Nehru’s fantastic effort to raise India from what Tagore called the ‘mud and filth’ left behind by the British has now been replaced with the Indian people being pushed back into that same ‘mud and filth’ of ignorance, obscurantism, dis-empowerment, unfreedom and above all communal hatred.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee’s book 'Nehru and the Spirit of India' has many deep insights into Nehru as a brilliant original thinker and statesman.

Although communal forces were dealt with sternly in the first few years after Independence, limiting them to the fringe, they have, over the years, received tacit support from the political class, helping them grow their base over the last few decades.

Indira Gandhi took charge in the mid 1960s, when India was at its most vulnerable moment economically and politically.