INDIA'S ROAD TO NATIONHOOD
The book depicts India from a strictly political point of view, free from fascinating resplendence of her spiritual radiation and many a much favoured legend. It investigates her political development from formation of states around 2500 B.C. up to the early 1970s and forecasts the changes expected to occur in the near future. It begins with the establishment of a multifarious system of states on the subcontinent which in size and multitude of its peoples is comparable to Europe. Its empires were partly based on the subcontinent’s cultural unity and partly on purely political objectives, which ha their focal point in maritime supremacy and influence on overseas colonies.
Even 4000 years ago foreign trade was the uniting bond between India and the World around. A general war broke out for the heritage of the last empire of the Moghuls finally the British succeeded. The spiritual foundations of and the various methods employed in the more than hundred’ years struggle of the Indians to free themselves from the British rule are investigated, as well as the consequences of Independence achieved in 1947, partition, the Kashmir question and the uprising in East Bengal. Finally the book analyses the principles of foreign policy of independent India and her emerging responsibilities in the comity of nations. Based on the findings of European and Indian research, the book, like a dramatic novel, points out the way which led an ancient civilization towards nationhood.
Wilhelm von Pochhammer
(1892-1982)
He belonged to the German Foreign Service from 1919 to 1957. He was the first Private Secretary to Foreign Misiter Count Brockdroff-Rantzau, whom he also accompanied to Moscow. In 1924, He was transferred to the Consulate General in Calcutta, then the only German representation for British India, Burma and Ceylon. Upto 1957 he held several diplomatic posts in India where he met Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore and other leading Indian personalities.
After his retirement he continued to visit India, devoting his energies to lectures tours, writing articles on Indi, and to this monumental political history of India, originally published in German, entitled Indiens Weg zur Nation. His writings display a deep affection for India whose policies he discussed freely and with confidence in the great future if the Indian nation.