# Quote — Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery Of India

> We realized in our hearts that we could not do much till conditions were radically changed-hence our overwhelming desire for independence-and yet the passion for progress filled us and the wish to emulate other countries which had gone so far ahead in many ways. We thought of the United States of America and even of some eastern countries which were forging ahead. But most of all we had the example of the Soviet Union which in two brief decades, full of war and civil strife and in the face of what appeared to be insurmountable difficulties, had made tremendous progress. Some were attracted to communism, others were not, but all were fascinated by the advance of the Soviet Union in education and culture and medical care and physical fitness and in the solution of the problem of nationalities-by the amazing and prodigious effort to create a new world out of the dregs of the old.

- Author: [Jawaharlal Nehru](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jawaharlal-nehru.md)
- Book: [The Discovery Of India](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jawaharlal-nehru/the-discovery-of-india.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru#The_Discovery_of_India_(1946)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jawaharlal-nehru/the-discovery-of-india/we-realized-in-our

## More from this book

> A study of Marx and Lenin produced a powerful effect on my mind and helped me to see history and current affairs in a new light. The long chain of history and of social development appeared to have some meaning, some sequence and the future lost some of its obscurity. The practical achievements of the Soviet Union were also tremendously impressive. Often I disliked or did not understand some development there and it seemed to me to be too closely concerned with the opportunism of the moment or the power politics of the day. But despite all these developments and possible distortions of the original passion for human betterment, I had no doubt that the Soviet Revolution bad advanced human society by a great leap and had lit a bright flame which could not be smothered, and that it had laid the foundation for the 'new civilisation' towards which the world would advance. I am too much of an individualist and believer in personal freedom to like overmuch regimentation. Yet it seemed to me obvious that in a complex social structure individual freedom had to be limited, and perhaps the only way to real personal freedom was through some such limitation in the social sphere. The lesser liberties may often need limitation in the interest of the larger freedom.

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> The Muslims who came to India from outside brought no new technique or political or economic structure. In spite of religious belief in the brotherhood of Islam, they were class bound and feudal in outlook. In technique and in the methods of production and industrial organization, they were inferior to what prevailed then in India.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jawaharlal-nehru/the-discovery-of-india/the-muslims-who.md)

> ‘[…] an exodus of people to the south [away from the areas under Islamic rule]. Those who remained became more rigid and exclusive, retired into their shells, and tried to protect themselves from foreign ways and influences by hardening the caste system.’ (Nehru 1946: 242)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jawaharlal-nehru/the-discovery-of-india/an-exodus-of-people.md)