ABSTRACT
This ‘profile in power’ has followed the career of one of Asia’s most notable and articulate political leaders of the generation which saw the development of anti-colonial nationalist movements, the destruction of European empires in Asia and Africa, and the making of new nation states in their place. Drawing on the remarkably rich evidence of his political career, as well as his own more leisured and reflective writing, it has been possible to see how the privileged young man of late Victorian India, who was a less than assiduous student and a big-spending man-about-town, became a radical firebrand in the nationalist movement, as it was given new direction by Gandhi. We have seen how a high-caste Hindu man became deeply concerned about the most disadvantaged in his country, regardless of community or gender, under the influence both of Gandhi and of western radical thinking; and finally as prime minister of independent India became an international figure intent on creating a new India both to give genuine new freedoms to its people and also to contribute to a new and idealistic world order.
