This excellent work is a concise, thoughtful account of Nehru's political ideas-particularly on three important themes-politics, culture and history. It skilfully interweaves history of events, careful and subtle text-reading, complex analysis of arguments of political theory and critical explication of moral judgements. It captures the spirit of Nehru's political thought with critical sympathy-both in terms of its politics and its poetics. - Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, Columbia University

This remarkable book is for everyone who is interested in India-but also for those who are perplexed by the unhappy course of most post-colonial states. It forces us in the end to ask ourselves whether the tragic missteps in that history are due to colonialism or to the form of the modern state itself. Highly intelligent and generous-spirited, Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee has given us a valuable and thought-provoking echo of Nehru's famous book-his own "Discovery of India". - Talal Asad, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, City University of New York

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee is a writer, political theorist and poet. He is the author of The Town Slowly Empties: On Life and Culture During Lockdown (2021), Looking for the Nation: Towards Another Idea of India (2018), and Ghalib's Tomb and Other Poems (2013). His writings, apart from regular contributions to The Wire, have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, World Literature Today, the Economic and Political Weekly, The Hindu, the Indian Express and Outlook, among others. He has taught Lyric Poetry and Literary Journalism in Ambedkar University.