Kolkata: Congress president Sonia Gandhi's dream of publishing an entirely new edition of the Discovery of India has finally found hope in the library of the late antiquarian Nirmal Chandra Kumar.
Sonia has been searching for the first edition of Discovery of India, which was published in 1946 in New York and was immediately banned by the British government as it feared that the book would fan the flames of nationalism. Since the edition is rare, a marathon hunt for the book was launched. Finally, the search ended in the library of Kumar and the first edition of the book could be located.
The new edition of the book will have rare photographs, an imprint of the cover of the book's first edition, introduction from that edition and foreword by Nehru himself etc. Sonia has requested Kumar's son, Aloke, a professor of the Calcutta University, to loan her the book so that she could bring out a facsimile edition of it for the time being. Aloke went a step forward and gifted the book to her. A happy Sonia invited him to New Delhi and discussed at length her project of publishing a special edition of the book that she had been planning for some time. After several brainstorming sessions, she has come to the conclusion that a coffee-table book with rare pictures, excerpts from the first edition and its cover and the covers of the two Indian editions, published later, will be included," said a happy Aloke Kumar, who has been roped in the project for sourcing material.
The first edition of the book was published by John Day and Co of New York in 1946. The book was written by Nehru in jail for his participation in the Quit India movement. Immediately after his release, he sent his manuscript to the US after he failed to find a publisher here. The first edition saw 1100 books printed, but the British government prevented their entry to the country that was in the throes of Purna Swaraj.
After independence, two editions of the book came out back to back published by Signet books. Interestingly, the covers of both the books were designed by none other than Ray. The 1947 design of the book by Ray was widely appreciated, but he was reportedly not happy with it and re-worked on the design for the next year's edition.
"The book that Soniaji is planning to publish will have pictures of all these covers with anecdotes. It is known that Nehru himself was not happy with the first edition of the book because it was written in the jail and was hurriedly published. He vastly improved upon the manuscript and that was evident in the second and other editions that followed. Soniaji is reading the first edition carefully and doing a comparative study of the other editions with the first edition, along with scholars in Delhi”.
Kumar explained. There are some rare photographs of Nehru at the time when he was writing the book in jail and also while revising the manuscript of the first edition. These are with Sonia and she plans to use these in the new edition of the book. When the new edition was being planned, Sonia had decided to publish only a facsimile version of the first edition. This was planned as part of the Indian National Congress party's 125th year celebrations. However, this was delayed since she has planned to add a lot of value to the new edition, that will not only have excerpts from the first edition, but relevant details to supplement what is already known about this widely read book.