Peacemakers: India and the Quest for One World (Session 3)

The World Citizen Book Club’s third session on Peacemakers: India and the Quest for One World continued the series with author Manu Bhagavan, who joined for discussion and a special Q&A. This session was part of a four-month reading series held on the second Saturday of each month from September through December.

About the Book

Set against the backdrop of World War II, Indian independence and decolonization, and the Cold War, this first-of-its-kind international history — based on seven years of research in twenty archives on three continents — tells the story of India’s quest to build consensus around the framework of human rights, bridge the divisions between East and West, and create “one world” free of empire, poverty, exploitation, and war. In the years leading up to independence from Great Britain and more than a decade after, Jawaharlal Nehru had a radical vision of bridging ideological differences and healing the rift between capitalist and communist systems. His sister, Madame Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, led the fight in and through the United Nations to turn this vision into reality. An outstanding diplomat, she travelled across continents speaking in the voice of the oppressed and garnering support for global governance that would check uncontrolled state power, address questions of minorities and migrant peoples, and put an end to endemic poverty. Through their efforts, Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy went global.

About the Author

Manu Bhagavan is Professor of History, Human Rights, and Public Policy at Hunter College and the Graduate Center-The City University of New York, where he is also Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. He is author or editor of seven books, including The Peacemakers (HarperCollins India, 2012; Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and India and the Cold War (Penguin India and UNC Press, 2019). His biography of Madame Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was published by Penguin/Viking India. He is the recipient of a 2006 fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and Hunter’s 2023 Presidential Award for Excellence in Scholarship.

Discussion Highlights

In this third session, participants continued exploring India’s pivotal role in shaping the post-war international order. The discussion examined how Nehru and Pandit navigated Cold War tensions to advocate for a more equitable global system, and how their efforts connected the struggles for decolonization with the broader project of building international institutions grounded in human rights.