Three Statesmen Gokhale, Gandhi, and Nehru

The destiny of modern India has largely been shaped by the efforts of three charismatic leaders – Gokhale, Gandhi, and Nehru. The omnibus volume brings together the lives of these three giants that enable us to compare their personalities, approaches, and achievements. At a time when India is faced with the challenges of the twenty-first century, the lives of Gokhale, Gandhi, and Nehru have much to teach us. In a new introduction, specially written for this volume, B.R. Nanda makes a comparative study of the backgrounds temperaments, and ideologies of the three leaders who differed significantly in manner and style but shared a common vision of the unity and freedom of India. This introduction focuses on the inter-relationship between their ideas and methods and how these remain relevant today. The past, says Nanda, as seen through the lives of Gokhale, Gandhi, and Nehru, informs the present and has many lessons for India and the world today. Each of these biographies has been much acclaimed for their extraordinary blend of scholarship, objectivity, and profound insights. Nanda, India’s foremost historian of the freedom movement, examines the lives of the three leaders as he relates them to their eras. These, then are both biographies and histories of critical times – relating personalities to periods and leaders to the societies they lived in. Meticulously researched and lucidly written, these works will engage both the scholar and the general reader and will be of particular interest to students of modern history and politics, as also to policy-makers, analysts, and journalists.