In tracing the development of India from British colony to self-governing independent republic, this book, first published in 1974, combines examples of what this has meant to individual Indians, whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian, with an outline of India's history from the end of the nineteenth century to the death of Nehru in 1964. It is the story of the Indian people and what they have endured: epidemics, massacres, hunger, droughts, unemployment, exploitation, misgovernment. It is also the story of two men who overshadowed twentieth-century India: Gandhi and Nehru.