SUBMITTED TO-SUNITA MA’AM BY-DIVYAM SUKHIJA

A Presentation on-“Letters From A Father To His Daughter “

By: JAWAHAR LAL NEHRU

During summer of 1928, 10-year-old Indira Gandhi was in Mussoorie. Her father Jawaharlal Nehru was then busy working in Allahabad. During summer, Nehru wrote several letters to tell her stories about when and how the earth was made, how animal and human life came into existence, and how societies and civilizations evolved throughout the world.

In his letters, he speaks of races, early and present-day faiths and beliefs of religion, the beginning of communication using languages by making sounds that are meaningful, how writing evolved through meaningful marks, and how the different languages were related. He also referred to civilization and division of labor, which paved the way to the patriarch and the rule by kings and formation of kingdoms.

Introduction-

Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics for much of the 20th century. He emerged as the paramount leader of the Indian independence movement under the tutelage of Mahatma Gandhi and ruled India from its establishment as an independent nation in 1947 until his death in office in 1964. He is considered to be the architect of the modern Indian nation-state: a sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic. During his lifetime, he was popularly known as Pandit Nehru ("Scholar Nehru") or as Pandit ji ("Respected Scholar"), while many Indian children knew him as "Uncle Nehru" (Chacha Nehru).

Nehru was a prolific writer in English and wrote a number of books, such as The Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History, and his autobiography, Toward Freedom.

About the author-JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

He had written 30 letters to his daughter Indira Gandhi, when she was 10 years old and was in a boarding school in Mussoorie, teaching about natural history and the story of civilizations. The collection of these letters was later published as a book Letters from a Father to His Daughter. In 1955 Nehru was awarded Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.

Nehru's health began declining steadily after 1962, and he spent months recuperating in Kashmir through 1963. Some historians attribute this dramatic decline to his surprise and chagrin over the Sino-Indian War, which he perceived as a betrayal of trust.[95] Upon his return from Dehra Dun on 26 May 1964 he was feeling quite comfortable and went to bed at about 23:30 as usual, he had a restful night till about 06:30 soon after he returned from bathroom, Nehru complained of pain in the back. He spoke to the doctors who attended on him for a brief while and almost immediately Nehru collapsed. He remained unconscious until he died. His death was announced to Lok Sabha at 14:00 local time on 27 May 1964 (same day); cause of death is believed to be heart attack.

About the author-JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

In 1928,when his only daughter was ten and spent the summer in the Himalayas while he was in the plains below, Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of India’s struggle for independence from British rule, sent the young girl a series of short letters seeking to explain how the world came to be as it is. That daughter was Indira Gandhi, who would become India’s first and only female Prime Minister, tragically assassinated in 1984.

What makes these letters, which cover everything from the Big Bang to the ancient civilizations to the rise of the division of labor and trade, so spectacular is that Nehru speaks to young Indira both lovingly and with clear respect for her intelligence, treating a ten-year-old child as the future leader she would become. Indeed, we see in these letters the foundation of that becoming — a foundation of moral values for peace and justice, respect for those different from us, and immeasurable, indiscriminate kindness, a message rather bittersweet in history’s hindsight, given the context of Gandhi’s political reputation. Above all, Nehru takes great care to show the little girl that power is not a right but a privilege, one that ought to be used wisely and benefit those whom it is designed to protect and serve rather than the selfish interests of those who hold it.

Theme Of The Book

[ Here Nehru tells his Daughter Indra Gandhi that if we want to read any language then we need to learn its alphabets so if she wants to read the book of nature she needs to learn the alphabets of it and he writes] “To be able to read any language, Hindi or Urdu or

English, you have to learn its alphabet. So also you must learn the alphabets of nature before you can read her story in her books of stones and rocks.”

[Here Nehru says that the nature is always in front of us but few of us don’t pay attention to it or try to read it] ““This book is always open before us but few of us pay

any attention to it or try to read it!”

Important Lines from the Book

(Nehru reminds young Indira that even in republics, which have democratically elected officials rather than hereditary kings, things are bound to go awry once the entitlement of power poisons a ruler’s soul. He offers an example from India, a country — and by far not the only one — plagued by enormous political corruption to this day:)

“In India, we have still many rajas and maharajas and nawabs. You see them going about with fine clothes, in expensive motor cars and spending a lot of money on themselves. Where do they get all this money from? They get it in taxes from the people. The taxes are given so that the money may be used to help all the people in the country — by making schools and hospitals and libraries and museums and good roads and many other things for the good of the people. But our rajas and maharajas still think as the French king did of old L’etat c’est moi — “the state, it is I.” And they spend the money of the people on their own pleasures. While they live in luxury, their people, who work hard and give them the money, starve and their children have no schools to go to.”

(Once again, we see how young Indira’s father instilled in her from an early age the personal and political beliefs that would come to shape her. He writes:)

“You know that we do not buy or wear foreign cloth. We wear khaddar because it is more sensible to buy things, as far as we can, made in our own country. We also buy and wear khaddar because in this way we help the poor who spin and weave.”

They deal with the beginnings of the earth and of man's awareness of himself. They were not merely letters to be read and put away...they taught one to treat nature as a book."The letters speak of the beginnings of the universe, the formation of the earth and its landforms, of pre-history, the beginnings of mankind, and the migration of human beings he shows great learning and vision in his conclusions so we find that people's complexions are the result of the climate they live in. They have nothing to do with the worthiness or goodness or beauty of a person. “Explained wonderfully in this vein in language easy enough for 10 yrs. old to understand." He goes on to speak of races, religion- early beliefs and faiths, religions as we know them now, languages- the beginnings of communication by making meaningful sounds, of making meaningful marks leading to writing, of the relationships of the different languages of the world. He speaks of civilization, the division of labor - leading to the patriarch- which led later to kings and kingdoms. And of ancient civilizations all over the world. About trade and travel.He speaks of the coming of the Aryans to India, and the Ramayana and the Mahabharata- I loved the simple way in which he has explained the gist of these great epics- again, putting them in an interesting perspective.

Learning’s

The Ramayana, he says, "The Ramayana, as you know, is the story of Ram Chandra and Sita against Ravana, king of Lanka, that is now Ceylon...it may be that the story of the Ramayana is really the story of the fights of the Aryans against the people of the South whose leader was Ravana."

The Mahabharata- "It tells of a great fight between Aryans and Aryans. But apart from the fight, it is a wonderful book, full of great ideas and noble stories. Above all, it is dear to all of us because of that jewel of a poem which it contains--the Bhagavad Gita."

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