The Discovery of India

Composed over five months of imprisonment by the British, *The Discovery of India* is Jawaharlal Nehru's attempt to understand the country he had spent his life fighting for. He moves from the Indus Valley through the Vedas, the Buddha, Ashoka, the Mughals and the long colonial encounter, asking again and again what holds India together across its bewildering diversity. The book is unusual among nationalist writings for its sympathy with the West, its impatience with Hindu and Muslim revivalism, and its insistence that India must be both rooted and modern. Published in 1946 by Signet Press, Calcutta, on the eve of Independence, it remains one of the most influential works of twentieth-century Indian non-fiction.