ABSTRACT
Indian nationalism in the course of its own development was seen to be somehow moving towards the ideals of internationalism. In the liberal humanist tradition, the early internationalists felt that they had a message for the world. The reputation of Jawaharlal Nehru as an internationalist grew while he was a thorough-going nationalist. The growth of the idea of internationalism both in his own mind as well as in the country did not lead Nehru to reduce his faith in nationalism while India was dependent. A prominent defect of nationalism everywhere in the world, Nehru thought, was that almost every country believed that it had some special dispensation from Providence, that it was of the chosen people or race and that others, whether they were good or bad, were somewhat inferior. The world today is grim and cruel and the voice of calm and dispassionate reason has sunk to a whisper and is often drowned by strident and passionate cries.
