehru. Had they worked with him and within the Congress in the 1950s and 1960s, as he asked them to do, they might collectively have ended illiteracy and brought about effective land reforms, which were crucial if India was to progress economically."
  
  I may not agree with all of Ramchandra Guha's compelling arguments, but after reading "Verdicts on Nehru", I'm convinced the author is a historian's historian, if there was ever one in India.
• 
  Ulysses

  This book was probably written prior to the declassification of files. What it lacks is thorough research. Yes, Neheru has indeed upheld some of the true liberal democratic values , and no other prime ministers were as democratic as him but he can not be called the champion of democracy. Here are few excerpts from the book :
  
  Jawaharlal Nehru’s posthumous reputation brings to mind a remark of the nineteenth-century British radical, Edward Carpenter. Carpenter claimed that ‘the Outcast of one Age is the Hero of another’. He clearly had himself in mind, an environmentalist and prophet of sexual liberation ahead of his time. But the case of Jawaharlal Nehru shows that the opposite can equally be true. That is, the Hero of one age can very easily become the Outcast of another.
  
  Why has Jawaharlal Nehru’s reputation fallen so far and so fast? One reason is that as the first and longest-serving prime minister, he was in a unique position to shape his nation’s destiny. He did a great deal, but there is always the feeling that he should have done more—much more. And modern middle-class Indians are, as a rule, very judgemental, especially when it comes to passing judgement on dead politicians. As his biographer S. Gopal once pointed out, Nehru’s ‘very achievements demand that he be judged by standards which one would not apply to the ordinary run of Prime Ministers; and disappointment stems from the force of our expectations’.
  
  Nehru’s posthumous reputation has also suffered from the neglect of scholars and scholarship. There is an intriguing contrast here with Mahatma Gandhi. In his lifetime, Gandhi was looked down upon by intellectuals who, even when they admired his ability to move the masses, thought little of his ideas, which were so completely alien to, and often at odds with, the progressive currents of the day. But after his death the intellectuals have rediscovered Gandhi with a vengeance. In Nehru’s case the trajectory has been exactly the reverse; while he lived, the cream of the world’s intelligentsia crowded around him, whereas after his death they have left him alone.
  
  What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow. An old cliche, which in this case turns out to be surprisingly true. For, Nehru has been for some time now, the least liked of Indian politicians, dumped on from all parts of the political spectrum in all parts of the land. As I know fram experience, It is as risky a business to defend Jawaharlal Nehru in Delhi or Mumbai in 2012 as it was to defend him in Calcutta back in 1982.
  
  Fall of Nehru in the Indian imagination, might reckon 1977 to be the watershed, the year in which the delegitimization of an icon began gathering pace. It brought together three disparate political groupings, united in the first instance by their opposition to Mrs Gandhi. These were the Hindu chauvinist Jana Sangh, the non-Communist (or Socialist) left, and the old style, so to speak, "Gandhian Congressmen.
• 
  Ashutosh Dwivedi

  A collection of short essays, Guha pursues a logical approach to the increasingly toxic messaging on Nehru to separate the wheat from the chaff. He acknowledges that some mistakes were made by Nehru but put them in a wider context on what was known at the time. He takes each point of criticism and rebuts it. Though, I would have preferred longer essays for each of those points.
• 
  Gangeyyo Bhattacharjee

  A ready reckoner for political leaders across all generations to understand how short lived fame and the fandom is! History scrutinises misdeeds more than good deeds and Pandit Nehru’s loss of fame exhibits this hard truth.
• 
  Jeswin Vinod

  Excellent piece of writting
  
  It's a book which the contemporary india needs. No matter what the far right elements portray Nehrus legacy will remain as long as time stops ticking.
• 
  Iqra Tasmiae

  
  https://scroll.in/latest/950294/keral...
• 
  Ruchir

  This book provides a brief overview of the tragedies and triumphs of Nehru, the Prime Minister. Two of the best bits - 1) The comparison Guha draws between Nehru's reputation and Gandhi's reputation in 21st century India. 2) How the Left and Right converge on one point - their respective ideological opposition to Nehru. Of course this opposition takes different forms.
  
  This can be finished in one session. Do read it if you want to dip your toes in the subjects of Nehru, India and democracy.
• 
  Aman Srivastava

  Short and Impressive. Good for people who already know what Nehru holds in his bag of legacy.
• 
  Chandra

  A middling book
• 
  Deepak Jaisinghani

  If that infamous all-rounder rejoinder by today's politicians, 'Nehru ki galti' baffles you too, maybe you should read this essay.
• 
  Bharati Shroff

  Excellently analysed and written
  
  This book clearly brings out the great qualities of Nehru....while at the same time points out his faults.One thing I definitely agree...he was the best and maybe the only person fit enough to head our country during its most difficult period.
  We are truly lucky.
  I have been a great fan of Nehru....now Ramachandra Guha has given me plenty of reason to be proud of being one!!
• 
  Subrahmanian C V

  The kind of challenges faced was immeasurable.
  The nation of disparities was in hand.
  
  as the foundation stone of out nation building, the towering figure of Nehru stands tall