By systematically assessing the debates within the Indian National Congress, from its founding in 1885 to independence in 1947, the author explains the awakening of India's consciousness of the world and its maturing in the period between the two World Wars. Bimal Prasad's study helps us recognize that such principles as non-alignment, Afro-Asian solidarity, and the commitment to international peace that guided the republic's foreign policy were not simply divined at the dawn of independence but were deeply embedded in the Indian national movement's responses to the world around it. To understand where a rising India is headed, it is critical to know where it started from.