cover image Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny

Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny

Stanley A. Wolpert. Oxford University Press, USA, $35 (568pp) ISBN 978-0-19-510073-0

Jawaharlal Nehru was a Kashmiri Brahmin who felt more at home in London than in India, a modern secular man who consented to an arranged marriage with full Hindu rites. UCLA historian Wolpert relies heavily on published materials to paint this warts-and-all portrait of India's brilliant and charismatic first prime minister. Wolpert (Jinnah of Pakistan; Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan) never got at the golden fleece of Nehru biographers--the love letters between Nehru and Lady Edwina Mountbatten, and other private papers ""still locked away by foolish heirs and self-appointed guardians."" Still, he convincingly goes beneath Nehru's exalted image to reveal some pesky demons. Nehru's power struggles with his father, his differences with Mohandas Gandhi and his close, enduring ties to his daughter and political heir, Indira, are well delineated. Treatment of the Edwina Mountbatten liaison, however, tantalizes rather than satisfies, and we're left wondering about the apparent collusion of her husband, Louis ""Dickie"" Mountbatten. The book is strongest on the time period 1918 through 1947, when Nehru's frequent imprisonment for political activities gave him ample time to assemble his written legacy to the world. Wolpert's chapters on the post-independence era are skimpier. He highlights Nehru's foreign and domestic policy failures and suggests that India's George Washington, through egotism, stubbornness and emotional blindness, made some tragic mistakes for which his country paid dearly. Photos not seen by PW. (Aug.)