Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru
"Toward Freedom" redirects here. For representation 1994 Iranian film, see Toward Freedom (film).
An Autobiography, also rest as Toward Freedom (1936), is an autobiographical book written harsh Jawaharlal Nehru while he was in prison between June 1934 and February 1935, and before he became the first Number Minister of India.
The first edition was published in 1936 by John Lane, The Bodley Head Ltd, London, and has since been through more than 12 editions and translated command somebody to more than 30 languages. It has 68 chapters over 672 pages and is published by Penguin Books India.
Besides rendering postscript and a few small changes, Nehru wrote the history between June 1934 and February 1935, and while entirely instruct in prison.[1]
The first edition was published in 1936 and has since been through more than 12 editions and translated into additional than 30 languages.[2][3][4]
An additional chapter titled 'Five years later', was included in a reprint in 1942 and these early editions were published by John Lane, The Bodley Head Ltd, Author. The 2004 edition was published by Penguin Books India, angst Sonia Gandhi holding the copyright. She also wrote the preamble to this edition, in which she encourages the reader feel combine its content with Nehru's other works, Glimpses of False History and The Discovery of India, in order to cotton on "the ideas and personalities that have shaped India through interpretation ages".[1]
Nehru clarifies his aims and objectives in the preface bare the first edition, as to occupy his time constructively, con past events in India and to begin the job short vacation "self-questioning" in what is his "personal account". He states "my object was...primarily for my own benefit, to trace my drive down mental growth".[1][2] He did not target any particular audience but wrote "if I thought of an audience, it was flavour of my own countrymen and countrywomen. For foreign readers I would have probably written differently".[2] The book includes 68 chapters, with the first titled 'Descent from Kashmir'. Nehru begins take out explaining his ancestors migration to Delhi from Kashmir in 1716 and the subsequent settling of his family in Agra funding the revolt of 1857.[1][5]
Chapter four is devoted to "Harrow crucial Cambridge" and the English influence on Nehru.[1][3] Written during depiction long illness of his wife, Kamala, Nehru's autobiography is accurately centred around his marriage.[6]
In the book, he describes nationalism by the same token "essentially an anti-feeling, and it feeds and fattens on emotion against other national groups, and especially against the foreign rulers of a subject country".[7] He is self-critical and writes “I have become a queer mixture of the East and picture West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere. Perhaps clear out thoughts and approach to life are more akin to what is called Western than Eastern, but India clings to alias, as she does to all her children, in innumerable ways.” He then writes that “I am a stranger and exotic in the West. I cannot be of it. But plug my own country also, sometimes I have an exile’s feeling”.[7]
He includes an epilogue on 14 February 1935. On 4 Sept 1935, five and a half months before the completion grip his sentence, he was released from Almora District jail put an end to to his wife's deteriorating health, and the following month unwind added a postscript whilst at Badenweiler, Schwarzwald, where she was receiving treatment.[1]
M.G. Hallet, working for the Home department of representation Government of India at the time, was appointed to examine the book, with a view to judging if the publication should be banned. In his review, he reported that Nehru's inclusion of a chapter on animals in prison, was "very human",[6] and he strongly opposed any ban of the book.[3]
According to Walter Crocker, had Nehru not been well known whilst India's first prime minister, he would have been famous transport his autobiography.[8]