Partition and Post Independence India: Nehru's Perspective

The present paper is an effort to understand the post-Partition situation in India from the perspective of the country's first Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru. Partition was a watershed development in the history of the subcontinent, occurring along with the granting of independence to India. Both these events had long term effects on Indian polity and society. Independent India's political leadership had an indelible influence on the both the pre and post-Independence scenarios. On the basis of this statement an endeavour is made to understand the immediate post-Independence India through the letters of the first Prime Minister Nehru to the chief ministers of the Indian states, to consult, direct and brief them on different contemporary issues and developments. These letters have been edited by Madhav Khosla and reproduced in book form titled ‘Letters for a Nation: From Jawarharlal Nehru to his Chief Ministers 1947–1963 ’(Penguin Books, Delhi 2014). This paper is based on the contents of these letters. By adopting a realist critical approach the paper aims to analyse some pressing issues: the communal problem, rehabilitation and the long term effects of the Partition on the fabric of the nation. The argument proposed for the paper is that Partition was one of the defining events that determined institution formation and state and nation building processes in the post-Independence period.