Imagining nations, creating states: Nehru, Ben-Gurion and an analogical study of India and Israel in post-colonial Asia

Jangid, Khinvraj (2021) Imagining nations, creating states: Nehru, Ben-Gurion and an analogical study of India and Israel in post-colonial Asia. Israel Studies, 26 (1). pp. 73-94. ISSN 1527201X

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Abstract

Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s, first Prime Minister (1947–64), and David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s, first Prime Minister (1948–54; 1955–63), played substantial roles in shaping two modern nation-states in post-Colonial Asia. The article is anchored by a comparative study of the two leaders who influenced nation-building through their individual political values and ideological convictions. /e key question posed here is what similarities existed in the nation-building roles these ,figures played and how they may have contributed to the trajectories followed by their respective nations. Nehru and Ben-Gurion were both modernists in terms of their political visions of a secular, socialist-democratic and egalitarian state. Although the two men never met and remained on non-speaking terms because India had reservations about forging ties with Israel, they both represented qualities of leadership in Asia.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: Leadership | Imagined nation | State-building in Asia | Democracy | Secularism | Religion | Democratic-socialism | Leadership legacies | Transnational approach
Subjects: Social Sciences and humanities > Arts and Humanities > History
Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > International Relations
JGU School/Centre: Jindal School of International Affairs
Depositing User: Admin Library
Date Deposited: 15 Nov 2021 05:52
Last Modified: 11 Feb 2022 18:21
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.2979/israelstudies.26.1.04
Funders: Israel Science Foundation, Israel
Additional Information: I am indebted to Professors Assaf Likhovski and Orit Rozin from Tel-Aviv University for mentoring this research during the David Berg Fellowship, 2018–19. I thank Prof. P R Kumaraswamy, Dr Ayelet Harel-Shalev, Dr. Rotem Geva and Dr, Shimon Lev for their insightful comments.
URI: https://pure.jgu.edu.in/id/eprint/7

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