ABSTRACT
In the mid-1950s N ehru em barked on what was to be the final phase of his prime-ministership and of his long and varied career. He was by this time well on into his sixties, and at a time in his life when many people naturally contem plate a slowing down of professional work if no t formal retirem ent. It is remarkable, however, that virtually no Indian politicians of his own or his fa ther’s generation withdrew from active public work. Motilal and Gandhi had both died in harness, as had N ehru’s nearer contemporary, Vallabhbhai Patel. Far deeper than the material rewards of public influence or office, they seem ed never to lose the drive originally generated by the heady days of involvement in the nationalist movement and association with Gandhi. N ehru had been in public life for nearly four decades, and had shown himself capable of consid erable adaptation and responsiveness to new situations and challenges. He had turned himself from a disenchanted young lawyer into nationalist activist, ideologue and opponent of gov ernm ent, and in 1947 into the leader of a new state with all the attendant dem ands of adm inistration and policy-making, for which he had little prior training.
