1947-1957, India: The Birth of a Republic

The first decade after India’s independence, 1947-1957, was probably the most crucial in the nation’s history. Opening a window to this period, this book weaves a story out of the complex ideas and events that have largely remained beneath the surface of public discourse. The transfer of power, the framing of the Constitution and the formation of the governance machinery; the clash of ideas and ideologies among parties and personalities; the beginning of the disintegration of the Congress and the consolidation of political forces in the opposition; Nehru’s grappling with existential problems at home and his quest for global peace.

Chandrachur Ghose is an author, researcher and commentator on history, economics and environment, having graduated from Visva Bharati and the University of Sussex. He has co-authored Conundrum: Subhas Bose’s Life After Death, which features among the bestsellers in Amazon. He is one of the founders of the pressure group Mission Netaji that has been the moving force behind the declassification of secret documents related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. His activism led to the declassification of over ten thousand pages in 2010.

Chandrachur’s Bose: The Untold Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist (Penguin, 2022) is a national bestseller.