the discovery of india

1. Nehru wrote the preface from Anand Bhawan in Allahabad.
2. He was jailed in Ahmednagar Fort at the time of writing this.
3. Italian prisoners of war in India were protected by the Geneva Convention.
4. Famine of Bengal was a pretty bad event. Millions of deaths. British tried to avoid accountability. Interestingly , the Chinese and the Irish, who had their own difficulties (which I am not aware of) were the ones who came forward for India’s help.
5. “age-old” friendship with china? hmmmm
6. Italy invaded Abyssinia, Czechoslovakia got betrayed, fall of Republic spain.
7. reference to the Munich.
8. Nehru was anti-fascist and anti-nazi.
9. democracy started to become a desirable idea, not just in India but everywhere else in the world around roughly the same time
10. mention of the atlantic charter and the four freedoms.
11. the section titled “time in prison: the urge to action” is beautifully written. can come back to this.
12. i have the same feeling with the next section - “the past in its relation to the present”. got to know here that he wrote “glimpses of world history” as a set of letters describing world history learnt by him in his jail time, meant to be read by his daughter who was in her teens at the time.
13. he was easily able to accept and relate with the ideas of Marx and Lenin, could also draw parallels from the Advaita Vedanta theory.
14. Nehru writes in great detail about his relationship with his wife, Kamala. He was released from jail in Almora in 1935, due to her critical condition (tuberculosis) in a german sanatorium in Badenweiler. He used to read books to her, such as Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth. She showed slow signs of recovery but during her illness, Nehru felt that even after 20 years of marriage, she had something elusive about her. And he realised he had often ignored her while being busy with politics. He found comfort and support in her. Kamala was a Kashmiri, did not have an educational background.
15. Kamala, like Chitra in Tagore’s play, wanted to be recognized as an equal partner in their shared journey, not as a goddess to be worshipped or an object of pity, but as someone ready to face challenges, and fulfill her role in their life’s mission. She helped in the civil disobedience movement.
16. A picture of Kamala and Nehru was displayed as an “ideal couple” in Indian bazaars, despite the complexities of marriage.
17. Towards the winter of 1935, Kamala’s health detoriated again. Nehru lost hope. But she survived again. In January 1936, he was elected as the president of the Indian National Congres for the second time. He was in a dilemma whether to accept this position or go to her wife to be with her.
18. Nehru had booked a flight for Feb 28 to go back to India. Indira was called by her parents too. 4 or 5 days before the departure, the doctor advised him to delay this plan. Her physical condition was okay but she started to feel that someone was calling her, that she was some figure or shape enter the room when he saw none. On the morning of Feb 28, she took her last breath. She was cremated in Lussane.
19. After the death, Nehru and Indira went to Montreux to spend some quiet days. Here, Nehru received a message from Signor Mussolini expressing his sympathy on Nehru’s loss. Mussolini, the Duce, had invited him to Rome multiple times. Nehru kept decling these invitations because he could foresee how this meeting would be perceived by the external world as fascist propagada. Gandhi had been a victim to a similar situation.
20. Nehru begins to touch upon the history of India now. He finds pride in the fact that that India has had a rich culture that has stood the test of time of over 5000 years. And it continues to thrive. The 180 years of British rule feels like a minor speed bump to him now.
21. He talks about a continued form of vitality in nations that keep them going for a long amount of time. Americans, Russians and the Chinese have shown this vitality. Indians had lost it. His aim was to revitalise India.
22. Travelling through India made him feel the sense of unity the country had. Slowly, he had to started to think of India as an anthropomorphic entity of some sort with a spirit impressed on everyone.
23. From north to south, he got to hear the same set of problems from the commoners - poverty, debt, vested interests, landlords, money lenders, heavy rents and taxes, police harassment.
24. references to the 1937 general elections - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937Indianprovincial_elections
25. The Indus Valley Civilisation is regarded as an important point in our history.
26. India was an advanced society. We had two storied residential buildings, proper baths and drainage systems. We were using cotton for textiles. Our architecture had support for defending against floods as well. There was space for religion but it was not the core driver for progress. Our technical progress was either at par or better than contemporary Egypt, Mespotamia, and Persia. Sadly, the remains of this civilisation are almost non existent now. World war and british invasion led to the stopping of any archaeological work that was happening. We were in touch with other civilisations too. Trades were happening all over the world. John Marshall seems to know a lot about this topic. Presently, many fertile lands from this time have eroded. Maybe, climate change played a big role in this. In terms of the people who lived here, they can be traced back to or at-least correlated with Dravidians in the south.
27. After about a thousand years after the Industrial Revolution Valleys period, the Aryans migrated to India from the north west. This was probably the first time we saw a fusion of culture. Aryans and Dravidians.
28. Over time, people from many parts of the world came and got absorbed into India. The culture was inclusive. As per Vincent Smith, many foreigners yielded to the assimilative power of Hinduism and became Hindus.
29. Nehru says that the word Hindu does not occur at all in our ancient literature. It is found in a Tantrik work of 8th century AC where Hindu means people and not followers of a particular religion. The word is still very old, occurs in Avesta and old Persian. The word also finds its roots in Sindhu, the old name for the river Indus.
30. I-tsing writes in his records that Noble Land (Aryadesha) was a more suitable name for India.
31. Arya Dharma was probably a better description of religion in India at that time because it encapsulated all schools of faith that were running in the country.
32. Nehru argues that we were a land of Buddists and Jains as well. So it is incorrect to assume that India culture means Hindu culture. We were probably more diverse than that. Hinduism’s fundamental spirit seemed to be of “live and let live.” Christians and Muslims came to India, “Indianized” themselves, but kept their religious faiths intact.
33. Avesta and Vedas have striking similarities. Language of Vedas is more similar to that of Avesta than it is to Sanskrit.
34. When Aryans came here, they considered themselves to be superior. They took over the Dravidians. And then there were people who lived in the forest, the nomads. When these races interacted, there was an attempt for social organisation. And this led to formation of castes. Slavery was not so widespread in India but it happened in small forms. Four principal castes were formed tho. And the parallels of this 4 caste thing were seen elsewhere in the world too.
35. Aryans were agriculturalists. But slowly, the 4 caste thing (brahmin, khatriya, vaishya, shudra) got to them too. Life was divided into four parts too - the student life, the family life, the statesman life, the detachment life.
36. The central idea of Indian civilisation or Indo Aryan culture was that of dharma and dharma meant more than religion. It was a concept of obligations and duties. Of doing the right thing. Individual human rights were not so widely focused upon.
37. The Indian culture has shown great resilience over time despite the invasions. Scholars among the world have commented that we were well formed in our thoughts and approaches and the world had a lot to learn from us.
38. The Upanishads are more inquisitive and practical in nature than the Vedas. They also promoted an individualistic sense of thinking and desired freedom.
39. Buddha came in the sixth century BC. (600 - 501 BC)
40. Around the time of Buddhism, Persian Empire reached the Indus.
41. In 4th Century BC, Alexander raided the north-west India.
42. After Alexander’s death, Chandragupta built the Mauryan empire.
43. Ancient India, like Ancient Greece was a collection of small states.
44. Nehru believes that despite their differences, ancient India and ancient Greece had a lot of similarities.
45. Nehru seemed to lean towards the idea that most of the mythological stuff did not happen and was just the imagination of the human mind.
46. Gandhari of Mahabharata related to Kandahar of Afghanistan?
47. There are too many tidbits about the socio and economic times. They feel like unrelated statements being put together. I will get onto them when I have more interest towards this.
48. Megasthenes, the Greek Ambassador in India in the fourth century B.C., totally denies the existence of slavery in India. But in this he was wrong as there were certainly domestic slaves, and there are references in Indian books of the period to improving the lot of the slaves.
49. Nehru talks at good length about Buddhism. I will spare myself with the details of it. I see enough pointers in this book and elsewhere about the problem that Buddhism has declined in India. This probably deserves a case study.
50. Chandrgupta, Chanakaya, and Ashoka deserve a separate study. I will get back on this.
51. India had diplomatic relations with Greece. Quite a lot of mentions.
52. During the Gupta and Mauryan empire, a sense of nationalism was seen. India was mentally done with foreign invasions.
53. South India saw its growth much later after this. This happened as a result of foreigner invading the north causing the existing northern kings flocking to the south.
54. I think we are starting to get around the time of modern history in this book. Nehru’s writing is of a conclusive nature and does not give me an in-depth and structured view of the whole thing. I am choosing to discontinue this book for now.