India, Nov 21 : India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s writings are far more than historical records they reflect the evolution of India’s democratic conscience, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Friday, as the complete digitisation of the ‘Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru’ was announced.
Marking the milestone, Gandhi said Nehru’s words remain a “powerful compass” for anyone seeking to understand India’s democratic journey its courage, doubts, and aspirations. “I’m glad this legacy is now open, searchable and free for all. It will keep getting expanded,” he said while sharing the newly launched digital archive.
The monumental project places all 100 volumes of Nehru’s selected works online, free to download. The digital collection features 35,000 documents, 3,000 illustrations, and facsimiles of original texts, capturing Nehru’s letters, speeches, notes, interviews, administrative files and diary entries from the 1920s to the 1960s. From Volume 44 onward, the archive includes speeches in original Hindi with English translations.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge also welcomed the achievement, calling it vital in an era marked by “deliberate distortion and misinformation” about Nehru’s contributions. “Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes,” Kharge said, praising the launch of The Nehru Archive website.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, a trustee of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund (JNMF), said the next phase will involve locating and adding letters addressed to Nehru, including those from global leaders such as Winston Churchill and Rabindranath Tagore, whose correspondence is currently incomplete. He also called for integrating archives of Gandhi, Patel, Ambedkar and Maulana Azad for a richer historical ecosystem.
According to the JNMF, the digitisation draws from 77,000 pages and 35,000 artefacts spanning 61 years, offering immense value to researchers, students and anyone exploring India’s freedom movement and early nation-building years.