Jawahar Lal Nehru: An amateur historian

It had been a debatable issue that India did not have the tradition of history writing. Though India relied for the knowledge of its past on the basis of ancient traditions and mythology but Indians had not written history in the terms of history writing. In twentieth century, Indians like Jawaharlal Nehru proved their mettle in the field of history writing by bursting the claims of Western thinkers who pointed towards the absence of history writing in India. Jawahar Lal Nehru wrote three prominent books which are his claim in domain of history writing. These books are respectively “Glimpses of World History”, “The Discovery of India” and “An Autobiography”. The writings of Jawaharlal Nehru not only systematically presented the history of his own nation India but also provided the history of world in concise form. In his writings, Nehru had also pointed towards the non-serious approach of Indians in the sphere of history writing. In the present discussion the place of Jawaharlal Nehru as a historian has been explored through his three classical works.