Includes bibliographical references and index.

"This book shows a slice of the governmental interregnum from August 1947 to the start of the first general election in October 1951, and is a narrative of some of its intermediate moments in light of contemporary politics. It is a multi-track chronicle, which draws attention to its discrete, if not determining, impact on the following decade of consolidation. While it is also a map of the prime minister's words and actions, drawn as it is mainly from his papers, it is embedded in the government. It describes a time of transitional governance in independent India's early political history and gives a glimpse of its multiple individual traits, identity tensions and institutional trends. The Nehruvian gaze traced here shows what a constant flux governing in those unsettled post-partition years was"--