Erudite, forthright and brilliantly argued, Understanding the Founding Fathers
will help us know ourselves and our nation and how we came to be this way.
Nearly seventy years ago, the founding fathers of the Indian republic - Mahatma
Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, B. R. Ambedkar, Subhas Chandra Bose and Vallabhbhai
Patel - steered the new nation in a direction that ensured it wasnt destroyed by
sectarianism, casteism and authoritarianism. Because their wisdom found
widespread acceptance, every time it seemed that the country would succumb to
religious hatred, fissiparous tendencies or caste violence, disaster was averted
as its leaders and its people stayed more or less true to the