PROLOGUE: A TRYST WITH DESTINY
1 The clocks had been set two hours forward that summer rather than the usual one.
2 Clemenceau cited in Muggeridge, The Thirties, p. 76.
3 Mildred A. Talbot to Walter S. Rogers, 27 August 1947. MP: MB1/K148 (I).
4 JN to DM, 22 June 1947. SWJN (2), vol 3, p 179.
5 Manchester Guardian, 15 August 1947, p. 5. It is not clear from reports what form the effigy took.
6 Midnight had changed him, too: DM had been Viscount Mountbatten of Burma until he was granted an earldom at that hour.
7 DM cited in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 78; see also Collins & Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight, p. 311.
8 EA, report on present position in India, 24 August 1947. TNA: DO 121/69.
9 JN to Krishna Nehru, 23 May 1931. Nehru, Nehru’s Letters to His Sister, pp. 25–6.
10 See Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, p. 817.
I. EMPIRE
1. IN THEIR GRATITUDE OUR BEST REWARD
1 Wolpert, A New History of India, pp. 128–30; Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, p. 13.
2 Shireen Moosvi (ed.), Episodes in the Life of Akbar: Contemporary Records and Reminiscences (National Book Trust of India, New Delhi, 1994), pp. 39, 60–4; Bamber Gascoigne, The Great Moghuls (1971; Jonathan Cape, London, 1985), pp. 86, 95–7.
3 This assessment of England in the 1570s has been drawn from: John Guy, Tudor England (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988), pp. 30–52; G.R. Elton, England Under the Tudors (Methuen & Co., London, 1955), pp. 229–51; J.B. Black, The Reign of Elizabeth, 1558–1603 (1936; second edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1959), pp. 251–67. Modern life expectancy statistics are from the World Health Organization’s World Health Report, 2005.
4 Philip Stubbs cited in J.B. Black, The Reign of Elizabeth, p. 267.
5 Ralph Fitch, undated letter, c. 28 September 1585. J. Courtenay Locke, (ed.), The First Englishmen in India: Letters and Narratives of Sundry Elizabethans Written by Themselves (George Routledge & Sons, London, 1930), p. 103. An ‘ounce’ is a snow leopard, and a ‘buffle’ a buffalo.
6 William Dalrymple, White Mughals (HarperCollins, London, 2002) is an enjoyable account of this phenomenon.
7 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776; Pickering & Chatto, London, 1995), vol I, p. 115.
8 Thomas Babington Macaulay, 10 July 1833; in The Complete Works of Lord Macaulay: Speeches, Poems & Miscellaneous Writings (Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1898), vol 1 (vol 11 of complete set), p. 559.
9 Judd, The Lion and the Tiger, p. 47. It is sadly not true that General Sir Charles Napier sent a single word Latin telegram – ‘Peccavi’, or ‘I have sinned’ – on capturing Sindh. The quote was attributed to him in a cartoon in Punch. Furthermore, it is probably untrue that Lord Dalhousie sent ‘Vovi’ (‘I vowed’) on taking Oudh, nor that the captors of Lucknow in 1857 sent ‘Nunc fortunatus sum’ (‘I am in luck now’).
10 Mike Dash, Thug: The True Story of India’s Murderous Cult (Granta Books, London, 2005) is a very readable investigation into thuggee.
11 Abul Kalam Azad, in Sen, 1857, p. x. Azad overstates the case by suggesting that the British deliberately concealed a motive of conquest behind a trading company. Even MKG admitted that the East India Company was not set up to conquer: ‘They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom’, he wrote (Hind Swaraj, p. 23). But he is certainly justified in arguing that the unofficial capacity of the East India Company allowed it to behave in ways the Crown could not; and it is true that the great Mughals would not have tolerated a similar incursion by an army.
12 Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, p. 23.
13 It is politically correct in India to refer to the revolt of 1857 as the ‘First War of Independence’. But this is misleading, for it had no connection to the later independence movement; moreover, there was no second war of independence. Its traditional British name, the ‘Indian Mutiny’, may be offensive to some, but retains an authentic flavour of the attitudes of the time.
14 David, The Indian Mutiny, pp. 52–5.
15 Karl Marx, ‘Investigation of Tortures in India’, 28 August 1857. Marx & Engels, The First Indian War of Independence, pp. 59–63. Progressive Indians as well as the British favoured the end of suttee, and a notable campaign against it was led by Ram Mohan Roy and Dwarakanath Tagore. Many Indians were also supportive of the Company’s policies on education and social welfare. Sen, 1857, p. 5; Abul Kalam Azad, in Sen, 1857, pp. xiv–xv; also Nehru, The Discovery of India, pp. 293–4.
16 David, The Indian Mutiny, pp. 80–4, 90–1; Ward, Our Bones are Scattered, pp. 106–7.
17 Sen, 1857, pp. 67–8.
18 Some Gurkhas mutinied at Jutogh, near Simla, causing panic among the Europeans. But the town itself was left alone by the rioters. Pubby, Shimla Then and Now, pp. 30–3.
19 Karl Marx, ‘The Future Results of the British Rule in India’, 22 July 1853. Marx & Engels, The First Indian War of Independence, p. 26.
20 Sen, 1857, pp. 114, 150; Abul Kalam Azad, in ibid, p. xvi; Ward, Our Bones are Scattered, pp. 442, 455, 510; Wolpert, A New History of India, p. 235.
21 David, The Indian Mutiny, pp. 305–6; Sen, 1857, p. 110. Bahadur Shah II was eventually transported to Burma and kept in obscurity until he died.
22 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 16.
23 Patrick French has rightly pointed out that the term ‘the raj’ was popularised by DM. ‘Raj’ means ‘rule’ – it is possible to have ‘Mughal raj’, ‘Congress raj’, ‘swaraj’ (self-rule) and so on. In Britain and the West, ‘the raj’ is understood to refer specifically to the British raj, and it has been used in that sense throughout this book. In India, the term ‘Angrez sarkar’ was usually employed. French, Liberty or Death, p. 442.
24 Cited in Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, p. 2.
25 There is an account of their tour in Liversidge, The Mountbattens, pp. 34–7.
26 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 417.
27 See Prithwis Chandra Ray, Indian Famines: Their Causes and Remedies (Cherry Press, Calcutta, 1901), table opposite p. 10.
2. MOHAN AND JAWAHAR
1 Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 34–40; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 28–9, 33; Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, p. 31.
2 Kasturbai’s surname is sometimes given as Nanakji or Kapadia.
3 Gandhi, Daughter of Midnight, pp. 16–18.
4 MKG cited in ibid, p. 212.
5 The Raj became less keen on Congress when Hume tried to broaden its base and recruited Muslims, peasant proprietors and townspeople over the next two years. ODNB, vol 28, pp. 735–7; Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 3.
6 Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 42–4. This analysis is indebted to Koestler, The Lotus and the Robot, pp. 145–9.
7 Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 52–4; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 35; Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, p. 33.
8 Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 56.
9 Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, pp. 32–3.
10 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 37.
11 Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, p. 88; Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 87.
12 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 39–40.
13 Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, p. 36.
14 St Augustine had put forward the same principle in Christianity. MKG would later amend his motto to ‘Truth is God’.
15 Gandhi, An Autobiography, pp. 113–7; Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, pp. 44–5.
16 Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, p. 43.
17 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 67; Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth, p. 179; Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, p. 60.
18 Morton, The Women in Gandhi’s Life, p. 59.
19 Gandhi, Daughter of Midnight, pp. 75–87; Morton, The Women in Gandhi’s Life, pp. 75–6.
20 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 69–71.
21 MKG in 1932, cited in Fischer, ibid, p. 331.
22 Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, p. 103.
23 MKG to Kasturba Gandhi, n.d. (9 November 1908). Cited in Gandhi, Daughter of Midnight, p. 158. The letter was written in Gujarati and there is a different translation in CWMG, vol 9, p. 106.
24 Tendulkar, Mahatma, vol 1, p. 216.
25 Akbar, Nehru, pp. 28–9.
26 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, pp. 51–2.
27 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 7. Several biographers have pointed out the Freudian implications of this story.
28 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 461.
29 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, pp. 22–3.
30 Nehru, An Autobiography, pp. 7–8.
31 According to Sarup (later Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit), she only became close to her brother after her entry into politics in the 1930s. Ultimately, they became the closest of allies and friends. Brittain, Envoy Extraordinary, pp. 35–6.
32 Nehru, An Autobiography, pp. 15–16.
33 Ibid, p. 19.
34 Sahgal, Prison and Chocolate Cake, p. 129.
35 Akbar, Nehru, p. 5.
36 Brown, Nehru, p. 38; Brittain, Envoy Extraordinary, p. 36.
37 Nehru, An Autobiography, pp. 19–21.
38 Ibid, p. 20.
39 JN to Motilal Nehru, 14 May 1909. SWJN (1), vol 1, p. 68.
40 The legal position did not stop others – including MKG’s son Devadas – from marrying outside their castes. But the law would remain unchanged until JN himself initiated the Hindu Marriages Validity Act of 1949. Ali, Private Face of a Public Person, p. 10.
41 JN to Motilal Nehru, cited in Kalhan, Kamala Nehru, p. 6.
42 JN to Motilal Nehru, ibid, p. 7.
43 Brown, Nehru, p. 38.
44 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 25.
45 Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, p. 18.
46 Ibid, pp. 30–1.
47 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 26.
48 Ibid, p. 33.
49 Ibid, p. 28. JN cites Dickinson, and the original quote is to be found in E.M. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1934; Edward Arnold, London, 1973), p. 117. See also Syed Mahmud, ‘In and out of prison’, in Zakaria (ed.), A Study of Nehru, p. 158.
50 Asaf Ali cited in Bakshi, Kamala Nehru, p. 169.
51 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 8.
52 Bakshi, Kamala Nehru, pp. 6–7.
53 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 12.
54 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 37.
55 Ibid, p. 38.
56 Sahgal, ‘The Making of Mrs. Gandhi’, p. 197.
57 MKG, 6 February 1916. CWMG, vol 13, pp. 213–14.
58 Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth, pp. 284–6; Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 533.
59 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 72.
60 MKG in Young India, 23 February 1921. Reprinted in Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, p. xiii.
61 Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, pp. 42, 44, 46.
62 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 107.
63 Ibid, p. 230; Gandhi, Daughter of Midnight, pp. 211–12.
64 Harilal Gandhi to MKG, 31 March 1915, cited in Kumar, Brahmacharya, p. 81. See also Gandhi, Daughter of Midnight, p. 174.
65 John H. Morrow, Jr, The Great War: An Imperial History (Routledge, London & New York, 2004), pp. 312–4.
66 Nehru, The Discovery of India, p. 336.
67 Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit cited in Brittain, Envoy Extraordinary, p. 45.
3. CIVIS BRITANNICUS SUM
1 King Carlos I and his brother, Crown Prince Luis Felipe, were both shot by a gang. Luis Felipe took a few hours longer to die, and therefore could have been said to reign briefly.
2 The family owned estates in Germany, and had a large portion of their liquid assets in Russia. During the First World War, inflation devalued the German estates, which were eventually sold for knock-down prices. The Russian assets disappeared during the Revolution. Hough, Edwina, p. 68.
3 Lambton, The Mountbattens, p. 45.
4 DM cited in Terraine, The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten, p. 25; Hough, Louis & Victoria, p. 265; see also Hough, Edwina, p. 59; Liversidge, The Mountbattens, p. 99; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 34.
5 Asquith cited in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol III (Heinemann, London, 1971), p. 147.
6 WSC wrote: ‘The Prime Minister thought & I agree with him that a letter from you to me indicating that you felt that in some respects yr usefulness was impaired & that patriotic considerations wh at this juncture must be supreme in yr mind wd be the best form of giving effect to yr decision. To this letter I wd on behalf of the Govt write an answer. This correspondence cd then be made public and wd explain itself.’ Cited in ibid, pp. 148–9.
7 WSC’s letter to Prince Louis is cited in ibid, p. 149. His enthusiasm for Fisher’s candidacy is recorded in the same volume, pp. 144–5.
8 The King made Prince Louis a Privy Counsellor to cheer him up, thereby putting him in a position of even greater access to state secrets than he had had as First Sea Lord. King George V’s diary, 29 October 1914. Cited in Harold Nicolson, King George V: His Life and Reign (1952: Constable, London, 1979), p. 251.
9 Hough, Edwina, p. 60. Ziegler thought this story ‘almost too picturesque to be credible’, but admitted that it would have been ‘a characteristic gesture’. Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 36.
10 DM to G.S. Hugh-Jones, cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 36.
11 King George V cited in Aronson, Crowns in Conflict, p. 154.
12 Prince Louis of Battenberg cited in Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 63.
13 ‘impossible’: Prince Louis of Battenberg cited in Hough, Louis & Victoria, p. 320. Despite his English identity, Prince Louis always spoke with a strong German accent. See Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol II (Heinemann, London, 1967), p. 553.
14 This account is summarized from the vivid reconstruction in Greg King & Penny Wilson, The Fate of the Romanovs (John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2003), pp. 306–13, 316–31.
15 Anon, Mountbatten: Eighty Years in Pictures, p. 31. DM would regularly hold forth on how the gallant King George had tried to offer his Russian cousins asylum in Britain in their hour of peril, but had been prevented from doing so by Lloyd George on grounds that it might be politically damaging. As it would emerge many years later, precisely the opposite had been the case. It was the King who had fobbed Downing Street off, having received a pile of angry letters from his subjects protesting against any offer of succour to his controversial cousins – leaving the imperial family to be butchered in a cellar. There is a detailed account in Rose, King George V, pp. 210–18.
16 Report by P.J. Harrison, Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, Spring 1915. In Anon, Mountbatten, p. 47.
17 Daily Telegraph, 28 August 1979, p. 12.
18 There is also a fictional Order of the White Elephant, situated in Burma rather than Thailand, which should not be confused with the real one. William McGonagall (c. 1825–1902), often described with some understatement as Scotland’s worst poet, was created ‘Sir William Topaz McGonagall, Knight of the Order of the White Elephant, Burmah’ in 1894. Although McGonagall affected this style and title for the rest of his life, the letter announcing his elevation to the Order had in fact been a hoax by some Edinburgh university students. Colin Walker, McGonagall: A Selection (1993; Birlinn, Edinburgh, 1998), pp. 13, 20–3.
19 Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 60.
20 Hough, Edwina, p. 61; Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 46–7.
21 John Alfred Wyllie, India at the Parting of the Ways: Monarchy, Diarchy, or Anarchy? (Lincoln Williams Ltd, London, 1934), p. 129.
22 CWMG, vol 15, p. 436.
23 Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar, pp. 202–3.
24 Cited in Read & Fisher, The Proudest Day, p. 4.
25 Ibid, p. 5.
26 Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar, p. 256. There were no white men among Dyer’s troops.
27 Read & Fisher, The Proudest Day, p. 8; Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar, pp. 261–3. The Congress committee of investigation put the death toll at 1200 and those injured at 3600, though this may have been too high. Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 42, footnote.
28 Tagore cited in Kripalani, Tagore, Gandhi and Nehru, p. 19.
29 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 43.
30 French, Liberty or Death, p. 58.
31 Reginald Dyer cited in Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 204.
32 Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar, p. 380.
33 Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, p. 228; Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar, p. 292.
34 CWMG, vol 15, pp. 243–5.
35 MKG cited in French, Liberty or Death, p. 20.
36 S.R. Singh, ‘Gandhi and the Jallianwala Bagh Tragedy: A Turning Point in the Indian Nationalist Movement’, V.N. Datta & S. Settar, eds., Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (Pragati Publications, Delhi, 2000), pp. 196–9.
37 See the dedication in Chaudhuri, Autobiography, and his clarification in ‘My hundredth year’, The Granta Book of India, ed. Ian Jack (Granta Books, London, 2005), p. 284. The story of St Paul challenging the Romans can be found in Acts 16.
38 Nehru, An Autobiography, pp. 43–4.
39 MKG to Lord Hardinge, 1 August 1920. CWMG, vol 18, pp. 104–6.
40 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 44.
41 Edward, Letters from a Prince, 17 March 1920, pp. 317–18.
42 Ibid, 18 March 1920, p. 318.
43 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 30 May 1920, p. 69.
44 Edward, Letters from a Prince, 26 March 1920, p. 323.
45 Ibid, 24 August 1920, p. 467. See also Anon, Mountbatten, pp. 64–5.
46 King George V to Prince Edward, Prince of Wales. Cited in Rose, King George V, p. 306.
47 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 17 April 1920, pp. 30–1; 30 May 1920, pp. 68–9; 11 June 1920, p. 78; Edward, Letters from a Prince, 11 June 1920, pp. 399–400; Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 55–6. Sadly, Digger fell ill after escaping in Trinidad. Despite, or perhaps owing to, the Prince’s efforts to revive it with brandy, the creature perished.
48 Edward, Letters from a Prince, p. 348.
49 Ibid, 28 August 1920, p. 470.
4. DREAMING OF THE EAST
1 Edward, Letters from a Prince, p. 424.
2 Windsor, A King’s Story, p. 178.
3 Clair Price, ‘Gandhi and British India’, New York Times, 10 July 1921, section III, p. 12.
4 MKG cited in the Statesman (weekly edition), 9 November 1921, p. 13.
5 Ibid, 23 November 1921, p. 11.
6 MP: MB1/A16. See also Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 10 November 1921, p. 178.
7 Alfred Duff Cooper, Old Men Forget: The Autobiography of Duff Cooper (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1953), 4 November 1920, p. 103.
8 Windsor, A King’s Story, p. 165.
9 Cited in Times of India, 1 November 1921, p. 6; Statesman (weekly edition), 9 November 1921, p. 3.
10 Windsor, A King’s Story, p. 167.
11 Times of India, 19 November 1921, p. 8.
12 Ibid, p. 9.
13 MKG cited in ibid, 21 November 1921, p. 11.
14 Statesman (weekly edition), 23 November 1921, p. 4; Times of India, 21 November 1921, p. 11.
15 Reuter correspondent, Illustrated London News, 17 December 1921, p. 829.
16 Times of India, 1 December 1921, p. 9.
17 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 1 December 1921, p. 203.
18 MP: MB1/A16. Handle with care.
19 Illustrated London News, 7 January 1922, pp. 10–11.
20 Ibid, p. 3.
21 Windsor, A King’s Story, pp. 169–70.
22 Ibid, p. 170.
23 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 9 December 1921, p. 211.
24 Dance card in MP: MB1/A16.
25 EA to Dennis Holman, n.d., MP: MB1/R231.
26 Hough, Edwina, p. 42.
27 Ibid, p. 44. Janet Morgan dismisses the story of EA being bullied on the grounds that girls are generally ‘more sympathetic’ than boys and would not be likely to go in for anti-Semitic teasing. Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 71–2.
28 Hough, Edwina, pp. 44–5.
29 MP: MB2/K3; Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 76–9.
30 EA to Dennis Holman, n.d., MP: MB1/R231.
31 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 92.
32 Dennis Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s Story’, part 1. Woman, 22 September 1951; Hough, Edwina, pp. 66–7.
33 Press cutting in MP: MB2/K5.
34 DM to EA, 15 January 1922. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 68.
35 Nehru, An Autobiography, pp. 49, 52.
36 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, pp. 79–80.
37 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 42
38 Ibid, pp. 79–80; Statesman (weekly edition), 14 December 1921, p. 14.
39 See Nayantara Sahgal’s comment in Nehru, Before Freedom, p. 35.
40 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 51.
41 The Viceroy, Lord Reading, wrote to King George V, ‘Allahabad is undoubtedly the place which is blackest in the record, and where the hartal most completely succeeded. The reasons in the main were that leaders of the non-cooperation movement had been arrested a day or two before, and particularly one Moti Lal Nehru, who was a most successful member of the Bar and had lived in rather princely style. He gave up his practice and became a follower of Gandhi. Undoubtedly he exercised a powerful influence over Allahabad, and his arrest just before the Prince’s arrival led to the demonstrations of complete absence of the Indians from the streets.’ 23 February 1922. Cited in Chopra et al., Secret Papers from the British Royal Archives, p. 225.
42 Daily Express, 13 December 1921.
43 Times of India, 13 December 1921, p. 9.
44 Windsor, A King’s Story, p. 170.
45 Times of India, 13 December 1921, p. 9.
46 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 52.
47 Times of India, 16 December 1921, p. 10.
48 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 51.
49 Ibid, p. 59.
50 News of the World, 18 December 1921; Daily Express, 27 December 1921.
51 Times of India, 27 December 1921, pp. 11–12; Statesman (weekly edition), 28 December 1921, p. 3; Indian Mirror (Calcutta), 29 December 1921; Morning Post, 27 December 1921; Daily Express, 27 December 1921.
52 Statesman (weekly edition), 28 December 1921, p. 17; Dance card in MP: MB1/A16.
53 Cited in the Statesman (weekly edition), 4 January 1922, p. 15.
54 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 13 January 1922, p. 237.
55 Statesman (weekly edition), 19 January 1922, p. 10.
56 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 13 January 1922, p. 237.
57 Statesman (weekly edition), 19 January 1922, p. 11.
58 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 15 January 1922, p. 239.
59 Allen & Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, pp. 104–5.
60 The Illustrated London News published a profile of MKG and a large illustration, describing him as ‘The de Valera of India’, after Eamon de Valera, the Irish leader then negotiating for the establishment of the Irish Free State. Illustrated London News, 21 December 1921, pp. 876–7.
61 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 219; Wolpert, A New History of India, p. 307; Menon, The Transfer of Power in India, p. 29; Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi, p. 48.
62 MKG in Young India, 16 February 1922. See also Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 219.
63 MKG had set these six conditions for swaraj out in a previous article: Young India, 23 February 1921. Reprinted in his Hind Swaraj, p. xii.
64 Sir Conrad Corfield, ‘The Princely India I Knew’, version 1, unpublished manuscript, p. 25. Corfield Papers, CSAS.
65 Sir George Lloyd cited in Brecher, Nehru, p. 79; Sir Conrad Corfield, ‘The Princely India I Knew’, p. 25.
66 MKG in Young India, 16 February 1922. See also Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 220; CWMG, vol 22, pp. 415–21.
67 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 84.
68 Ibid, pp. 374, 377, 379, 380.
69 Hough, Edwina, p. 71.
70 Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s story’, part 1.
71 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 14 February 1922, p. 255.
72 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 16 February 1922, p. 256.
73 Lady Reading cited in Anon, Mountbatten: Eighty Years in Pictures, p. 76; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 69.
74 DM to Victoria, Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, 26 February 1922. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 69.
75 Statesman (weekly edition), 23 March 1922, p. 5.
5. PRIVATE LIVES
1 According to the Daily Telegraph. The Star proclaimed it the wedding of the century, but in retrospect this looks like overkill. Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 70.
2 ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television.
3 Anon, Mountbatten, pp. 86–93.
4 The DM-friendly version of the story first appeared in a biography of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife, sanctioned by DM (Hough, Louis & Victoria, p. 348). It was repeated with even more dramatic emphasis in a biography of the Queen, with Princess Andrew telephoning her brother DM in desperation and DM rushing to the rescue via the King and Lord Curzon (Nicholas Davies, Elizabeth: Behind Palace Doors, Mainstream, London, 2000, p. 56). This is completely untrue. It is well-documented that the scheme to rescue the Greek royal family was conceived and directed entirely by the Foreign Office, through Commander Gerald Talbot. The King afterwards expressed his approval by appointing Talbot a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, but that was the extent of his involvement. Historian Kenneth Rose put the evidence to DM in 1977, at which point DM ‘generously admitted that he had been misled by his “rather defective memory” of events half a century earlier’. Rose, King George V, p. 348.
5 Dennis Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s Story’, part 1.
6 Ibid, part 2, Woman, 29 September 1951.
7 Hoey, Mountbatten, pp. 80–1; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 107.
8 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 184; DM cited p. 191.
9 According to Lady Pamela Hicks, ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television.
10 EA to Dennis Holman, n.d. MP: MB1/R231. Philip spent most of his time with DM’s elder brother George, the Marquess of Milford Haven, and his wife, Nada.
11 Hough, Edwina, pp. 90–1.
12 Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 111; Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 191.
13 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 111; San Francisco Chronicle, 3 October 1926, feature section, p. 3.
14 Lady Pamela Hicks in ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television.
15 DM to EA, 12 January 1927. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 112; see also Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 198–9.
16 EA to DM, 3 September 1928. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 113.
17 See, for example, Mrs [May] Meyrick, Secrets of the 43 (John Long, London, 1933), p. 160.
18 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 111; Chisholm & Davie, Beaverbrook, p. 265.
19 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 219.
20 Lady Pamela Hicks in ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television.
21 Lady Brabourne cited in Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 85.
22 ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television.
23 EA to DM, 2 September 1933. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 113.
24 Ibid, p. 115.
25 Coward, Future Indefinite, p. 304.
26 Ibid, p. 304.
27 Ibid, p. 305. The word ‘gay’ was in use to denote ‘homosexual’ by this point, though not very widely. Coward may have enjoyed the mischievous double-entendre.
28 Anon, Mountbatten, p. 104.
29 Noël Coward to DM, 21 June 1934. MP: MB1/A48.
30 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 82. Both DM’s official biographer, Philip Ziegler, and his harshest critic, Andrew Roberts, have concluded that the rumours of homosexuality were untrue. See Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 52–3; Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 58.
31 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, pp. 46–8.
32 Hough, Edwina, p. 110.
33 Dennis Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s Story’, part 2.
34 Hailey cited in Menon, The Transfer of Power in India, p. 32.
35 Motilal Nehru cited in Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 49.
36 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 229; Gandhi, Daughter of Midnight, p. 234.
37 MKG to Manilal Gandhi, 3 April 1926. Cited in Gandhi, Daughter of Midnight, p. 240.
38 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 362–3.
39 Koestler, The Lotus and the Robot, p. 149.
40 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 513.
41 Ibid, p. 512.
42 Ibid, p. 515.
43 Ibid, p. 191.
44 Morton, The Women in Gandhi’s Life, p. 172.
45 Indira Gandhi cited in Kalhan, Kamala Nehru, p. 73.
46 Ibid, p. 56.
47 Kamala Nehru cited in ibid, p. 34.
48 Nehru, The Discovery of India, p. 23.
49 JN cited in Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 70.
50 Kalhan, Kamala Nehru, p. 33.
51 Kamala Nehru to Syed Mahmud, 4 May 1927. Cited in Ali, Private Face of a Public Person, p. 22.
52 Kamala Nehru to Syed Mahmud, cited in ibid, p. 23.
53 Syed Mahmud, ‘In and out of prison’, in Zakaria (ed.), A Study of Nehru, p. 161.
54 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 73.
55 Kendall, India and the British, p. 425.
56 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 77.
57 Menon, The Transfer of Power in India, p. 34.
58 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 78.
59 Nehru, An Autobiography, pp. 177–8.
60 Ibid, pp. 179–80.
61 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 79; JN cited in Akbar, Nehru, p. 215.
62 Irwin cited in Menon, The Transfer of Power in India, p. 38.
6. WE WANT NO CAESARS
1 Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth, p. 443. The salt tax provided £25 million out of an annual revenue of £800 million.
2 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 85.
3 Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 99–100.
4 Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 67. Most of the imperial revenue from India was brought in by the manipulation of currency and the balance of payments.
5 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 85.
6 Wolpert, A New History of India, p. 315 makes a comparison with Moses.
7 MKG cited in Kendall, India and the British, p. 328.
8 MKG cited in Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth, p. 445.
9 Miller, I Found No Peace, p. 135.
10 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 293. The Aga Khan had been a long-term correspondent of MacDonald’s. A sample letter was written by the Aga Khan to MacDonald from the Hotel Ritz in Paris on 19 June 1915: ‘We want English statesmen when the war’s conclusion is in sight to forget the evil councils [sic] of suspicious narrow “white” Imperialists and also of a narrow service interest & to grant us at once & graciously the modest claims we are fully sure we can accept without any risk of our making a “mess” of it.’ TNA: PRO 30/69/1218.
11 Muggeridge, The Thirties, p. 72.
12 MacDonald’s diary, 18 December 1930 and 13 January 1931. Cited in Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, p. 581.
13 WSC, 23 February 1931, cited in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol V, 1922–1939 (Heinemann, London, 1976), p. 390.
14 Lord Irwin cited in Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 97.
15 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 100; Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, p. 90.
16 Willingdon to King George V, 28 September 1931. Chopra et al., Secret Papers from the British Royal Archives, p. 296.
17 Lester, Entertaining Gandhi, p. 34. Perhaps the newspapers had been inspired by the true story of the Maharaja of Jaipur bringing two colossal silver urns of Ganges water for his visit in 1902 – apparently, he put little trust in the sanctity of London tap water. The Times, 22 May 1902, p. 4.
18 As to whom: MKG’s biographer says it was Chaplin’s idea, while Chaplin’s autobiography implies the opposite. Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 307; Chaplin, My Autobiography, p. 368. Lester attributes it to ‘Mr. Charlie Chaplin’s friend’. Lester, Entertaining Gandhi, p. 71.
19 Chaplin, My Autobiography, p. 367.
20 Lester, Entertaining Gandhi, pp. 79–80.
21 Willingdon to King George V, 15 November 1931. Cited in Chopra et al., Secret Papers from the British Royal Archives, p. 298.
22 Sir Charles Wigram to Lord Willingdon, 2 December 1931. Cited in Rose, King George V, p. 353.
23 King George V and MKG cited in ibid, p. 353. See also Lord Templewood in ‘Gandhi’ by Francis Watson & Maurice Brown, radio programme, episode 3 (‘Gandhi in England’), 18 November 1956. CSAS: Benthall Papers, Box 2, file 2.
24 Windsor, A King’s Story, p. 245.
25 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 293.
26 Muggeridge, The Thirties, p. 75. See also The Times, 29 December 1931, p. 8.
27 The second to last Viceroy, Lord Wavell, later wrote: ‘I wonder if we shall ever have any chance of a solution till the three intransigent, obstinate, uncompromising principals are out of the way: Gandhi (just on 75), Jinnah (68), Winston (nearing 70).’ Wavell, The Viceroy’s Journal, 11 July 1944, p. 79.
28 Cited in French, Liberty or Death, p. 170.
29 Lord Randolph Churchill cited in WSC’s speech at the Round Table Conference, Cannon St, City of London, 12 December 1930. Churchill, India, p. 40. WSC cited his father’s words again in the House of Commons on 12 December 1946.
30 CRA cited in Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 205.
31 Jinnah, My Brother, p. 33.
32 Bourke-White, Portrait of Myself, p. 281.
33 George E. Jones, in the New York Times. Cited in Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 425. See also Jones, Tumult in India, p. 124.
34 MAJ to Durga Das in 1920, cited in Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 62.
35 Iqbal and MAJ cited in ibid, pp. 76–7.
36 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 426; Bourke-White, Portrait of Myself, p. 281; Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, pp. 23, 201 has a selection of quotes about MAJ’s supposed penchant for ham sandwiches. There is no credible evidence for this.
37 Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 87.
38 Ibid, pp. 88, 178.
39 Before her marriage, Ruttie wrote to Padmaja as ‘my dear lotus-maiden’ – Padmaja means ‘born from the lotus’ in Sanskrit – in letters full of girlish endearments. ‘Your letter gave me exquisite pleasure,’ she wrote in 1916. ‘My conflicting emotions make me suffer more than anything. I suppose they do you too!’ A week later, she assured Padmaja that ‘your sweet emotions shall be my own secret.’ She also wrote her poems: ‘Love came to me once in flowerlike sweetness, & I breathed it’s [sic] fragrance till it sickened & satiated.’ Ruttie Petit to Padmaja Naidu, 18 May 1916, 4 July 1916, 12 July 1916, 27 January 1917. NML: Papers of Padmaja Naidu, correspondence with Ruttie Jinnah.
40 Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 15.
41 Cited in French, Liberty or Death, p. 88.
42 MAJ cited in Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 427.
43 JN and MAJ cited in ‘In memory of Jinnah’, Economist, 17 September 1949, p. 618.
44 See also Grigg, Myths About the Approach to Indian Independence, pp. 7–8. MAJ and Motilal Nehru enjoyed a cordial friendship, and MAJ continued to believe in a united India until the late 1930s.
45 MKG in 1920, cited in Fischer, Mahatma Gandhi, p. 362.
46 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 370.
47 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 41.
48 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 370.
49 Ambedkar, Gandhi and Gandhism, p. 25.
50 Ibid, p. 83; Dutt, Gandhi, Nehru and the Challenge, p. 20. Dutt points out that large numbers of Untouchables were converting to Buddhism or Sikhism at this point.
51 Willingdon to King George V, 18 May 1933. Chopra et al., Secret Papers from the British Royal Archives, p. 311.
52 Ambedkar, Gandhi and Gandhism, pp. 72–3.
53 Ambedkar went on to greatness: he would one day write free India’s constitution, and ensured that the Gandhians on his committee were overruled. He married a Brahmin woman and eventually converted to Buddhism.
54 Rajendra Prasad, Devastated Bihar (Bihar Central Relief Committee, Patna, 1934), p. 6.
55 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 350; C.F. Andrews, The Indian Earthquake (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1935), pp. 68–72.
56 Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 490; see also Brecher, Nehru, pp. 199–200.
57 Tagore cited in C.F. Andrews, The Indian Earthquake (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1935), p. 73; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 350–1.
58 Gandhi, Daughter of Midnight, p. 261; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 231; Koestler, The Lotus and the Robot, p. 144.
59 Morton, The Women in Gandhi’s Life, pp. 214–18.
60 Nehru, An Autobiography, pp. 566–7.
61 Kamala Nehru cited in ibid, p. 567.
62 JN, Prison Diary, 1 February 1935. SWJN (1), vol 6, p. 312.
63 Kalhan, Kamala Nehru, pp. 56–7.
64 JN to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 10 September 1935, in Nehru, Before Freedom, p. 160.
65 JN to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, in ibid, p. 173.
66 Gandhi, Letters to a Friend, p. 14.
67 Nehru, The Discovery of India, p. 23.
68 Ibid, pp. 31–2.
69 Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, p. 94; Frank, Indira p. 74.
70 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, pp. 86–7.
71 Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, pp. 97–8; Frank, Indira, pp. 63–4, 93–5.
72 Sahgal, ‘The Making of Mrs. Gandhi’, South Asian Review, vol. 8, no 3 (April 1975), p. 196.
73 Gandhi with an ‘i’ means ‘grocer’, and is commonly found in Gujarati Hindus of the Modh Bania caste, such as MKG. The Parsi surname has a different root and is usually spelt Gandhy or Ghandy. Feroze’s sister, Tehmina Kershasp Gandhy, continued to use the original spelling. Ali, Private Face of a Public Person, p. 35, note 11.
74 People, 29 May 1932, p. 10.
75 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 225.
76 Hough, Edwina, p. 125.
77 Norman Birkett cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 126.
78 Ibid, p. 127. Robeson did have a serious affair with a white English actress called Yolande Jackson.
79 Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s Story’, part 2; Hough, Edwina, pp. 120–1.
80 Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 7.
81 Unnamed source cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 122.
82 DM cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 299.
83 Edward, Letters from a Prince, 18 April 1920, p. 346. See also his letters of 20 October 1919, p. 263; and 11 April 1920, p. 340.
84 Anon, Mountbatten, p. 122.
85 Noël Coward to DM, 19 November 1936. MP: MB1/A48.
86 Hough, Edwina, p. 133.
87 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, pp. 53–4.
88 Prince Albert, Duke of York, cited in James Brough, Margaret: The Tragic Princess (W. H. Allen, London, 1978), p. 64.
89 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 150.
90 Hough, Edwina, p. 133.
91 DM to King George VI, 11 December 1936. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 95.
92 MAJ cited in Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, p. 22.
93 Moon, Divide and Quit, pp. 13–15.
94 Margaret Bondfield, British Minister of Labour from 1929–31, was the first.
95 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 156.
96 See Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, pp. 52–62.
97 Wolpert, A New History of India, pp. 317–8; Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 58.
98 MAJ cited in Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, p. 45.
99 JN to Krishna Hutheesing, 27 October 1933. Nehru, Nehru’s Letters to His Sister, p. 34.
100 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 83. See also Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, ‘The Family Bond’, in Zakaria (ed.), A Study of Nehru, p. 126.
101 Nehru, Autobiography, p. 204.
102 SWJN (1), vol 8, pp. 520–3.
103 Getz, Subhas Chandra Bose, pp. 50–1.
7. POWER WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY
1 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 428.
2 Nehru, The Discovery of India, p. 403.
3 Kendall, India and the British, p. 329.
4 MKG cited in The Times, 4 July 1940, p. 3; CWMG, vol 72, p. 230. See also CWMG, vol 72, p. 188.
5 MKG cited in Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 374.
6 MKG, 9 September 1938, CWMG, vol 74, p. 309.
7 CWMG, vol 72, p. 70; see also p. 100.
8 MKG, 22 June 1940. CWMG vol 78, p. 344. He expressed hope that the Germans would exercise ‘discrimination’ in how much they honoured Hitler.
9 MKG cited in Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 376. The more generally accepted figure for Jewish deaths in the Holocaust is six million.
10 High Commissioner for South Africa to the Dominions Office, 26 May 1942. CP: CHAR 20/75.
11 JN cited in Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj, p. 477. See also Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, p. 702.
12 Linlithgow cited in Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, p. 48.
13 Moon, Divide and Quit, p. 25; see also French, Liberty or Death, p. 133.
14 MAJ cited in Menon, The Transfer of Power, p. 71; MKG cited in Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 81.
15 WSC cited in Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 62.
16 Moon, Divide and Quit, p. 21; French, Liberty or Death, p. 124. See also Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, especially pp. 58–60.
17 Tara Singh cited in Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 7.
18 Brown, Nehru, pp. 144, 147.
19 Ibid, p. 154.
20 DM to Prince Louis of Hesse, 10 May 1937. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 102.
21 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 58.
22 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 126.
23 Read & Fisher, The Proudest Day, p. 413; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 127.
24 Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 128–9.
25 DM cited in Murphy, Last Viceroy, p. 98; see also Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 61; Read & Fisher, The Proudest Day, pp. 413–4; Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 130–1.
26 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 138.
27 Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 259.
28 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 143.
29 DM to Patricia Mountbatten, 10 June 1941. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 144.
30 Heald, The Duke, p. 66. DM tactfully remembered Philip’s exclamation as being ‘Your face is absolutely brown and your eyes are bright red.’ Terraine, The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten, p. 79.
31 Coward, Diaries, 27 May 1941, p. 6.
32 Ibid, 3 July 1941, p. 7.
33 Ibid, 22 July 1941, p. 9.
34 Noël Coward to DM, 17 September 1941. MP: MB1/A48.
35 Lady Pamela Hicks, ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History.
36 Coward, Diaries, 22 December 1941, pp. 14–15.
37 Lord Attenborough, in ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television.
38 Ronald Neame in ‘The Carlton Film Collection: A Profile of In Which We Serve’.
39 Coward, Diaries, 27 October 1942, p. 19.
40 Noël Coward to DM, 2 November 1942. MP: MB1/A48.
41 Coward, Diaries, 9 November 1942, p. 19; see also 31 December 1943, p. 20.
42 Hough, Edwina, p. 144.
43 Myrtle Tuckwell cited in ibid, p. 152.
44 Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 59.
45 Channon, Chips, 25 February 1942, p. 323.
46 Hough, Edwina, p. 160.
47 Anon, Mountbatten, p. 136; Terraine, The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten, p. 83; see also Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 63.
48 Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 168–9. There are signs that WSC nearly pushed his pet even further. Admiral Cunningham found the First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound, having conniptions after WSC had threatened to retire him and replace him with DM. ‘Naturally I told him to glue himself to his chair,’ Cunningham said. General Ismay thought WSC was probably joking. He may have been, but it was becoming harder and harder to tell. Ibid, p. 175.
49 Read & Fisher, The Proudest Day, p. 415; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 187.
50 Eisenhower and Ismay cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 180–1.
51 Ibid, pp. 187–9. Lieutenant–General William Anderson, personal assistant to one of the two Canadian Generals in charge of the Dieppe troops, remembered: ‘The British were fighting all over the world. The Canadian army had done bugger-all. We were still just training and training. The pressure was on that we had to get into action!’ Anderson cited in Whitaker & Whitaker, Dieppe, p. 97.
52 Whitaker & Whitaker, Dieppe, pp. 134–5.
53 Villa, Unauthorized Action, pp. 13, 30.
54 DM speaking to BBC Television, 1972. Cited in ibid, p. 41.
55 See accounts of Captain Denis Whitaker, Corporal John Williamson, Major Jim Green, Lieutenant Dan Doheny, Private Ron Beal and others, Whitaker & Whitaker, Dieppe, pp. 242–71; Villa, Unauthorized Action, pp. 14–15, 24.
56 Whitaker & Whitaker, Dieppe, p. xii.
57 Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 162–4.
58 Whitaker & Whitaker, Dieppe, pp. 15–16.
59 Ibid, p. 201.
60 Ibid, p. 7.
61 In the event, the Germans had another warning, too. Part of a flotilla carrying commando raiders ran into a German naval convoy at 3.45a.m., an hour and a half before the frontal assault began – meaning the coastal ports were all alerted to the Allied fleet’s presence in good time. Ibid, p. 235. See also TNA: DEFE 2/546, Appendix IV. Cited in ibid, p. 154.
62 Admiral Baillie-Grohman, on reading the post-action report, commented on 14 September 1942 that it should have been titled ‘Lessons Learned By Captain Hughes-Hallett’, and noted that almost everything in there could have been learned by reading Admiralty background pamphlets on Combined Operations. Villa, Unauthorized Action, p. 200.
63 Wolpert, A New History of India, p. 335.
64 Chiefs of Staff Committee, 1 April 1942. Cited in Thorne, Allies of a Kind, pp. 233–4.
65 CRA cited in ibid, p. 235.
66 Sherwood, Roosevelt & Hopkins, p. 511; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 389; Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 243. Roosevelt told his son Elliott during the Casablanca conference in January 1943 that what he favoured was that ‘India should be made a commonwealth at once. After a certain number of years – five, perhaps, or ten – she should be able to choose whether she wants to remain in the Empire or have complete independence.’ Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw It (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1946), pp. 74–5.
67 Wolpert, A New History of India, p. 336. Other senior figures in Congress, including Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, urged acceptance of the Cripps plan. Kux, Estranged Democracies, p. 14; Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 7.
68 Moon, Divide and Quit, pp. 26–7.
69 Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 234.
70 Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, 1937–1946 (Macmillan, London, 2000), pp. 341–2, 379–84.
71 Cabinet Committee, 20 December 1944 and 16 January 1945, cited in Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 642.
72 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 394.
8. A NEW THEATRE
1 Cited in Nehru, The Discovery of India, p. 454.
2 Linlithgow to WSC, 31 August 1942. CP: CHAR 20/79B, ff 103–4.
3 Nehru, The Discovery of India, pp. 460–4. JN himself guessed the death toll at 10,000. See also French, Liberty or Death, pp. 158–9.
4 Recollection of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, in Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, p. 14.
5 Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 82.
6 Ibid, p. 112.
7 Linlithgow to Leopold Amery, 31 August 1942. CP: CHAR 20/79B, ff 105–6.
8 Nehru, The Discovery of India, pp. 427–8.
9 MKG to Linlithgow, 31 December 1942. TNA: CAB 123/170.
10 Linlithgow cited in Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 395.
11 MKG to Linlithgow, 29 January 1943. TNA: CAB 123/170.
12 Linlithgow to MKG, 5 February 1943. TNA: CAB 123/170.
13 MKG to Linlithgow, 7 February 1943. TNA: CAB 123/170.
14 Linlithgow to Leopold Amery, 8 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, f 664; see also TNA: CAB 123/170.
15 Linlithgow to Leopold Amery, 6 January 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3.
16 Linlithgow to Leopold Amery, 12 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, f 618.
17 WSC to Linlithgow, 11 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, f 532.
18 Linlithgow to WSC, 15 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, f 531.
19 Leopold Amery to Anthony Eden, 19 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, ff 496–7.
20 Linlithgow to William Phillips, 19 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, ff 498–9. See also Phillips, Ventures in Diplomacy, pp. 231–3.
21 Smuts to WSC, 25 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, f 518.
22 WSC to Smuts, 26 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3.
23 WSC to Linlithgow, 27 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, f 525.
24 Linlithgow to WSC, 27 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, ff 522–3.
25 WSC to Smuts, 26 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, f 516.
26 Nayyar, Kasturba, p. 65.
27 Ibid, p. 53.
28 Ibid, p. 67; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 422.
29 Morton, The Women in Gandhi’s Life, p. 275; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 422.
30 Nayyar, Kasturba, pp. 70–1.
31 Morton, The Women in Gandhi’s Life, pp. 277–8.
32 Major Desmond Morton cited in Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 63.
33 Brooke cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 197–8.
34 John Grigg, ‘The Pride and the Glory’, Observer, 2 September 1979; Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 198, 207–8. Captain Thomas Hussey, who chaired a Mulberry investigation committee, credited DM with the eventual solution of sinking ships to create a breakwater.
35 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 208.
36 DM cited in Anon, Mountbatten, p. 143; Dennis Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s Story’, part 3. Woman, 6 October 1951.
37 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 150. On one occasion at the White House, Roosevelt and DM had stayed up until 1.30 a.m., so absorbed had they been in their conversation.
38 Montgomery cited in Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 71.
39 Brooke cited in Read & Fisher, The Proudest Day, p. 416.
40 Cunningham cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 222; Read & Fisher, The Proudest Day, p. 415.
41 DM to EA, August 1943. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 224. He was permitted the stripe, but not the full honours: opposition from the Chiefs of Staff, and from the Admiralty in particular, kept his ranks acting and unconfirmed.
42 DM to EA, 21 August 1943. Cited in ibid, p. 224–5; see also Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 323.
43 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 242.
44 Bradford, King George VI, pp. 483–4.
45 DM’s diary, 11 September 1944, cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 251.
46 Anonymous member of DM’s staff, cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 220.
47 Cannadine, The Pleasures of the Past, p. 62.
48 Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 260–7.
49 It is not clear whether Bose and the German woman in question, Emilie Schenkl, were married. They had a daughter, Anita, in 1942. Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj, pp. 446–7.
50 Getz, Subhas Chandra Bose, pp. 72–3.
51 Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, pp. 783–4.
52 Browning cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 270.
53 Stilwell’s diary, January–August 1944, cited in Thorne, Allies of a Kind, pp. 337, 453; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 247.
54 Anon, Mountbatten, pp. 152, 155.
55 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 474.
56 N.G. Goray to DM, 10 March 1978. MP: MB1/K148A.
57 Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s Story’, part 3.
58 EA to Bryan Hunter, 16 October 1951. MP: MB1/R231
59 DM to EA, 7 May 1945. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 306.
60 Lady Pamela Hicks in ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 television.
61 DM to EA, 22 August 1944, cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 305.
62 EA to DM, 30 August 1944, cited in ibid, p. 306.
63 Driberg, Ruling Passions, p. 223.
64 DM in SEAC diary, May 1945; WSC minute, 20 May 1945, both cited in Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 611.
65 Driberg, Ruling Passions, p. 215.
66 EA cited in Masson, Edwina, p. 146.
67 Reminiscences of Major Grafton. MP: MB1/R679.
68 Paul Crook cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 176.
69 Cited in Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 76.
70 Driberg, Ruling Passions, p. 218.
71 Ibid, pp. 225–6.
72 DM’s SEAC diary, 15 June 1945, cited in Thorne, Allies of a Kind, pp. 590–1.
73 Driberg, Ruling Passions, p. 216; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 321. DM became convinced in later life that it had been a mistake on his own part to hand Burma over to Aung San too quickly.
74 DM cited in Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 76.
75 Driberg, Ruling Passions, p. 226.
9. NOW OR NEVER
1 Told to the author by Nayantara Sahgal, 8 April 2006. See also Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 259.
2 Cited in The Times, 20 September 1945, p. 4.
3 Keynes in Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, 1937–1946 (Macmillan, London, 2000), p. 403. For expenditure on empire (£2 billion from 1942–44), see French, Liberty or Death, pp. 196–7.
4 CRA to King George VI, 8 March 1947. RA: PS/GVI/C 337/07.
5 WSC cited in M.S. Venkataramani, Bengal Famine of 1943: The American Response. (Vikas Publishing House, Delhi, 1973), p. 8.
6 Ibid, p. 4.
7 Famine Inquiry Commission, Report on Bengal (1944), p. 10; Sen, Poverty and Famines, pp. 65, 75–8.
8 Famine Inquiry Commission, Report on Bengal (1944), pp. 1–2.
9 K.S. Fitch, A Medical History of the Bengal Famine, 1943–44 (Government of India Press, Calcutta, 1947), pp. 6–28.
10 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, pp. 203–4.
11 Famine Inquiry Commission, Report on Bengal (1944), p. 104.
12 Among the guilty men were the Muslim League politicians Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Khwaja Nazimuddin, the latter then Premier of Bengal. Their involvement did little damage to their careers and both would serve as Prime Ministers of Pakistan in the 1950s.
13 Wavell, Viceroy’s Journal, 5 July 1944, p. 78.
14 The India Secretary, Leo Amery, wrote to WSC: ‘… once it becomes known that no supplies are coming from outside the machinery of the Governments [sic] of India will be quite uncapable [sic] of preventing food going underground everywhere and famine conditions spreading with disastrous rapidity all over India. The result may well be fatal for the whole prosecution of the war, and that not only from the point of view of India as a base for further operations. I don’t think you have any idea of how deeply public feeling in this country has already been stirred against the Government over the Bengal Famine, or what damage it has done to us in American eyes. It is the worst blow we have had to our name as an Empire in our lifetime. We simply cannot afford a repetition of it and on an even larger scale. Nothing after that would avail to keep India in the Empire.’ Leo Amery to WSC, 17 February 1944. LAP: AMEL 2/2/4, file 1/4.
15 Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, pp. 23–6; Report on the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny, AP: MS Attlee dep. 32, ff 285–9.
16 Moon, Divide and Quit, pp. 62, 80.
17 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 182.
18 Malaya Tribune, 19 March 1946.
19 F.V. Duckworth, Report on Visit of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Malaya, 18–26 March 1946. TNA: CO 717/149/8.
20 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 182; Hough, Edwina, p. 180; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 327; Seton, Panditji, p. 120.
21 L.F. Pendred, Director of Intelligence for SACSEA, report on Nehru’s visit to Malaya. TNA: CO 717/149/8.
22 Ibid.
23 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 30.
24 Private collection of the Mountbatten Family.
25 Kux, The United States and Pakistan, pp. 6, 8. Clare Boothe Luce, the wife of Time‘s publisher Henry Luce, was a close friend of JN’s.
26 Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 114; Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, p. 824.
27 See Khilnani, The Idea of India, pp. 161–3; Moon, Divide and Quit, pp. 50–1. In February 1947, Harold Macmillan visited MAJ in Karachi, and asked him why he had accepted the plan. MAJ replied that he had only done so under pressure and that it had been a great personal risk. ‘But after all, you cannot argue for ever. We argued for weeks and months. Whether there can be a united India is a matter of argument or opinion. Finally I agreed to test it in practice.’ MAJ cited in report of Harold Macmillan, 17 February 1947. CP: CHUR 2/43A. In 1997, the former MP Woodrow Wyatt, who had been on the Cabinet Mission, claimed that he had persuaded MAJ to accept the plan as ‘the first step on the road’ to Pakistan. Woodrow Wyatt, ‘Even His Fasts Were a Fraud’, Spectator, 9 August 1997, p. 15.
28 Sir Francis Fearon Turnbull, Diary, 19 May 1946. CP: MISC 51.
29 Lord Wavell cited in French, Liberty or Death, p. 245.
30 Sir Francis Fearon Turnbull, Diary, 24 May 1946. CP: MISC 51.
31 Eugénie Wavell to EA, 24 July 1946. MP: MB1/Q128.
32 Moon, Divide and Quit, pp. 52–5.
33 MAJ cited in Bourke-White, Portrait of Myself, p. 283. See also Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, p. 216.
34 Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, p. 811.
35 Stephens, Pakistan, p. 105; Judd, The Lion and the Tiger, p. 177; Hutheesing, We Nehrus, pp. 186–7; French, Liberty or Death, p. 252.
36 Bourke-White, Portrait of Myself, p. 283.
37 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 187.
38 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 476; Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 189.
39 MKG cited in Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 469–70.
40 Koestler, The Lotus and the Robot, pp. 149–50. MKG had previously caused controversy by receiving daily massages from young women and bathing with them. He claimed to keep his eyes closed during the latter. Kumar, Brahmacharya, p. 6.
41 Mehta, Mahatma Gandhi and his Apostles, pp. 201, 203. MKG’s relationship with Manu Gandhi was protracted and intense, with a tone that it is difficult for those less spiritually perfect than MKG to hear as anything but romantic. It has been discussed at length in Kumar, Brahmacharya, pp. 315–62.
42 Bose, My Days with Gandhi, pp. 95–104.
43 Ibid, p. 169.
44 MKG cited in Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth, p. 404.
45 WSC cited in Gilbert, Never Despair, p. 233.
46 Monckton to WSC, 18 May 1946. CP: CHUR 2/42A ff 59–60.
47 WSC to Clementine Churchill, 1 February 1945, cited in Gilbert, Road to Victory, p. 1166.
48 MAJ did, however, lobby WSC against proposals put forward by Liberal leader Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru for a united India, on the grounds that it would disappoint Muslims ‘with most disastrous consequences, especially in regard to the war effort’. MAJ to WSC, repeated in WSC to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 4 March 1942. CP: CHAR 20/71A.
49 The Treason Act 1351, which is still in force, says among other things that treason occurs ‘if a man do levy war against our lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King’s enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be probably attainted of open deed by the people of their condition’.
50 During this period, WSC was also corresponding with the Untouchable leader, B.R. Ambedkar – apparently looking to throw in the Conservative Party’s lot with any indigenous Indian organization that could help stall plans for independence. There is an extensive selection of this correspondence in CP: CHUR 2/42, and CHUR 2/42B. WSC received Ambedkar at Chartwell at the end of October 1946. CP: CHUR 2/42B/266. MAJ followed WSC’s lead: in November and December 1946, headlines in Dawn announced that ‘Qaed-e-Asam and Muslim League Have Always Befriended the Downtrodden’ and articles proclaimed proudly that ‘The Muslim League stands for the rights of all weak [i.e. oppressed] communities! In reaching an agreement with the Government or any other power, we will make every sacrifice necessary to obtain … every right for the Muslims, the Adivasis and the Untouchables!’ See Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 28.
51 WSC to MAJ, 3 August 1946. CP: CHUR 2/42B, ff 252–3.
52 The Muslim League’s Liaquat Ali Khan, and the Sikh leader Baldev Singh, also came to London.
53 King George VI to CRA, 8 December 1946. Cited in Bradford, George VI, pp. 521–2.
54 Sir Eric Miéville to DM, 11 April 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 198.
55 CP: CHUR 2/42B/350.
56 QP: IOR Pos 10762. Also CP: CHUR 2/42B/374. MAJ also corresponded with Sir John Simon, who informed him that Lords Salisbury, Cranborne, Altrincham, Croft, Cherwell and Rankeillour would be interested in his cause. QP, as above.
57 M. Eleanor Herrington, ‘American Reaction to Recent Political Events in India’, Asiatic Review, vol xliv, no 158 (April 1948), pp. 178–9.
58 JN had met Robeson in London in 1938, six years after the latter’s supposed affair with EA. Marie Seton, Paul Robeson (Dennis Dobson, London, 1958), p. 115. JN’s sister Nan Pandit was also close friends with the Robesons. Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, pp. 254–5.
59 Sahgal, Prison and Chocolate Cake, p. 131.
60 Johnson to Roosevelt and Hull, 11 April 1942, cited in Kux, Estranged Democracies, p. 17.
61 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 227.
62 Cited in Kux, Estranged Democracies, p. 37; see also pp. 47–8.
63 CRA to Bevin, 25 March 1946. TNA: FO 800/470, f 30.
64 Kux, Estranged Democracies, p. 52.
65 French, Liberty or Death, p. 254.
66 Leopold Amery, Diaries, 21 November 1946. LAP: AMEL 7/40.
67 MAJ to CRA and WSC 6 July 1946. QP: IOR Pos 10762.
68 CRA cited in Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 208.
69 Ibid, p. 209. Rumours of a viceroyalty had occasionally attached themselves to DM before – Sir Mirza Ismail, at one time Prime Minister to the Nizam of Hyderabad, claimed to have suggested it to him in the early- to mid-1940s, and CRA had been considering him since January. Sir Mirza Ismail to Walter Monckton, 10 March 1947. WMP: 29, ff 88–9; French, Liberty or Death, p. 276.
70 CRA cited in Wheeler-Bennett, Friends, Enemies and Sovereigns, p. 149.
71 Marion Crawford, The Little Princesses (Cassell & Co, London, 1950), pp. 59–60.
72 Channon, Chips, 21 January 1941, p. 287.
73 DM to Sir Miles Lampson, cited in Pimlott, The Queen, p. 96.
74 King George VI to DM, 10 August 1944. Cited in Bradford, George VI, p. 557; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 308.
75 Pimlott, The Queen, pp. 97–100.
76 Philip to DM, cited in Bradford, George VI, p. 557; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 308.
77 CRA cited in Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 209.
78 DM tells an extremely colourful version of this story in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, pp. 10–11.
79 CRA cited in Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 210.
80 He had originally been offered a mere barony – actually a step down in precedence from being the son of a marquess, which he already was. Moreover, the fact that it was junior to the viscountcies offered to A.V. Alexander and Bernard Montgomery was received as an open snub. He was upgraded to a viscount on protesting. Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 310.
81 Anonymous friend cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 183. A letter from DM to Jo Hollis, written on 16 December 1946, confirms this view: DM asks that his demotion be given the least possible publicity, and writes of the Chiefs of Staff that ‘I hope they will be gracious enough to allow me to retain the actual parchments on which the Commissions are written as souvenirs.’ TNA: CAB 127/25.
82 DM told Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in the 1970s that he had ‘always had a very curious, subconscious desire to be Viceroy’. DM cited in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 7. Henry Hodson added more points to the list of DM’s objections, including the canard that DM was granted plenipotentiary powers by CRA, but these are unsupported by the documentary evidence. Hodson, The Great Divide, p. 201.
83 DM to CRA, 20 December 1946. MP: MB1/E5.
84 DM to CRA, 3 January 1947. MP: MB1/D246.
85 DM to CRA, 7 January 1947. MP: MB1/D246. DM had mentioned in passing the issue of ‘a definite and specified date’ on 3 January, but the letter of 7 January contained his first open demand. See also MP: MB1/E5.
86 CRA to Lascelles, 18 February 1947. TNA: PREM 8/558.
87 CRA cited in Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 208.
88 CRA to DM, 9 January 1947. MP: MB1/E5.
89 DM to CRA, 12 January 1947. MP: MB1/E5.
90 CRA to DM, 16 January 1947. MP: MB1/E5.
91 DM to Sir Stafford Cripps, 26 January 1947. MP: MB1/E5.
92 Report of Sir Frederick Burrows, in Wavell to Secretary of State for India, 16 February 1947. MP: MB1/D246.
93 Wavell to India Office, 17 February 1947. MP: MB1/D246.
94 CRA to Sir Alan Lascelles, 18 February 1947. TNA: PREM 8/558.
95 CRA to Sir Alan Lascelles, 22 February 1947. TNA: PREM 8/558.
96 CRA to DM, March 1947 [no day dated]. MP: MB1/D254; Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 358–9.
97 MP: MB1/E37, MB1/E38.
98 Admiral Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax to DM, 22 February 1947. MP: MB1/E37.
99 DM to Admiral Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, 1 March 1947. MP: MB1/E37.
100 At the beginning of March 1947 JN had been sent an unsigned and undated official memorandum from India to London, saying that these files were being removed or destroyed. JN wrote to Wavell on 6 March. ‘I do not know how far this information is correct. I hope it is not so because these records must contain information of great historical value and they should not be destroyed or transferred to other hands. May I beg of you to inquire into this matter and to stop any such vandalism of valuable material?’ JN to Wavell, 6 March 1947. SWJN (2), vol 2, p. 275. Wavell replied on 15 March that the records in question possessed no historical interest. Anything else was being transferred to the UK High Commission in India. JN replied to him that he would like eminent historians to be put in charge of such an effort, and wondered why the UK High Commission should have any right to them. Wavell left soon after and never replied. See SWJN (2), vol 2, pp. 276, 282–6; ToP, vol X, p. 8.
101 Brendan Bracken cited in Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, pp. 80–1.
102 DM’s valet, Charles Smith, alleged that JN had recommended DM for the post of Viceroy (Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 80), and Stanley Wolpert claimed that JN’s friend Krishna Menon ‘tirelessly urged’ CRA to appoint DM (Wolpert, Shameful Flight, p. 129). Neither AP nor TNA offers any evidence to back this up.
103 Statement dated 22 February 1947. SWJN (2), vol 2, p. 44.
104 JN to Menon, 27 February 1947. SWJN (2), vol 2, p. 55.
105 Ibid, pp. 57–8. JN seemed to warm to Ismay: on 5 August 1947, he wrote to DM about the personal staff that the latter would retain as Governor General. He mentioned specifically that ‘I am glad that Lord Ismay will be staying on.’ JN to DM, 5 August 1947. SWJN (2), vol 3, p. 39. Krishna Menon had indeed met DM already, through EA. EA and Krishna had been friends even before the war, when the former was a borough councillor for St Pancras and an editor at Penguin Books. Hough, Edwina, p. 178.
106 Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 69.
107 DM’s own claim that he had been given ‘plenipotentiary powers’ by CRA is neither documented officially, nor borne out by subsequent events. However, previous Viceroys had not even been able to see MKG without authorization from London, and even the limited powers he had may be regarded as having allowed him more agency than his predecessors.
108 Pimlott, The Queen, pp. 100–1.
109 Philip cited in ibid; p. 89; Basil Boothroyd, Philip: An Informal Biography (Longman, London, 1971), p. 54.
110 Coward, Diaries, 18 March 1947, p. 83.
111 DM to Lieutenant-Commander Peter Howes, cited in Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 77. See also Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 359.
II. THE END
10. OPERATION MADHOUSE
1 Woodrow Wyatt cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 185.
2 DM cited in ibid, p. 186.
3 EA cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 382. EA also wrote in her diary that she would rather be doing relief work in Europe with Marjorie Brecknock. Ibid, pp. 383–4.
4 Collins & Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight, pp. 76–7.
5 Murphy, Last Viceroy, p. 243.
6 Collins & Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight, pp. 87–8; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 353. The novelist Salman Rushdie listed DM’s attributes as being ‘his inexorable ticktock, his soldier’s knife that could cut subcontinents in three, and his wife who ate chicken breasts secretly behind a locked lavatory door.’ Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (Jonathan Cape, London, 1981), p. 65. Collins & Lapierre claim EA had two terriers, but most other sources and photographs suggest that EA took only one to India.
7 Collins & Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight, pp. 86–7; see also DM cited in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 18. Wavell, Viceroy’s Journal, 22 March 1947, p. 432 gives a less dramatic account of this meeting.
8 Close, Attlee, Wavell, Mountbatten, p. 10, agrees.
9 Wavell, Viceroy’s Journal, 2 December 1946, p. 389. During the Cabinet Mission the previous year, Lord Pethick-Lawrence had suggested the same scheme to CRA as the only serious option if open rebellion against British rule broke out. AP: MS Attlee dep. 37, ff 49–50. There is one piece of supposedly contemporary evidence to support the ‘Madhouse’ name: Shahid Hamid’s diary from 26 June 1947 notes, ‘Orders have been issued that India Command Joint Operation instructions No. 2 “Madhouse” is to be destroyed.’ Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 193. Attention has been drawn to the unreliability of Hamid’s memoir elsewhere in this book.
10 CRA cited in Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 209.
11 Corfield, The Princely India I Knew, pp. 152–3.
12 CRA to King George VI, 15 March 1947. RA: PS/GVI/C 337/08.
13 Pethick-Lawrence to DM, 12 April 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 219.
14 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, 22 March 1947, pp. 39–40.
15 British Pathé News Archive, film 2150.10. See also Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 149.
16 DM cited in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, pp. 24–5; see also Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 81.
17 DM cited in The Times, 25 March 1947, p. 4; see also Mountbatten, Time Only to Look Forward, p. 3.
18 Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s Story’, part 5; Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, 24 March 1947, p. 42.
19 Moon, Divide and Quit, pp. 77–9, 288. The official death toll for March was 2049, but Moon called this a significant underestimate. See also T.W. Rees, Report of the Punjab Boundary Force, AAS: Mss Eur F274/70.
20 W. Christie, Chief Commissioner Delhi, to A. E. Porter, Secretary to the Home Department, Government of India. 24 March 1947. NAI: Home Dept, Political Branch, F. No. 5/7/47 – Poll. (I).
21 The Times, 25 March 1947, p. 3.
22 W. Christie to A. E. Porter, 25 March 1947. NAI: Home Dept, Political Branch, F. No. 5/7/47 – Poll. (I).
23 The Times, 29 March 1947, p. 3.
24 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 41. DM wrote to both of them on the night of his arrival in India.
25 Ibid; 25 March 1947, pp. 43–4; ToP, vol X, pp. 10–11.
26 ToP, vol X, p. 17.
27 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, 25 March 1947, p. 45; ToP, vol X, p. 91.
28 According to a famous story about Patel, in 1909 he had been in court when he was passed a telegram saying that his wife had died. Without changing his expression, he skimmed it, put it in his pocket, and continued with the case. French, Liberty or Death, pp. 51, 279.
29 All these quotes are from DM’s notes on the meeting, 24 March 1947. SWJN (2), vol 2, p. 73; ToP, vol X, pp. 11–13.
30 The Times, 28 March 1947, p. 4.
31 EA to the East India Association, 13 October 1948, in Asiatic Review, vol xlv, no 161 (January 1949), p. 440.
32 Ibid.
33 Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit cited in Masson, Edwina, p. 244.
34 Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 153. DM’s official biographer, Philip Ziegler, wrote that EA’s ‘close relationship with Nehru did not start until the Mountbattens were on the verge of leaving India’. Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 365.
35 These photographs may be seen in SWJN (2) vol 2; opposite pp. 81 and 513; Illustrated Weekly of India, 13 April 1947, p. 17; see also Wolpert, Nehru, p. 384; Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 152.
36 EA to JN, March 1957; JN to EA, 12 March 1957, both cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 473–4.
37 Viceroy’s Personal Report no. 1, 31 March 1947 (second draft). MP: MB1/D83. A very similar draft was finally sent on 2 April. ToP, vol X, pp. 90–4.
38 Stephens, Pakistan, p. 125.
39 Viceroy’s notes, 31 March 1947. ToP, vol X, pp. 54–5; MP: MB1/D4.
40 Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 156.
41 Linlithgow to Leopold Amery, 15 February 1943. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, ff 612–3; Wavell to Leopold Amery, 12 July 1944. TNA: PREM 4/49/3, f 451.
42 Unnamed Congressman cited in Wolpert, A New History of India, p. 348; see also Jones, Tumult in India, p. 79.
43 ToP, vol X, p. 69.
44 Ibid, pp. 70–1.
45 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 61; ToP, vol X, pp. 197–8.
46 DM, ‘Reflections on Mr Jinnah 29 years later’, MP: MB1/K137A.
47 See Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 127.
48 DM, ‘Reflections on Mr Jinnah 29 years later’.
49 ‘psychopathic case’: Viceroy’s staff meeting, 11 April 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 190; and Viceroy’s Personal Report no 3, in ibid, p. 300. All cited in Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 82. DM was not the only person to describe MAJ in such terms. Sir Terence Shone, the British High Commissioner in India, wrote on 16 April 1947 that ‘Jinnah appeared to be quite unbending in his insistence on Pakistan which, indeed, savoured of the psychopathic.’ ToP, vol X, p. 279. American journalist George E. Jones was among those who described his ‘repressed intensity [which] borders on the psychotic.’ Jones, Tumult in India, p. 114.
50 ‘demagogue’, ‘reprehensible’: Viceroy’s Personal Report no. 4, 24 April 1947, ToP, vol X, p. 408; ‘hysterical’: Viceroy’s Personal Report no. 17, 16 August 1947, ToP, vol XII, p. 761; ‘Trotskyist’: Viceroy’s Personal Report no 11, 4 July 1947, ToP, vol XI, p. 896.
51 Viceroy’s Interview no 35, 5–6 April 1946. ToP, vol X, p. 138.
52 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 3, ToP, vol X, p. 299; Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 58.
53 EA to Isobel Cripps, 20–27 April 1947. MP: MB1/Q19.
54 Fatimah Jinnah cited in Viceroy’s Personal Report No. 5, 1 May 1947, ToP, vol X, p. 540.
55 MKG himself passed the reports of roasting alive to DM. MKG to DM, 7 April 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 146.
56 The Times, 7 April 1947, p. 3.
57 Ibid, 2 April 1947, p. 3.
58 Viceroy’s Personal Interview no 41, 8 April 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 158.
59 ToP, vol X, pp 297–8; Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 61.
60 ToP, vol X, pp. 212–3.
61 ToP, vol X, p. 405.
62 ToP, vol X, pp. 183–5; 320–4.
63 Viceroy’s Personal Report no. 4, 24 April 1947, ibid, p. 405.
64 ToP, vol X, p. 398; Das, End of the British-Indian Empire, vol 1, p. 38.
65 EA to Isobel Cripps, 20–27 April 1947. MP: MB1/Q19.
66 ToP, vol X, p. 398. DM told an embellished version of this story in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, pp. 37–8.
67 Ismay cited in Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 117.
68 The Times, 29 March 1947, p. 3.
69 Illustrated Weekly of India, 4 May 1947, Late News Supplement, p. 8; The Times, 29 April 1947, p. 4. The figure was given as 60,000 in the official ‘Notes on Her Excellency’s Tour of the N.W.F.P. and Punjab’; and later changed in that document to 150,000. MP: MB1/Q79. DM himself estimated 100,000, and described them as ‘militant Pathans advancing on Government House’. MP: MB2/N14.
70 Collins & Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight, p. 146. Shahid Hamid claimed that the demonstration was organized by Caroe and had been friendly from the start, but this is contradicted by news reports of the day. Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 168. See also ToP, vol X, p. 535.
71 The Times, 29 April 1947, p. 4.
72 Hodson, The Great Divide, p. 286.
11. A BARREL OF GUNPOWDER
1 The Times, 30 April, p. 30; Illustrated Weekly of India, 11 May 1947, p. 14; MP: MB1/Q79; ToP, vol X, p. 536.
2 Corfield, The Princely India I Knew, p. 151, 154.
3 Burrows cited in Viceroy’s Personal Report no 5, 1 May 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 539.
4 CP: CHUR 2/43B, f 151.
5 MAJ cited in The Times, 2 May 1947, p. 4; ToP, vol X, p. 543.
6 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 59.
7 Viceroy’s Interview no 41, 8 April 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 160.
8 EA to Isobel Cripps, 20–27 April 1947. MP: MB1/Q19.
9 Illustrated Weekly of India, 11 May 1947, p. 15.
10 EA cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 398.
11 Viceroy’s Personal Report No. 5, 1 May 1947, ToP, vol X, p. 537.
12 Report on visits of observation to refugee camps and hospitals. MP: MB1/Q79.
13 MP: MB1/Q79.
14 Statesman (daily edition), Calcutta, 2 May 1947, p. 5; Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 82.
15 Seton, Panditji, p. 133.
16 EA to Lieutenant Colonel K.C. Packman, 1 May 1947. MP: MB1/Q78; ToP, vol X, p. 839.
17 MP: MB1/Q80.
18 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, 24 March 1947, p. 43.
19 Lady Pamela Hicks, recorded by Mr B. R. Nanda, 14 October 1971, p. 5, NML: Oral History Project; MP: MB1/K202.
20 EA to Dowager Marchioness of Reading, 17 April 1947. MP: MB1/Q61.
21 Viceroy’s Personal Report No. 3, 17 April 1947, ToP, vol X, p. 303.
22 Hough, Edwina, p. 187. The suggestion sometimes made that DM persuaded Congress to concede Pakistan to MAJ is misleading – both Congress and the British government had realized that they would have to concede to some extent following the Muslim League’s strong showing in the elections of 1945–6. See Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, vol 1, p. 342.
23 Viceroy’s Personal Report No. 5, 1 May 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 540.
24 Hindustan Times cited in Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 84.
25 MP: MB1/D4.
26 MKG to Doon Campbell, 5 May 1947. Cited in Bose, My Days with Gandhi, p. 187.
27 Agatha Harrison to EA, 29 April 1947. MP: MB1/Q26. Harrison’s emphasis.
28 DM speaking in ‘Gandhi’ by Francis Watson & Maurice Brown, radio programme, episode 4 (‘The Last Phase’), 16 December 1956, Benthall Papers, CSAS, Box 2, file 2; Viceroy’s Personal Report No, 6, 8 May 1947, ToP, vol X, p. 681.
29 The Times, 5 May 1947, p. 4.
30 Pubby, Shimla Then and Now, p. 63; Nigel Woodyatt, Under Ten Viceroys (Herbert Jenkins Ltd, London, 1922), pp. 51–2.
31 MKG cited in Pubby, Shimla Then and Now, p. 89.
32 Minutes of Viceroy’s Fourth Staff Meeting, 28 March 1947. ToP, vol X, pp. 37–8.
33 ToP, vol X, p. 228.
34 Ibid, p. 335; for details of the Simla Conference, see Hodson, The Great Divide, pp. 120–9.
35 ToP, vol X, p. 373. ‘I asked Nehru to come as my guest, as I thought he was nearing a breakdown from overwork,’ DM explained to London. Viceroy’s Personal Report No 7, 15 May 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 836.
36 JN to Indira Gandhi, 1 July 1945. Gandhi & Nehru, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 511. JN had been imprisoned for almost three years, his longest single internment.
37 EA cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 399.
38 Kitchener made himself even less popular in India than he was in Britain. On the road between Simla and Mashobra, there is a long tunnel at the village of Sanjauli. Locals still tell the story about how one day Kitchener fell off his horse when riding through the tunnel, and was dragged by his stirrup. The villagers came out of their houses to watch this spectacle, but not one among them was moved to help the commander-in-chief.
39 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 88.
40 Lady Pamela Hicks, recorded by Mr B.R. Nanda, 14 October 1971, pp. 20–1.
41 DM to Sir Frederick Burrows, 9 May 1947. AAS: IOR Neg 15539, file 17; Illustrated Weekly of India, 11 May 1947, Late News Supplement, p. 8.
42 V.P. Menon, 8 May 1947. SWJN (2), vol 2, p. 116.
43 Illustrated Weekly of India, 11 May 1947, Late News Supplement, p. 1.
44 JN to DM, 11 May 1947. SWJN (2), vol 2, pp. 130–1; ToP, vol X, pp. 756–7. See also Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, p. 349.
45 DM referred to it as such from 12 April. See ToP, vol X, p. 207.
46 ‘A Note on the Draft Proposals’, SWJN (2), vol 2, p. 134.
47 Ibid, p. 133.
48 DM cited in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 57.
49 DM cited in Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 89.
50 Minutes of the 13th miscellaneous meeting of the Viceroy, Simla, 11 May 1947. SWJN (2), vol 2, p. 140.
51 Close, Attlee, Wavell, Mountbatten, pp. 21–2; French, Liberty or Death, p. 301.
52 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 394.
53 Viceroy’s Personal Report No, 7, 15 May 1947, ToP, vol X, p. 836.
54 Draft telegram from CRA to DM, 13 May 1947, in ibid, p. 806.
55 Leslie Rowan to CRA, 14 May 1947, in ibid, p. 818. See also Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 129.
56 Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 383–4.
57 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 400.
58 Azad, India Wins Freedom, pp. 183–4. In this extract Azad is referring to how JN was persuaded to accept partition, which he did, effectively, during the preparation of the plan in Simla.
59 Announcement cited in The Times, 16 May 1947, p. 6.
60 News bulletin, 22 May 1947. British Pathé News Archive, film 1185.11.
61 ‘… the Viceroy when in London reported that already at that date certain prominent Congress leaders, speaking as individuals and not on behalf of their party, had indicated in private conversation their belief that India would accept Dominion status within the Commonwealth as an ad interim measure if there could be a very early transfer of power; and that if this were effected at an early date there was good prospect that the portion of British India under Congress control would ultimately abstain from secession from the Commonwealth.’ CRA to Sir Michael Adeane, 12 June 1947. RA: PS/GVI/C 280/272.
62 WSC to CRA, 21 May 1947. CP: CHUR 2/43A, f 121.
63 CRA to DM, March 1947 [no day dated]. MP: MB1/D254.
64 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 31.
65 Leo Amery to WSC, 4 June 1947. LAP: AMEL 2/2/4, file 2/4.
66 Montague Browne, Long Sunset, p. 114; Harold Evans, Downing Street Diary: The Macmillan Years 1957–1963 (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1981), pp. 24–5.
67 DM cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 384 and Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 61; WSC to CRA, 22 May 1947, CP: CHUR 2/43A, ff 116–7. DM contradicted his version of events himself in conversation with Narendra Singh Sarila. Singh Sarila, The Shadow of the Great Game, p. 295.
68 Leo Amery, Diaries, 27 May 1947. LAP: AMEL 7/41.
69 Wolpert, Jinnah, p. 326; Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 97.
70 JN, interview to the United Press of America, Mussoorie, 24 May 1947. SWJN (2), vol 2, p. 171. See also Sir Claude Auchinleck, ‘The military implication of Pakistan’, 24 April 1947, cited in Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 334.
71 Comments by MAJ, 21 May 1947. QP: IOR Pos 10762.
72 Times of India, 1 July 1947, p. 7.
73 EA sent her ‘a little old box’ of mother of pearl from London. EA to Fatima Jinnah, 31 May 1947. QP: IOR Pos 10762, reel 3. She sent similar boxes to Amrit Kaur and Sarojini Naidu. Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 403; MP: MB1/Q40.
12. LIGHTNING SPEED IS MUCH TOO SLOW
1 EA to Dorothy, Lady Bird, 2 June 1947. MP: MB1/Q8.
2 MKG, 1 June 1947, cited in Nanda, In Search of Gandhi, p. 154.
3 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 102 and plate opposite p. 97; Wolpert, Jinnah, p. 327.
4 Viceroy’s Personal Report No. 8, 5 June 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 160.
5 Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, pp. 45–6; ToP, vol XI, p. 161.
6 ToP, vol XI, p. 53.
7 Brown, Nehru, pp. 172–3.
8 French, Liberty or Death, p. 304. JN and MAJ cited in The Times, 4 June 1947, p. 3.
9 Mountbatten, Time Only to Look Forward, p. 11.
10 Leo Amery, Diaries, 3 June 1947. LAP: AMEL 7/41. WSC replied to the announcement in support of dominion status and paid tribute to CRA and DM.
11 Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, ed. Nigel Nicolson (Collins, London, 1966–68) 3 June 1947, vol 3, p. 100.
12 DM cited in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 49.
13 EA cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 186.
14 DM to the East India Association, 29 June 1948. Asiatic Review, vol xliv, no 160 (October 1948), p. 348.
15 Even after the announcement of 15 August, JN believed for some time that dominion status would be an interim stage, and did not grasp that the British were actually intending to leave. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, vol 1, p. 356.
16 Govind Ballabh Pant, ToP, vol X, p. 590. Abul Kalam Azad agreed: see Azad, India Wins Freedom, p. 199.
17 ToP, vol X p. 357.
18 See Sir Eric Miéville, 29 March 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 47; Ismay, Viceroy’s staff meeting, 11 April 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 192; Auchinleck in Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 182.
19 Top-secret minute, n.d. (late April 1947). ToP, vol X, p. 440.
20 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 69.
21 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 409.
22 If this was among DM’s intentions, it worked. In her official report on the viceroyalty, EA noted that the transfer of power had happened ten and a half months ahead of schedule, and wrote: ‘I feel I shall be forgiven if I place on record my wifely pride at the developments of the past few months.’ EA, report on present position in India, 24 August 1947. TNA: DO 121/69. In the words of DM’s official biographer, Philip Ziegler: ‘I think it was one of the main motive forces that drove him on his career, was feeling that even though he was not able to satisfy his wife, by God he could impose himself on the rest of the world, but he did have a feeling of inadequacy as far as she was concerned.’ ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television.
23 See Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 109; Lord Ismay cited in ibid, p. 81.
24 Listowel to DM (draft, approved), n.d. (27 June 1947). TNA: PREM 8/550.
25 MAJ cited in Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 87; the implication that MAJ was considering resigning is intriguing, but would soon be rescinded.
26 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 115–6; Wolpert, Jinnah, pp. 329–30; Andreas Augustin, The Imperial New Delhi (The Most Famous Hotels in the World, 2005), pp. 83–5; Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 10; The Times, 10 June 1947, p. 4.
27 Dennis Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s Story’, part 4. Woman, 13 October 1951.
28 Singh, Heir Apparent, p. 47; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 414.
29 DM to the East India Association, 29 June 1948. Asiatic Review, vol xliv, no 160 (October 1948), p. 353.
30 JN, ‘A Note on Kashmir’, ToP, vol XI, p. 448; SWJN (2), vol 3, p. 229. See also Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, pp. 187–8, 191; Corfield, The Princely India I Knew, p. 172; Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on developments in Kashmir up to 31 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
31 Krishna Menon to DM, 14 June 1947. MP: MB1/E104. See also Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 274; SWJN (2), vol 3, pp. 273–93.
32 Anonymous letter to Anand Bhavan, received 27 June 1947. NML: AICC papers, file G-11/1946, ff 81–93.
33 Viceroy’s Personal Report No 14, 25 July 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 334.
34 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 124; Heward, The Great and the Good, p. 38.
35 Times of India, 3 July 1947, p. 1; Manchester Guardian, 5 July 1947, p. 6.
36 ‘I want the Muslims of the Frontier to understand that they are Muslims first and Pathans afterwards and that the province will meet a disastrous fate if it does not join the Pakistan Constituent Assembly,’ MAJ said on 28 June at Delhi. He described the NWFP as economically ‘deficient’ and geographically a ‘nonentity’. MAJ cited in Illustrated Weekly of India, 29 June 1947 (Late News Supplement), p. 1.
37 Times of India, 4 July 1947, p. 3.
38 Ibid, 22 July 1947, p. 1.
39 Liberator, 27 July 1947, Delhi; and Giani Kartar Singh, both cited in Pandey, Remembering Partition, pp. 33–4.
40 JN to DM, 22 June 1947. SWJN (2), vol 3, p. 179.
41 MAJ cited in Viceroy’s Personal Report No. 10, 27 June 1947. ToP, vol XI, p. 680.
42 WSC to CRA, 1 July 1947. CP: CHUR 2/43B, f 168.
43 CRA to WSC, 4 July 1947; WSC to CRA, 14 July 1947, both in CP: CHUR 2/43B, ff 199–200, 188–9.
44 TNA: PREM 8/549, ff 26–30.
45 A further clue had come when DM presented his draft proposals for the transfer of power to MAJ on 18 May. At that stage, there had been an A version and a B version: in A, there was to be one common constitutional Governor General for the two dominions; in draft B, there was to be a separate Governor General for each dominion. MAJ underlined the word ‘separate’ in his copy. It was the only word on the page he highlighted. QP: IOR Pos 10762.
46 EA to Lady Brabourne, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 408.
47 Viceroy’s Personal Report No. 11, 4 July 1947. ToP, vol XI, pp. 899–900.
48 TNA: PREM 8/549, ff 26–30.
49 Judd, The Lion and the Tiger, pp. 184–5.
50 John Grigg, ‘The Pride and the Glory’, Observer, 2 September 1979.
51 French, Liberty or Death, p. 316.
52 Bakhtiar cited in Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, pp. 132–3.
53 Ibid, pp. 146–7; Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada in Merchant, The Jinnah Anthology, p. 70.
54 Ian Stephens, a newspaper editor who observed the situation first-hand, wrote elliptically in 1963 that ‘some Leaguers had come to suspect that Lord Mountbatten, in his proposed dual role, would subconsciously or otherwise load the dice against Pakistan, because of the friendships he and his wife had formed with leading Hindus. But Mr. Jinnah seemed to be above such suspicions.’ Stephens, Pakistan, p. 175.
55 DM to CRA, 3 July 1947. TNA: PREM 8/549, f 3. See also Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 398.
56 India Office memorandum, 7 July 1947. PREM 8/549, ff 38–40.
57 TNA: PREM 8/549, ff 26–30.
58 CP: CHUR 2/43B, ff 196–7; TNA: PREM 8/559, ff 18–19. See also Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 132.
59 MAJ to WSC and CRA via Lord Ismay, 9 July 1947. CP: CHUR 2/43B/171–3.
60 DM to CRA, 9 July 1947. TNA: PREM 8/549, f 5.
61 EA to Dowager Marchioness of Reading, 27 July 1947. MP: MB1/Q61. ‘Morally, logically as well as personally feel it’s wrong’, EA wrote privately; cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 409.
62 Times of India, 14 July 1947, p. 1.
63 DM to CRA, 25 July 1947. MP: MB1/E5.
64 EA to Dowager Marchioness of Reading, 27 July 1947. MP: MB1/Q61.
13. A FULL BASKET OF APPLES
1 The old Viceroy’s House in which DM had proposed had been given to Delhi University in 1933. Visitors may still observe a small plaque in the registrar’s office commemorating the Mountbattens’ engagement.
2 EA to Dowager Marchioness of Reading, 27 July 1947. MP: MB1/Q61.; EA to the East India Association, 13 October 1948. Asiatic Review, vol xlv, no 161 (January 1949), p. 446; MKG to EA, 18 July 1947. MP: MB2/N41.
3 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 408.
4 Frances, Mrs Ambrose Diehl to EA, 27 July 1947. MP: MB1/Q20.
5 MAJ cited in Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 206. This tends to contradict Alan Campbell-Johnson’s assertion that MAJ once said: ‘The only man I have ever been impressed with in all my life was Lord Mountbatten. When I met him for the first time I felt he had “nur”,’ which Campbell-Johnson translates as ‘divine radiance’. Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 230. Like Hamid, Campbell-Johnson is an erratic source, but on this occasion Hamid’s story is more convincing.
6 EA cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 408.
7 Times of India, 19 July 1947, p. 6; 22 July 1947, p. 8.
8 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 406; Masson, Edwina, p. 178.
9 EA to Dowager Marchioness of Reading, 27 July 1947. MP: MB1/Q61.
10 The assassination was later traced to his political opponent, U Saw.
11 Liaquat Ali Khan cited in Viceroy’s Personal Report No 14, 25 July 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 339.
12 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 138.
13 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 13, 18 July 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 231.
14 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 14, 25 July 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 339.
15 Carthill, The Lost Dominion, pp. 27–8.
16 See Sen, The Argumentative Indian, especially essays 1 and 6.
17 Carthill, The Lost Dominion, p. 27.
18 Lord Curzon to Queen Victoria, 12 September 1900. Cited in Chopra et al, Secret Papers from the British Royal Archives, p. 89. See also Gilmour, Curzon, pp. 184–5.
19 See Patrick French, Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer (HarperCollins, London, 1994), p. 158.
20 Mountbatten, Diaries 1920–22, 25 November 1921, p. 196.
21 Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 61.
22 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 192. Henry Hodson gives this figure as 20 lakh rupees (£150,000): Hodson, The Great Divide, p. 428.
23 Andreas Augustin, The Imperial New Delhi, p. 50.
24 ‘A Prince’s Ransom’, Guardian, 28 May 2001; ‘A Paperweight Worth 400 Crores – and Much More’, Hindu, 24 August 2001.
25 Allen & Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, pp. 329–30; George Birdwood, The Industrial Arts of India (Chapman & Hall, London, 1880), vol 2, p. 118; Akshaya Mukul, ‘National Treasure Up for Sale in Dubai’, Times of India, 3 January 2006.
26 Miller, I Found No Peace, p. 152.
27 Malik Habib Ahmed Khan cited in ibid, p. 153.
28 Cited in French, Liberty or Death, p. 246.
29 Robin Jeffrey, ‘Introduction’, in Jeffrey, People, Princes and Paramount Power, p. 16.
30 Ziegler maintains that DM personally favoured the tactic of organizing princely states into blocs that might form separate nations – something like ‘Plan Balkan’ – as had Napoleon in Germany. But there was no time to institute such a complex plan and, in any case, Congress would have been furious. Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 405–6.
31 JN, 10 June 1947, cited in ToP, vol XI, p. 233.
32 Viceroy’s Personal Report No 10, 27 June 1947, ibid, p. 687. See also Brown, Nehru, p. 174. Patel had been an outspoken critic of the princely states since the late 1920s, when he had described them as ‘disorderly and pitiable’, with ‘no limits to their slavery’. On the other hand, he had already demonstrated an ability to make concessions to the privileged classes in order to keep the process running smoothly. Two months before, Indian citizenship policy had been established, with a clause stating that no titles should be conferred by the Union and no citizen should accept titles from a foreign state. At Patel’s suggestion, the ruling was not made retrospective. ‘After all,’ he had joked, ‘some people have spent so much money in obtaining titles – let them keep them.’ Patel cited in Krishna, Sardar, p. 296; The Times, 1 May 1947, p. 4.
33 CRA to DM, March 1947 [no day dated]. MP: MB1/D254.
34 Viceroy’s Personal Report No 14, 25 July 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 338.
35 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 411.
36 Patel cited in Krishna, Sardar, pp. 322, 319, 323.
37 Walter Monckton, for the Nizam of Hyderabad, described DM’s methods as ‘an exact replica of those in which Hitler indulged’; another agent told Sir Conrad Corfield that ‘he now knew what Dolfuss felt like when he was sent for to see Hitler: he had not expected to be spoken to like that by a British officer: after a moment’s pause he withdrew the word “British”.’ Both cited in Bradford, George VI, pp. 524–5.
38 Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 102; Allen & Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 317.
39 See, for example: James, Raj, pp. 624–9; Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, pp. 102–3; Cannadine, Ornamentalism, pp. 156–8. In fact, the Butler Committee, which looked into the question of princely rights and British responsibilities alongside the Simon Commission in the 1920s, produced an inconclusive and extremely complex set of findings, clear only in its statement that the states should not be transferred into a relationship with an independent Indian government without their permission. Hodson, The Great Divide, pp. 27–9. DM would doubtless have argued that they were not.
40 Hodson, The Great Divide, p. 22.
41 Pethick-Lawrence to DM, 18 April 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 327.
42 DM cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 408.
43 Nizam of Hyderabad to WSC, 19 June 1947; WSC to Nizam of Hyderabad, 24 June 1947; both WMP: 29, ff 201, 209.
44 Viceroy’s Personal Report No 15, 1 August 1947. ToP vol XII, p. 454.
45 Patel cited in Krishna, Sardar, pp. 339–40.
46 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 17, 16 August 1947, ToP, vol XII, p. 767; Allen & Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 320; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 411; Hodson, The Great Divide, p. 380 (footnote).
47 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 54; ToP, vol X, p. 116.
48 Times of India, 7 July 1947, p. 7.
49 Allen & Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 63.
50 Viceroy’s Personal Report No 14, 25 July 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 336.
51 Viceroy’s Personal Report No 15, 1 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 453.
52 Monckton to Sir Mirza Ismail, 21 February 1947. WMP: 29, ff 58–60.
53 Monckton, record of interview with MAJ, 4 June 1947. WMP: 29, f 192.
54 MAJ to Nizam of Hyderabad, 21 July 1947. WMP: 29, f 353.
55 Viceroy’s Personal Report No 14, 25 July 1947. ToP, vol XII p. 337.
56 Monckton, note for the consideration of MAJ, 28 July 1947. WMP: 29, ff 417–9.
57 Memorandum from Monckton, 6 August 1947. WMP: 30, ff 23–5.
58 Monckton: note of interview with Ismay, 10 August 1947. WMP: 30, f 46; note of interview with HE the Viceroy, WMP: 30, f 51.
59 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 140–2. DM’s comment was remembered by the Maharawal of Dungarpur as ‘I can see clearly through this crystal that the best course for your Ruler to adopt is to accede to India.’ Maharawal of Dungarpur cited in Allen & Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 318. Narendra Singh Sarila, who was also present, remembered the Dewan in question being that of Bhavnagar, not Kutch. Singh Sarila, The Shadow of the Great Game, pp. 316–7.
60 Allen & Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 319; Sydney Smith, ‘Fate of India’s Princes’, Sunday Express, 3 August 1947, p. 4.
61 Ali Yavar Jung, 26 July 1947. WMP: 29, ff 390–2. Patel had also given DM a solid assurance that the government of India would raise no objection if Kashmir did what was widely supposed to be inevitable, and acceded to Pakistan. DM to the East India Association, 29 June 1948, Asiatic Review, vol xliv, no 160 (October 1948), p. 353.
62 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 143.
63 JN to DM, 27 July 1947. SWJN (2), vol 3, p. 264.
64 Viceroy’s Personal Report No 15, 1 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 450.
65 Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 212. DM took the credit for persuading MKG to go in place of JN. DM to Henry V. Hodson, 3 October 1978. MP: MB1/K137A. See also Singh, Heir Apparent, pp. 50–1.
66 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 144.
67 William L. Richter, ‘Traditional Rulers in Post-traditional Societies: The Princes of India and Pakistan’, in Jeffrey, People, Princes and Paramount Power, p. 335.
14. A RAINBOW IN THE SKY
1 Imperial Review, August 1947, p. 19.
2 Thomas Babington Macaulay, Minute on Indian Education, 1835.
3 Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, p. 233. This argument is still used even today. See, for example, Neillands, A Fighting Retreat, pp. 41–2.
4 Sardar Dalip Singh cited in Times of India, 28 July 1947, p. 1.
5 DM cited in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 30.
6 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 139.
7 French, Liberty or Death, p. 340.
8 Ismay to Lady Ismay, 5 August 1947. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 365.
9 JN to DM, 6 August 1947. SWJN (2), vol 3, p. 40; see also p. 43.
10 See Sen, The Argumentative Indian, essay 3; especially p. 55.
11 Jones, Tumult in India, pp. 92–3.
12 ‘The number of signatories is considerably higher,’ Prasad noted, ‘because it is not unusual for one postcard to bear more than one signature and there are packets which contain thousands of signatures.’ Rajendra Prasad to JN, 7 August 1947. Prasad, Correspondence, vol 7, p. 91. See also JN to Rajendra Prasad, 7 August 1947. SWJN (2), vol 3, pp. 189–92. JN dismissed the cow protection campaign as being sponsored by Seth Dalmia, an enormously rich financier whose wartime ardour for Hitler had given way to a passion for Hindu nationalism and, it later emerged, tax evasion. ‘Fadeout’, Time, 10 October 1955.
13 Christopher Beaumont, in AAS: Mss Eur Photo Eur 358.
14 Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 91.
15 Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 170.
16 Shireen Moosvi (ed.), Episodes in the Life of Akbar: Contemporary Records and Reminiscences (National Book Trust of India, New Delhi, 1994), pp. xi–xii.
17 Akbar, Nehru, p. 438.
18 French, Liberty or Death, pp. 220–1, 372–3. French points out that, when the Indian Army was sent to Kashmir a few weeks later, it went by airlift rather than by the Gurdaspur road anyway. However, against that must be laid the fact that Gurdaspur was still very dangerous riot-torn territory by the end of October 1947; moreover, the Indian government had to react extremely fast, and sending troops via Gurdaspur would have taken days. In October 1947, shortly before the conflict began, India began to improve the road between Pathankot and Jammu, which was opened in July 1948. JN described this road as ‘the chief life-line for our troops and for supplies’. JN to Maharaja of Kashmir, 27 October 1947. SWJN (2), vol 4, p. 278.
19 French, Liberty or Death, p. 328.
20 Abell cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 419–20.
21 Ziegler, Mountbatten Revisited, pp. 16–17; Kanwar Sain, Reminiscences of an Engineer (Young Asia Publications, New Delhi, 1978), pp. 120–4.
22 Christopher Beaumont, in AAS: Mss Eur Photo Eur 358; ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History; Ziegler, Mountbatten Revisited, p. 16; Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 137; Heward, The Great and the Good, pp. 49–50; Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 420–1; Lamb, Birth of a Tragedy, pp. 35–8; see also Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, pp. 222–3, 235.
23 DM to Ismay, 2 April 1948, cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten Revisited, p. 17.
24 Ibid, p. 17.
25 28 March 1947. ToP, vol X, p. 36.
26 ToP, vol X, pp. 242–55; ‘rural slum’, see also p. 509.
27 MAJ cited in ToP, vol X, p. 452. The Bengali Muslim League leader H.S. Suhrawardy proposed that Calcutta remain as a ‘free city’ under joint Indo-Pakistani control for six months; Vallabhbhai Patel’s reply was ‘Not even for six hours!’ Hodson, The Great Divide, pp. 276–7.
28 Patel to DM, 13 August 1947. MP: MB1/D85.
29 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 17, 16 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 761.
30 Heward, The Great and the Good, p. 41.
31 The definition of a state under international law at this point was generally taken from the Montevideo Convention of 26 December 1933, in which it was defined as having a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and a capacity to enter into relations with other states.
32 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 152.
33 Heward, The Great and the Good, p. 41.
34 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 17, 16 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 760.
35 Manchester Guardian, 14 August 1947, p. 5; Times of India, 14 August 1947, p. 1; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 511.
36 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 16, 8 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 594.
37 Times of India, 9 August 1947, p. 6.
38 Ibid, 8 August 1947, p. 1.
39 Azad, India Wins Freedom, p. 183. Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, is entirely about the theory; see especially pp. 241–93 on MAJ and DM.
40 MAJ, 11 August 1947. Cited in Merchant, The Jinnah Anthology, p. 11.
41 Manchester Guardian, 13 August 1947, p. 5.
42 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 17, 16 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 770.
43 Mildred A. Talbot to Walter S. Rogers, 27 August 1947. MP: MB1/K148 (I).
44 DM, ‘Reflections on Mr Jinnah 29 years later’, MP: MB1/K137A. See also DM to Henry V. Hodson, 7 April 1976, in which he wrote that ‘The only period of genuine warm-hearted friendship occurred when I came to Karachi to stay with Jinnah for the transfer of power – but I can hardly put this in as an isolated & only example of my relations with Jinnah.’ MP: MB1/K137A.
45 Gerry O’Neill cited in Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 23.
46 According to Sri Prakasa, India’s High Commissioner in Pakistan. NAI: Home Dept, Political Branch, F. No. 57/25/47 - Poll. (I).
47 Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 186.
48 Singh Sarila, The Shadow of the Great Game, p. 94.
49 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 156.
50 DM to Pakistan Constituent Assembly, 14 August 1947. Mountbatten, Time Only to Look Forward, p. 58.
51 Times of India, 15 August 1947, p. 5.
52 Mildred A. Talbot to Walter S. Rogers, 27 August 1947. MP: MB1/K148 (I).
53 Manchester Guardian, 15 August 1947, p. 5.
54 DM, ‘Reflections on Mr Jinnah 29 years later’.
55 DM cited in Wolpert, Jinnah, p. 342.
56 DM, ‘Reflections on Mr Jinnah 29 years later’.
57 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 17, 16 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 771.
58 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 156.
59 CRA to DM, 14 August 1947; DM to CRA, 15 August 1947. TNA: PREM 8/571.
60 DM to EA, 18 August 1947. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 427.
61 ‘Delhi Bedecked for Independence Day’, Times of India, 14 August 1947, p. 1.
62 JN to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 10 August 1947. VLP: correspondence with JN.
63 Phillips Talbot to Walter S. Rogers, 19 August 1947. CSAS: Talbot Papers; MP: MB1/K148 (I).
64 Mildred A. Talbot to Walter S. Rogers, 27 August 1947. MP: MB1/K148 (I).
65 Cited in Mountbatten, Time Only to Look Forward, p. 63.
66 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 160.
67 Lady Pamela Hicks, recorded by Mr B.R. Nanda, 14 October 1971, p. 8.
68 Indira Gandhi cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 192.
69 Lady Pamela Hicks, recorded by Mr B.R. Nanda, 14 October 1971, pp. 8–9. See also Phillips Talbot to Walter S. Rogers, 19 August 1947; CSAS: Talbot Papers; also MP: MB1/K148 (I); Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 160.
70 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 17, 16 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 772.
71 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 202; Phillips Talbot to Walter S. Rogers, 19 August 1947, MP: MB1/K148 (I); Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 161.
72 Viceroy’s Personal Report no 17, 16 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 773.
73 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 168.
III. THE BEGINNING
15. PARADISE ON EARTH
1 Times of India, 21 August 1947, p. 3.
2 DM to Patricia, Lady Brabourne, 14 August 1947. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 427. DM’s emphasis.
3 ‘ “Rejoicings”: Happy Augury for the Future’, Times of India, 18 August 1947, p. 6.
4 Sir Cyril Radcliffe to Mark Tennant, 13 August 1947. Cited in Heward, The Great and the Good, p. 42.
5 Schofield, Kashmir, p. 130.
6 Nishtar cited in Times of India, 18 August 1947, p. 1.
7 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 205.
8 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 167.
9 Cited in Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 196.
10 Moon, Divide and Quit, pp. 115–6.
11 Ibid, pp. 93–4; Gopal, Nehru, vol ii, p. 13.
12 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 169.
13 Viceroy’s Personal Report No. 17, 16 August 1947 (postscript, 17 August). MP: MB1/D85.
14 Phillips Talbot to Walter S. Rogers, 19 August 1947. MP: MB1/K148 (I).
15 Times of India, 18 August 1947, p. 1. See also Manchester Guardian, 19 August 1947, p. 6.
16 Manchester Guardian, 19 August 1947, p. 6; United Mills photograph album, MP: MB2/M6.
17 EA cited in Masson, Edwina, p. 202; Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 169–70.
18 Manchester Guardian, 20 August 1947, p. 5.
19 T.W. Rees, Report of the Punjab Boundary Force, AAS: Mss Eur F274/70.
20 Stephens, Pakistan, p. 183.
21 T.W. Rees, Report of the Punjab Boundary Force, AAS: Mss Eur F274/70.
22 Manchester Guardian, 21 August 1947, p. 4; 25 August 1947, p. 5.
23 Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 122.
24 Report of Lord Ismay, 5 October 1947, TNA: DO 121/69.
25 Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 112.
26 29 March 1947. ToP, vol X, pp. 44–5.
27 French, Liberty or Death, p. 332.
28 Population figures are from the 1941 census, as cited in Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, p. 50. More accurately, the figures in 1941 were 16,217,000 Muslims, 7,551,000 Hindus, and 3,757,800 Sikhs.
29 Manchester Guardian, 2 August 1947, p. 4; and 14 August 1947, p. 4; also Moon, Divide and Quit, pp. 83–4. Kartar Singh had apparently told the Raja of Faridkot in June that he was prepared to negotiate with MAJ for inclusion in Pakistan, but Tara Singh and Baldev Singh were implacably opposed. ToP, vol XI, p. 38.
30 See also Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p. 164.
31 Roberts, Eminent Churchilllians, p. 115.
32 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 149, 152; JN to Krishna Menon, 11 July 1948, MP: MB1/F39.
33 JN to Krishna Menon, 11 July 1948. MP: MB1/F39.
34 Viceroy’s Report No 13, 18 July 1947. MP: MB1/D84.
35 Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 132.
36 At a cabinet meeting on 23 May, CRA and his cabinet offered their moral support to DM’s policy of using ‘all the force required’, but not more resources. ToP, vol X, p. 967.
37 DM Roberts, cited in Eminent Churchillians, p. 118.
38 JN cited in Neillands, A Fighting Retreat, p. 77.
39 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 435.
40 ‘The Strategic Value of India to the British Empire’, 5 July 1946 in Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, pp. 310–1. There are extensive papers to back up the need for a faster release rate from the forces in AP: MS Attlee dep 47, November 1947.
41 JN in SWJN (2), vol 3, p. 300.
42 Ian Stephens: lecture on ‘Pakistan’, CSAS, 24 February 1969 (MP: MB1/K202); Moon, Divide and Quit, p. 280.
43 Rajagopalachari cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten Revisited, p. 22.
44 Figure as stated by Emmanuel Shinwell in the House of Commons, 3 February 1948; 446 HC Deb 5s, cols 1629–30. Of the seven, two were murdered, and one was killed in a flying accident and was not even serving at the time. See also Ian Stephens: lecture on ‘Pakistan’, CSAS, 24 February 1969 (MP: MGI/K202).
45 ‘Edie Rutherford’ is a pseudonym: the woman in question kept a diary for the Mass-Observation Archive, which changes all observers’ names. Cited in Simon Garfield, Our Hidden Lives: The Remarkable Diaries of Post-War Britain (2004; Ebury Press, London, 2005), p. 438.
46 WSC to MAJ, n.d. [unsent, late August/September 1946]. CP: CHUR 2/42B/231–2.
47 DM cited in Terraine, The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten, p. 148.
48 EA to Kaysie Norton, 25 August 1947. MP: MB1/Q40.
49 Cited in Gopal, Nehru, vol ii, p. 14.
50 H.V.R. Iengar, ‘P.M. at work’, in Zakaria (ed.), A Study of Nehru, pp. 177–8.
51 Shudraka, Mrcchakatika, pp. 34, 59, 174. See also G.V. Devasthali, Introduction to the Study of Mrcchakatika (Poona Oriental Book House, Poona, 1951).
52 Maniben Patel to EA, 25 August 1947. MP: MB1/Q115.
53 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 176; Masson, Edwina, pp. 202–4.
54 EA to the East India Association, 13 October 1948. Asiatic Review, vol xlv, no 161 (January 1949), p. 444.
55 See Pandey, Remembering Partition, pp. 68–9, 72–3. Pandey disputes the accuracy of claims about the tattooing and branding of raped women, suggesting that it might be part of a patriarchal fantasy of female debasement. It is impossible now, as it was at the time, to establish the truth. While Pandey is right to point out that some accounts rely on rumour and hearsay, it is not realistic to expect the victims of such crimes to produce neatly verifiable historical records. The victims would mostly have been illiterate women, either socially ostracized by their own communities or forcibly married into new communities.
56 Rameshwari Nehru cited in Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 88. The Thoa Khalsa incident took place in March 1947, though similar events were observed in August.
57 Manchester Guardian, 29 August 1947, p. 5. See also Moon, Divide and Quit, p. 261.
58 JN to DM, SWJN (2), vol 4, p. 44.
59 SWJN (2), vol 4, p. 25, footnote.
60 JN to DM, 27 August 1947. SWJN (2), vol 4, p. 26.
61 Indira Gandhi cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 193.
62 Manchester Guardian, 25 August 1947, p. 5.
63 Moon, Divide and Quit, pp. 134–5.
64 Manchester Guardian, 30 August 1947, p. 5.
65 T.W. Rees, Report of the Punjab Boundary Force, AAS: Mss Eur F274/70.
66 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 172, 174, 176; Times of India, 30 August 1947, p. 1.
67 ‘Gandhi’ by Francis Watson & Maurice Brown, radio programme, episode 4 (‘The Last Phase’), 16 December 1956, in Benthall Papers, CSAS, Box 2, file 2; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 511–2.
16. THE BATTLE FOR DELHI
1 The figure of 200,000 was estimated by Penderel Moon – but, though DM and others have quoted it as if it applied to the whole of India, Moon was in fact only calculating for the Punjab. However, he later considered that it might have been an overestimate.
2 See Pandey, Remembering Partition, pp. 88–91.
3 NAI: Home Dept, Political Branch, F. No, 27/2/1947 – Poll. (I).
4 T.W. Rees, Report of the Punjab Boundary Force, AAS: Mss Eur F274/70.
5 Mudie cited in Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 127.
6 Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 155–9; Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 512–3.
7 DM cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 436. This letter is reproduced in facsimile in Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi, vol 2, plate 2 between pp. 496–7.
8 Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 431–2.
9 Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 123.
10 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 415.
11 Sir Terence Shone to Lord Addison, 11 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584.
12 Report of Tek Singh, Superintendent of Police, Delhi, 10 October 1947. NAI: Home Department, Political Branch, F. No. 5/26/47 – Poll. (I).
13 Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 129.
14 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 180.
15 DM cited in ibid, p. 181.
16 Ibid, p. 182.
17 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 433.
18 MKG was not a member of the United Council, but he discussed initiatives for it with EA and other members of its executive committee. MP: MB1/Q117.
19 Ibid.
20 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 182–4.
21 Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, pp. 838–42; Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 123; Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 206.
22 Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, pp. 844–5.
23 Times of India, 8 September 1947, p. 8.
24 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 10 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584; The Times, 9 September 1947, p. 4…
25 Sir Terence Shone to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 12 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584.
26 Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 129; see also Daily Mirror, 9 September 1947.
27 Report of Lord Ismay, 5 October 1947, TNA: DO 121/69.
28 Patel cited in Sir Terence Shone to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 11 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584. See also Times of India, 9 September 1947, p. 1.
29 MAJ to CRA, 18 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584.
30 Sir Terence Shone to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 12 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584.
31 Sir Terence Shone to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 11 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584.
32 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 10 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584.
33 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 18 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584.
34 Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, pp. 848–9.
35 JN cited in Times of India, 10 September 1947, p. 1.
36 JN to Rajendra Prasad, 19 September 1947, cited in Gopal, Nehru, vol ii, p. 16.
37 According to Shahid Ahmad Dehlavi, cited in Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 142.
38 Pandey, Remembering Partition, pp. 140–1.
39 Times of India, 11 September 1947, p. 1.
40 JN cited in Moraes, Jawaharlal Nehru, p. 363.
41 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 189.
42 Sahgal, From Fear Set Free, p. 28; Times of India, 9 September 1947, p. 1; Brecher, Nehru, p. 365.
43 JN cited in Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, p. 131.
44 Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, pp. 33–4.
45 DM to King George VI, cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 433; see also DM’s interview with JN, 8 September 1947, AAS: IOR Neg 15561/195A f 41.
46 EA cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 427.
47 Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit cited in Brittain, Envoy Extraordinary, p. 135; see also Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 514–5.
48 Mohammed Yunus, cited in French, Liberty or Death, p. 387.
49 Richard Symonds, speaking on AAS: Mss Eur R207/5, side B.
50 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, pp. 208–10.
51 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 427.
52 Nayantara Sahgal in conversation with the author, 8 May 2006.
53 Noël Coward to DM, 3 July 1945. MP: MB1/A48. ‘I hope you have by now enjoyed THIS HAPPY BREED and BLITHE SPIRIT films; the new one, BRIEF ENCOUNTER, is practically finished and looks jolly nice. I often think of those gay cinematic evenings in the King’s P.’ MP: MB1/A48.
54 DM to Noël Coward, 21 October 1947. MP: MB1/A48.
55 ‘He read few books,’ remembered DM’s close friend Solly Zuckerman, ‘but could be relied upon to master his briefs, reading slowly, sometimes with his lips moving as if he were reading aloud.’ Solly Zuckerman, ‘Working with a Man of Destiny’, Observer, 2 September 1979.
56 Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, pp. 39–40.
57 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 200–1; Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 416–7.
58 Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 516.
59 Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, pp. 851–2.
60 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 186.
61 EA cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 415.
62 Begum Anees Kidwai cited in Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 131.
63 Ibid, pp. 123–4, 131.
64 MKG cited in Fischer, Life of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 520. See also JN to Vallabhbhai Patel, 22 October 1947, SWJN (2), vol 4, pp. 173–4. Hindu temples in Sind were vandalized at around the same time. Prakasa, Pakistan, p. 38.
65 V. Viswanathan, Deputy High Commissioner for India in Pakistan (Karachi), to S. Dutt, Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations, 30 October 1947. NAI: Home Dept, Political Branch, F. No. 57/25/47 – Poll. (I).
66 Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, pp. 49, 54.
67 Sir Arthur Waugh, ‘India and Pakistan: The Economic Effects of Partition’, Asiatic Review, vol xliv, no 158 (April 1948), p. 119.
68 Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, p. 116.
69 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 190.
70 MAJ to CRA, 18 September 1947; Arthur Henderson to CRA, 19 September 1947; both TNA: PREM 8/584.
71 Sir Terence Shone to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 22 September 1947. TNA: PREM 8/584.
72 MAJ to CRA, 1 October 1947. TNA: PREM 8/568.
73 Cited in Kux, The United States and Pakistan, p. 20.
74 Ibid, pp. 20–1.
75 MAJ to Nizam of Hyderabad, 15 October 1947. WMP: 30, f 317.
76 Memorandum, WMP: 31, ff 88–9.
77 Krishna, Sardar, pp. 402–3; Pandey, Nehru, p. 297; Gopal, Nehru, vol ii, pp. 14–15; Akbar, Nehru, pp. 454–5.
78 JN, 30 September 1947. SWJN (2), vol 4, p. 108.
79 Memorandum of Lord Addison to the Cabinet Commonwealth Affairs Committee, 3 November 1947. TNA: PREM 8/585.
80 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 191–3.
81 DM cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 444.
82 Allen & Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 328.
83 The Times, 25 February 1948, p. 3.
84 Memorandum of Lord Addison to the Cabinet Commonwealth Affairs Committee, 3 November 1947. TNA: PREM 8/585. See also Wavell, Viceroy’s Journal, 20 November 1947, p. 437.
85 Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 122.
86 EA to the East India Association, 13 October 1948. Asiatic Review, vol xlv, no 161 (January 1949), pp. 442–3.
87 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, pp. 206–7
88 JN, 30 September 1947. SWJN (2), vol 4, p. 107.
17. KASHMIR
1 Lord Hardinge cited in Schofield, Kashmir in the Crossfire, p. 54.
2 Ibid, pp. 100–3.
3 Jha, Kashmir, 1947, pp. 16–17.
4 Anonymous report to MAJ, 20 August 1943. Cited in ibid, p. 17.
5 Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, p. 73.
6 Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on developments in Kashmir up to 31 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
7 ‘The background of the Kashmir problem’, 1948. TNA: DO 142/540.
8 Malgonkar, The Men who Killed Gandhi, p. 6.
9 JN to Vallabhbhai Patel, 27 September 1947. SWJN (2), vol 4, pp. 263–5.
10 JN to EA, 27 June 1948. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 445.
11 JN to Indira Gandhi, 29 May 1940, in Nehru & Gandhi, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 64.
12 Schofield, Kashmir in the Crossfire, p. 117; Jha, Kashmir, 1947, pp. 39, 40 (footnote).
13 Singh, Heir Apparent, p. 55.
14 There are eyewitness accounts in Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, pp. 67–8.
15 Stephens, Pakistan, p. 200; see also Lamb, Birth of a Tragedy, pp. 68, 129.
16 Extract from report of C.B. Duke, 23 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68; Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Commonwealth Relations Office, n.d. (early November 1947?). TNA: DO 133/68.
17 Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, p. 65; French, Liberty or Death, p. 374. The Indian representative put it to the UN Security Council in 1948 that the Pakistani government sent agents and religious leaders to incite the Muslim population of Kashmir into rebellion. Based on the fact that the Maharaja and his antecedents had a long history of oppressing their Muslim subjects, and on the eyewitness reports of an overwhelming number of impartial observers, it is hard to swallow India’s argument whole on this particular point.
18 Extract from report of C.B. Duke, 23 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68; Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on the Kashmir dispute, May 1948. TNA: DO 142/540.
19 Extract from report of C.B. Duke, 23 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
20 Frank Messervy, ‘Kashmir’, Asiatic Review, vol xlv, no 161 (January 1949), p. 469.
21 C.B. Duke to Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith, 4 December 1947. TNA: DO 133/69; Note by C.B. Duke, 8 December 1947. TNA: DO 133/69. See also Schofield, Kashmir in the Crossfire, p. 142.
22 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Commonwealth Relations Office, n.d. (early November 1947?). TNA: DO 133/68; Sydney Smith in the Daily Express, 10 November 1947, p. 1.
23 Extract from report of C.B. Duke, 23 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
24 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Philip Noel-Baker, 22 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
25 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Commonwealth Relations Office, n.d. (early November 1947?). TNA: DO 133/68.
26 Schofield, Kashmir in the Crossfire, p. 143; Khan, Raiders in Kashmir, p. 17; Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on the Kashmir dispute, May 1948. TNA: DO 142/540; Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, p. 95.
27 Malgonkar, The Men Who Killed Gandhi, p. 9. The behaviour of the Mahsuds was deplored by tribal leaders, and they were withdrawn in disgrace. ‘The Mahsuds were being allowed back again on their word of honour – for what it may be worth – that looting and murdering (at least of Europeans and Muslims) is forbidden.’ Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Philip Noel-Baker, 28 November 1947. TNA: DO 133/69. The figure for casualties at Baramula is often given as 11,000 or even 13,000 out of a population of 14,000; Major-General Akbar Khan of the Pakistan Army disputed these estimates, and Alastair Lamb has estimated casualties at being more like 500. The truth is impossible to ascertain. Khan, Raiders in Kashmir, p. 29; Lamb, Birth of a Tragedy, p. 115.
28 Note by C.B. Duke, 8 December 1947. TNA: DO 133/69.
29 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Commonwealth Relations Office, n.d. (early November 1947?). TNA: DO 133/68.
30 Daily Express, 28 October 1947, p. 1. The drive is memorably described in Singh, Heir Apparent, pp. 58–9.
31 Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, pp. 79–80; Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 446; Schofield, Kashmir in the Crossfire, pp. 144–5.
32 JN to CRA, 25 October 1947. TNA: DO 142/496.
33 Messervy, ‘Kashmir’, p. 469.
34 See Schofield, Kashmir in the Crossfire, pp. 148–50.
35 Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on the Kashmir dispute, May 1948. TNA: DO 142/540.
36 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Philip Noel-Baker, 27 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
37 Stephens, Pakistan, p. 200. Stephens, a very well-connected source, says that government circles in Delhi became aware of it only by November.
38 Field-Marshal Manekshaw cited in French, Liberty or Death, p. 375; Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, p. 134.
39 Stephens, Pakistan, p. 203; see also Stephens, Horned Moon, p. 109.
40 Sri Prakasa to JN, 11 November 1947. NAI: Home Dept, Political Branch, F. No. 57/25/47 – Poll. (I).
41 Stephens, Pakistan, p. 203.
42 JN to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 28 October 1947. VLP: correspondence with JN; Report of E. Isaacs, 6 November 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
43 Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on the Kashmir dispute, May 1948. TNA: DO 142/540.
44 Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, p. 58.
45 Ibid, pp. 59–60.
46 DM cited in Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 145.
47 Sir George Cunningham, Governor of the North-West Frontier Province, claimed on 28 October that there would have been 30,000–40,000, rather than 2000, Pathans in Kashmir by then if he had given them any encouragement, and emphasized that only by impressing on the leaders that the orders of MAJ and Liaquat were that they should hold fire was this much larger incursion prevented. C.B. Duke to Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith, 28/29 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68; see also Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on the Kashmir dispute, May 1948. TNA: DO 142/540; see also Schofield, Kashmir in the Crossfire, p. 134.
48 Foreign Office to Ambassadors, 2 January 1948. TNA: DO 35/3162.
49 Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on developments in Kashmir up to 31 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
50 JN to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 28 October 1947. VLP: correspondence with JN.
51 EA cited in News Review, 25 December 1947, p. 9.
52 Ismay to Noel-Baker, 31 October 1947. TNA: DO 133/68; see also Stephens, Pakistan, p. 206.
53 Cited in Shone to CRO, 1 November 1947 (1.15 a.m.). TNA: DO 133/68.
54 Shone to CRO, 1 November 1947 (1.15 a.m.). TNA: DO 133/68.
55 Liaquat Ali Khan to CRA, 4 November 1947. TNA: DO 142/496.
56 Ibid; Sir Terence Shone to Commonwealth Relations Office, 4 November 1947; DM’s report, cited in Sir Terence Shone to Commonwealth Relations Office, 6 November 1947; both TNA: DO 133/68
57 Extract from Pakistan Times, 4 November 1947. Cited in C.B. Duke to Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith, 5 November 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
58 C.B. Duke to Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith, 5 November 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
59 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Sir Archibald Carter, 6 November 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
60 Foreign Office to Ambassadors, 2 January 1948. TNA: DO 35/3162.
61 Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, p. 68.
62 Report of E. Isaacs, 6 November 1947. TNA: DO 133/68.
63 Sydney Smith in the Daily Express, 10 November 1947, p. 1.
64 Minutes, 4 November 1947, cited in DM to JN, 25 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/543.
65 DM to Lord Listowel, 8 August 1947. ToP, vol XII, p. 590; SWJN (2), vol 4, p. 27; see also AAS: IOR Neg 15561/195A, f 29; French, Liberty or Death, pp. 376–7.
66 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 234.
67 EA to Lady Brabourne, 1 November 1947. Cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 418. It is not clear from the context whether ‘Daddy’ refers to DM or to Lord Brabourne, though usually in her letters to her daughters EA refers to DM as ‘Daddy’. According to Philip Ziegler, DM was speaking to Walter Monckton about Hyderabad when he found out about the baby. Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 452.
68 JN cited in anonymous article, ‘The States of India and Pakistan: Advances Towards Responsible Government’, Asiatic Review, vol xliv. no 157 (January 1948), p. 77; also in Memorandum of the Commonwealth Relations Office, TNA: DO 142/540.
69 JN to CRA, 23 November 1947. TNA: DO 142/496.
70 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 419–20.
71 DM, record of Governor General’s interview with opposition leaders, 19 November 1947. AAS: IOR Neg 15561/195B, ff 94–7. See also Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 461.
72 Coward, Diaries, 18 November 1947, p. 96.
73 Pimlott, The Queen, p. 133; Sarah Bradford, Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen (Penguin, London, 2002), p. 125.
74 Daily Express, 20 November 1947, p. 1.
75 Pimlott, The Queen, p. 140.
76 Leo Amery, Diaries, 20 November 1947. LAP: AMEL 7/41.
77 MP: MB1/Y17.
78 The Queen, vol 195 no 9582, 23 July 1947, p. 8.
79 Pimlott, The Queen, p. 144.
80 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Philip Noel-Baker, 28 November 1947. TNA: DO 133/69.
81 DM to JN, 25 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/543.
82 EA to DM, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 419.
83 Masson, Edwina, pp. 210–1.
84 EA cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 421.
85 Moraes, Jawaharlal Nehru, p. 328.
86 Mathai, Reminiscences of the Nehru Age, p. 204.
87 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 435. The two women later became good friends.
88 Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on the Kashmir dispute, May 1948. TNA: DO 142/540.
89 JN to Indira Gandhi, 6 December 1947. Gandhi & Nehru, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 549.
90 Sir Terence Shone to Commonwealth Relations Office, 5 December 1947. TNA: DO 133/69.
91 JN cited in Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, p. 85; also Richard Symonds, speaking on AAS: Mss Eur R207/5, side B; see also Lamb, Birth of a Tragedy, p. 65.
92 DM to JN, 25 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/543. See also Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 251–2.
93 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 449; Akbar, Nehru, p. 447.
94 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Commonwealth Relations Office, 18 March 1948. TNA: PREM 8/813.
95 Daily Express, 27 November 1947, p. 1.
96 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Commonwealth Relations Office, 1 December 1947. TNA: DO 133/69.
97 Sri Prakasato JN, 11 November 1947. NAI: Home Department, Political Branch, F. No. 57/25/47 – poll. (I).
98 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Philip Noel-Baker, 9 December 1947. TNA: DO 133/69.
99 The Tatler and Bystander, 23 July 1947, p. 97.
100 Ibid, 31 December 1947, pp. 422–3.
101 Maharaja Sawai Man Singh Bahadur of Jaipur cited in Mountbatten, Time Only to Look Forward, p. 75.
102 Sir Terence Shone to the Commonwealth Relations Office, 24 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/543; Foreign Office to Ambassadors, 2 January 1948. TNA: DO 35/3162.
103 Sir Terence Shone to Commonwealth Relations Office, 24 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/490.
104 JN to Agatha Harrison, 12 December 1947. SWJN (2), vol 4, p. 653.
105 Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 178.
106 DM to JN, 25 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/543.
107 JN to DM, 26 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/543. The Commonwealth Relations Office telegraphed JN’s allegations to Grafftey-Smith in Pakistan, who agreed that Patiala was under threat, the Sikhs being the secondary target of the tribesmen, after loot. If they were encouraged in this direction by local authorities in Pakistan, though, it was more a matter of self-defence than strategy, for ‘if the Pathans here have nothing better to do they will impartially loot the West Punjab’. Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Commonwealth Relations Office, 3 January 1948. TNA: DO 142/490.
108 Sir Terence Shone to Commonwealth Relations Office, 28 December 1947, TNA: DO 142/543.
109 Commonwealth Relations Office to Sir Terence Shone, 29 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/490.
110 CRA to JN, 29 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/490. CRA had based his opinion on a letter written by Philip Noel-Baker, who had said that the Indian government ‘appear to think that they can bring their present campaign to victory, and stifle resistance in Kashmir, if they cut off supplies and reinforcements to their opponents by occupying the Pakistan territory which now serves as their opponents’ base. I do not know who can have given them such advice, but I believe it to be a dangerous military miscalculation. Many of those who are in the field against them are Poonchis or other Kashmiries [sic]; I know them to be excellent soldiers; I think it most unlikely that the Indian Army could successfully maintain enough troops in Kashmir to counter their guerrilla tactics, and to bring them to submission.’ Philip Noel-Baker to Sir Terence Shone, 27 December 1947. TNA: DO 142/490.
111 Foreign Office to Ambassadors, 2 January 1948. TNA: DO 35/3162.
18. MAYBE NOT TODAY, MAYBE NOT TOMORROW
1 Richard Symonds to EA, 1 January 1948. MP: MB1/Q68; also Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, p. 88.
2 Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on the Kashmir dispute, May 1948. TNA: DO 142/540.
3 Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith to Commonwealth Relations Office, 7 January 1948. TNA: DO 142/542.
4 ‘The number of genuine tribesmen from the North West Frontier which have come into the area to assist these local insurgents appears … to be very small. It should be remembered that the Poonch area produced 60,000 troops for the last war, most of whom are now home. These are formidable fighters.’ Foreign Office to Ambassadors, 9 January 1948. TNA: DO 35/3162.
5 Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on the Kashmir dispute, May 1948. TNA: DO 142/540.
6 Foreign Office to UN Delegation in New York, 12 January 1948. TNA: DO 142/490.
7 UK High Commissioner India to Commonwealth Relations Office, 5 January 1948. TNA: DO 142/542, Commonwealth Relations Office memorandum on the Kashmir dispute, May 1948. TNA: DO 142/540.
8 Brown, Nehru, pp. 178–9.
9 CRA to Philip Noel-Baker and embassies, 10 January 1948. TNA: DO 142/490.
10 The Light (Lahore), 16 May 1948, p. 3.
11 Akbar, Nehru, p. 448.
12 DM cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 450.
13 Sir M. Peterson to Foreign Office, 13 January 1948. TNA: DO 35/3162.
14 Cited in letter from J.G.P. Spicer to L.N. Helsby, 1 November 1948, TNA: CAB 127/143.
15 Symonds, In the Margins of Independence, p. 97.
16 MKG, fragment of a letter, 7 January 1948. CWMG, vol 90, p. 376.
17 MKG, fragment of a letter, 9 January 1948. CWMG, vol 90, p. 388.
18 Vallabhbhai Patel cited in French, Liberty or Death, pp. 359–60. See also SWJN (2), vol 5, pp. 21, 30; Akbar, Nehru, p. 454.
19 A top-secret telegram from the British High Commissioner to the Commonwealth Relations Office mentioned this possibility. Sir Terence Shone to Archibald Carter, n.d. (January 1948), TNA: DO 133/93.
20 Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 75; Seton, Panditji, pp. 158–9.
21 UK High Commissioner (India) to Commonwealth Relations Office, 13 January 1948. TNA: DO 35/3162.
22 Bourke-White, Portrait of Myself, p. 292.
23 MKG cited in Governor General’s Personal Report no. 8, 3 February 1948. AAS: Mss Eur D714/86.
24 Akbar, Nehru, p. 429.
25 DM cited in Collins & Lapierre, Mountbatten and the Partition of India, p. 36.
26 Governor General’s Personal Report no. 8, 3 February 1948. AAS: Mss Eur D714/86. See also DM’s record of the meeting, AAS: IOR Neg 15561/195C, ff 96–8.
27 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 218; Brown, Nehru, pp. 179–80; SWJN (2), vol 5, pp. 6–7.
28 MKG, 18 January 1948.CWMG, vol 90, p. 444.
29 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 272.
30 MKG cited in Malgonkar, The Men Who Killed Gandhi, p. 153.
31 Report of ACB Symon to Philip Noel-Baker, 4 February 1948. TNA: PREM 8/741.
32 See speech in SWJN (2), vol 5, p. 32; also Pioneer (Lucknow), 29 January 1948, p. 1.
33 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 222; Frank, Indira, p. 218.
34 Report of A.C.B. Symon to Philip Noel-Baker, 4 February 1948. TNA: PREM 8/741.
35 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 224. Similar sentiments were expressed during a memorable scene in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, in which Amina and Ahmed Sinai are at the cinema when news of MKG’s assassination comes through. Amina’s relief when the assassin is revealed to have a Hindu name is obvious. ‘By being Godse he has saved our lives!’ Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, p. 142.
36 Malgonkar, The Men Who Killed Gandhi, pp. 20–1, 85.
37 Nayantara Pandit to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 18 February 1948. Private collection of Nayantara Sahgal.
38 Sahgal, Prison and Chocolate Cake, p. 219; also Moraes, Jawaharlal Nehru, p. 348.
39 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 225.
40 Bourke-White, Portrait of Myself, p. 298.
41 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 226.
42 According to journalist Pran Chopra, cited in Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, p. 137; see also Report of A.C.B. Symon to Philip Noel-Baker, 4 February 1948. TNA: PREM 8/741.
43 SWJN (2), vol 5, p. 35.
44 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, pp. 227–8.
45 Report of A.C.B. Symon, to Philip Noel-Baker, 4 February 1948. TNA: PREM 8/741.
46 CP: CHUR 2/44.
47 Coward, Diaries, 30 January 1948, p. 103.
48 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 427.
49 Gopal, Nehru, vol ii, p. 26.
50 Peter Murphy to EA, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 423.
51 Ibid, p. 423.
52 Barratt with Ritchie, With the Greatest Respect, p. 47.
53 Hough, Edwina, p. 182.
54 JN to EA, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 429.
55 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 198.
56 MP: MB2/N14.
57 Brown, Nehru, pp. 180–1; DM to Krishna Menon, 7 February 1948. MP:MB1/F37.
58 Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 145; Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi, p. 167.
59 Sarojini Naidu cited in John Grigg, ‘The Power and the Glory’, Observer, 2 September 1979.
60 Krishna Menon to DM, 3 February 1948 (dated 1947 in error). MP: MB1/F37.
61 DM to Krishna Menon, 7 February 1948. MPJMB1/F37.
62 Rita Pandit to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 17 February 1948. VLP: correspondence with Rita Dar.
63 EA to Agatha Harrison, 20 February 1948. Seton, Panditji, plate xix, between pp. 140–1.
64 Sir G. Squire to Foreign Office, 11 January 1948. TNA: DO 142/490.
65 MAJ cited in Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p. 178.
66 Bourke-White, Portrait of Myself, p. 291.
67 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 255.
68 DM to CRA, 8 February 1948. TNA: DO 142/496.
69 CRA to DM, 10 February 1948. TNA: DO 142/496.
70 DM to CRA, 11 February 1948. TNA: DO 142/496.
71 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 287.
72 DM to CRA, 24 February 1948; Philip Noel-Baker to CRA, 25 February 1948 and 26 February 1948; Philip Noel-Baker to Sir Terence Shone, 3 March 1948; all TNA: PREM 8/821; see also TNA: DO 142/496.
73 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 245; DM to Walter Monckton, 29 November 1947. WMP: 30, f 652.
74 Nizam of Hyderabad to Walter Monckton, 16 January 1948. WMP: 31, f 76.
75 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 313.
76 Nizam of Hyderabad cited in ibid, p. 329.
77 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, pp. 300–1.
78 Ibid, p. 304.
79 Kux, Estranged Democracies, p. 68.
80 Rajagopalachari cited in Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 297.
81 Ibid, p. 317.
82 UK High Commissioner in India to Commonwealth Relations Office, 18 April 1948. TNA: DO 142/496.
83 Horace Alexander to EA, 22 April 1948. MP: MB1/Q6.
84 EA to Horace Alexander, 19 May 1948. MP: MB1/Q6.
85 DM, report of an interview with JN, 3 May 1948. AAS: IOR Neg 15561/195F, f 23.
86 SWJN (2), vol 5, p. 271.
87 EA to Sheikh Abdullah, 30 May 1948. MP: MB1/Q101.
88 DM, report of interviews with JN and Vallabhbhai Patel, 20 April 1948. AAS: IOR Neg 15561/195A, f 45.
89 JN to Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, 30 March 1948; Chakravarty Rajagopalachari to JN, 2 April 1948; JN to Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, 11 April 1948; Chakravarty Rajagopalachari to JN, 15 April 1948. NML: Papers of Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, Inst. V, correspondence with JN.
90 JN to Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, 6 May 1948; all NML: Papers of Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, Inst. V, correspondence with JN.
91 Chakravarty Rajagopalachari to JN, 12 May 1948. NML: Papers of Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, Inst. V, correspondence with JN.
92 EA to JN, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 427–8.
93 DM to Lady Brabourne, 12 June 1948. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 473.
94 Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, pp. 125–6.
95 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 428.
96 Countess Mountbatten of Burma cited in Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, p. 148.
97 Lady Pamela Hicks in ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television. Lady Pamela made a point of stating that she did not believe the relationship to be physical.
98 DM to Lady Brabourne, 22 May 1948, cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 460.
99 JN to EA, 12 March 1957, Cited in ibid, p. 473.
100 JN to Indira Gandhi, 19 May 1948. Nehru and Gandhi, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 553.
101 EA to JN, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 428.
102 JN to EA, cited in ibid, p. 429.
103 EA cited in ibid, p. 429.
104 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, p. 349.
105 DM: farewell memorandum, in DM to Vallabhbhai Patel, 19 June 1948. MP: MB1/D150. Notably, India already had a female ambassador, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, who happened to be a widow. DM made no recommendations as to ambassadors’ husbands.
106 JN to EA, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 430.
107 Illustrated Weekly of India, 20 June 1948, pp. 9–11.
108 JN to EA, 18 June 1948. MP: MB1/R447.
109 Indian News Chronicle, 21 June 1948, p. 1; Statesman, 21 June 1948, p. 1.
110 Holman, ‘Lady Mountbatten’s story’, part 5.
111 JN cited in Holman, Lady Louis, p. 12.
112 JN to King George VI, 21 May 1948. RA: PS/GVI/C 280/292; Sir Alan Lascelles to JN, 17 June 1948. RA: PS/GVI/C 280/294; JN to Sir Alan Lascelles, 23 July 1948. RA: PS/GVI/C 280/296; Sir Alan Lascelles to JN, 29 July 1948. RA: PS/GVI/C 280/303.
113 JN to EA, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 432.
114 JN himself disliked his name, and had almost thought of changing it a decade before after ‘a BBC announcer got hopelessly muddled over it and went on ha-haing’. JN to Krishna Menon, 25 March 1937, cited in Akbar, Nehru, p. 307. In contrast, DM seems to have had no trouble spelling Vallabhbhai Patel or Chakravarty Rajagopalachari’s names.
115 MP: MB2/N14.
116 Times of India, 22 June 1948, pp. 1, 3.
117 Chakravarty Rajagopalachari to CRA, 23 June 1948. TNA: PREM 8/808.
IV. AFTERWARDS
19. A KISS GOODBYE
1 Chakravarty Rajagopalachari to DM, 23 June 1948. MP: MB1/F42.
2 Anonymous friend cited in Hough, Edwina, p. 199.
3 EA to JN, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 434.
4 JN to EA, cited in ibid, p. 435.
5 JN to DM, 3 July 1948. MP: MB1/F39.
6 Chakravarty Rajagopalachari to DM, 1 July 1948. MP: MB1/F42.
7 Truth, 2 July 1948, p. 2. See also Chakravarty Rajagopalachari to DM, 8 July 1948. MP: MB1/F42.
8 DM to Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, 16 July 1948. MP: MB1/F42.
9 CP: CHUR 2/153B, ff 286–7.
10 Wolpert, Nehru, p. 401.
11 DM to WSC, 23 July 1947. CP: CHUR 2/153B, f 281. WSC to DM, 4 August 1947. CP: CHUR 2/153B, f 282.
12 Leo Amery, Diary, 29 June 1948. LAP: AMEL 7/42.
13 EA to the East India Association, 29 June 1948. Asiatic Review, vol xliv, no 160 (October 1948), pp. 354–5.
14 JN to DM, 3 July 1948. MP: MB1/F39.
15 DM to JN, 15 July 1947. MP: MB1/F39.
16 DM to CRA, 6 July 1948. MP: MB1/E5.
17 DM to JN, 15 July 1947. MP: MB1/F39.
18 DM to JN, 28 July 1948. MP: MB1/F39.
19 JN to DM, 1 August 1948. MP: MB1/F39.
20 DM to JN, 15 August 1948. MP: MB1/F39; see also DM to JN, 10 September 1948. MP: MB1/F39.
21 DM to JN, 28 July 1948. MP: MB1/F39.
22 Jinnah, My Brother, p. 35.
23 MAJ cited in Akbar, Nehru, p. 433. See also Singh Sarila, The Shadow of the Great Game, p. 94.
24 Jinnah, My Brother, pp. 37–8. MAJ had said: ‘Fati, may God protect you … There is no God but Allah … Mohammed is the messenger of Allah.’
25 DM to Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, 25 September 1948. MP: MB1/F42.
26 Chakravarty Rajagopalachari to DM, 5 October 1948: MP: MB1/F42.
27 JN to Indira Gandhi, 6 October 1948. Nehru & Gandhi, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 559.
28 EA cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 437.
29 DM to JN, 25 September 1948. MP: MB1/F39.
30 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 437.
31 DM to Chakravarty Rajagopalachari,16 October 1948. MP: MB1/F42.
32 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, pp. 87–8.
33 Hough, Edwina, p. 199.
34 JN to Indira Gandhi, 28 October 1948. Nehru & Gandhi, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 561.
35 The Tatler & Bystander, 27 October 1948, pp. 97–101.
36 DM to Chakravarty Rajagopalachari,16 October 1948. MP: MB1/F42.
37 DM to King George VI, 10 October 1948. RA: GVI/PRIV/01/24/174.
38 JN to Indira Gandhi, 28 October 1948. Nehru & Gandhi, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 561.
39 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, pp. 237–8.
40 EA to Dennis Holman, n.d. MP: MB1/R231.
41 JN to EA and EA to JN, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 447–8.
42 Daily Herald, 27 February 1953, p. 1; The Times, 27 February 1953, p. 7.
43 Sir Alan Lascelles to J.R. Colville, 27 February 1953. TNA: PREM 11/340.
44 Akbar, Nehru, p. 569.
45 The witness was Russi Mody, later chief executive of Tata Steel; his father was Sir Homi Mody, Governor of Uttar Pradesh (formerly the United Provinces). The incident took place between 1949 and 1952. Ibid, pp. 390–1.
46 Cited in Mathai, My Days with Nehru, p. 154; see also Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 469.
47 JN to DM, 25 March 1952. MP: MB1/G28. See also Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 501–2.
48 DM cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 475.
49 EA to DM, cited in ibid, p. 476.
50 DM to EA, cited in ibid, p. 476.
51 Rajkumari Amrit Kaur to EA, 6 August 1949. MP: MB1/R127.
52 Sahgal, From Fear Set Free, p. 141.
53 JN to Indira Gandhi, 2 May 1953. Nehru & Gandhi, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 583.
54 Mullik, My Years with Nehru, p. 51.
55 Viceroy’s Personal Report No 15, 1 August 1947, TOP, vol XII, p. 452.
56 DM to JN, 18 February 1952. MP: MB1/G28.
57 DM to JN, 18 October 1953. MP: MB1/H167.
58 JN to DM, 16 November 1953. MP: MB1/H167.
59 DM to JN, 11 February 1954. MP: MB1/H167.
60 JN to Indira Nehru, 4 January 1937. Nehru & Gandhi, Freedom’s Daughter, p. 307. During 1937, JN was romantically involved with Padmaja Naidu, whom he often compared to an ‘Ajanta Princess’. Akbar, Nehru, pp. 393, 568.
61 EA to A. Wahid, 5 February 1957. MP: MB1/R573.
62 DM to JN, 25 January 1953. MP: MB1/H167; JN to DM, 20 March 1949. MP: MB1/F39.
63 DM to King George VI, 12 April 1949. RA: GVI/PRIV/01/24/178.
64 DM to JN, 18 April 1951. MP: MB1/G28.
65 EA cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 454.
66 DM to WSC, 18 September 1952. TNA: PREM 11/340.
67 Seton, Panditji, p. 315.
68 Mullik, My Years with Nehru, pp. 125–31.
69 EA to JN, cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 440.
70 Pimlott, The Queen, p. 184; Heald, The Duke, p. 102. The problem had been pointed out even before the wedding. Cyril Hankinson, editor of Debrett, wrote in Queen magazine that ‘it may be decided to continue the Windsor Dynasty by a similar process [of proclamation as in 1917]. If this is not done, however, Princess Elizabeth’s children will be of the House of Mountbatten.’ Queen, vol 195, no 9582, 23 July 1947, p. 15.
71 Pimlott, The Queen, p. 183. Pimlott argues that Edinburgh was unacceptable because it was a title, rather than a family name, and that a conversion to the House of Mountbatten would have followed the precedent set by Prince Albert. In fact, the royal name acquired when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert – that of Saxe-Coburg Gotha – was a title. Albert’s surname was either Wettin or Wipper, according to the College of Heralds. The House of Edinburgh would, therefore, have followed precedent; it would have been as patriotic as Windsor, and no more artificial; it would also have avoided any undesirable association with DM or the Battenberg family. It is hard to imagine what the objection to this could have been, apart from a simple dislike of Philip in the royal household.
72 Philip cited in Pimlott, The Queen, p. 185; Bradford, Elizabeth, p. 172; Lady Colin Campbell, The Royal Marriages: Private Lives of the Queen and Her Children (Smith Gryphon, London, 1993), p. 85.
73 Queen Mary cited in Pimlott, The Queen, p. 185.
74 Seshan, With Three Prime Ministers, p. 28.
75 See ibid, passim.
76 JN cited in Seshan, With Three Prime Ministers, p. 28.
77 Oliver Lyttelton cited in ‘Mountbatten’s Wife Enraged Churchill’, Daily Telegraph, 3 January 2004. EA was herself outraged at Lyttelton’s statement: see Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 468–9.
78 TNA: FO 371/107577.
79 WSC cited in Seshan, With Three Prime Ministers, pp. 28–9; Henry Hodson attributes a similar story about WSC to Rab Butler rather than Indira Gandhi. Hodson, The Great Divide, p. 401.
80 WSC, 8 August 1953, cited in Moran, Winston Churchill, pp. 449–50.
81 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, pp. 337–9. The conversation is reported more mildly in Pandit’s book; this account was told to the author by Pandit’s daughter, Nayantara Sahgal, 8 April 2006.
82 Sahgal, From Fear Set Free, p. 171; also Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 347.
83 Queen Elizabeth II cited in Parker, Prince Philip, p. 220.
84 Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 171.
85 DM cited in Pimlott, The Queen, p. 254.
86 Ibid, pp. 470–1.
87 Private collection of the Mountbatten family, Broadlands.
88 JN cited in Seton, Panditji, p. 270.
89 EA and JN cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 474.
90 Ramachandra Guha, ‘A Mask That was Pierced’, Hindu, 24 April 2005. Guha and Sunil Khilnani both guessed that the author was more likely to be Penderel Moon.
91 Amrit Kaur to EA, 21 July 1958. MP: MB1/R127.
92 DM cited in Seton, Panditji, p. 270.
93 Amrit Kaur to EA, 12 May 1959. MP: MB1/R127. Emphasis is Amrit Kaur’s.
94 JN cited in Seton, Panditji, p. 253.
95 JN to Indira Gandhi, 23 April 1959. Nehru & Gandhi, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 625.
96 DM cited in Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, pp. 822–3.
97 Mullik, My Years with Nehru, p. 168.
98 Coward, Diaries, 16 January 1960, p. 427.
99 London Gazette, 8 February 1960. It is clear that the Queen wanted to change her surname as a gift to Philip. TNA: LCO 2/8115, ff 8–11.
100 Hough, Edwina, p. 3.
101 Seton, Panditji, p. 281.
102 Ibid, pp. 282–3, and see plates between pp. 268–9.
103 Hough, Edwina, p. 7.
104 Robert Noel Turner cited in ibid, p. 8.
105 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 480.
106 Seton, Panditji, p. 284.
107 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 125.
108 Coward, Diaries, 15 May 1960, p. 439.
109 According to William Evans, in ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History.
110 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 481.
111 ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History.
20. ECHOES
1 Seton cited in Paul Gore-Booth to Sir Saville Garner, 16 April 1963. TNA: DO 196/210.
2 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 20 June 1962. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 602.
3 S.K. Patil cited in Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 175.
4 Mullik, My Years with Nehru, p. 107; Robert Schulman, John Sherman Cooper: The Global Kentuckian (University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 1976), p. 70.
5 Kux, The United States and Pakistan, p. 115.
6 Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 247, footnote.
7 According to B.K. Nehru, cited in Kux, Estranged Democracies, p. 193; see also pp. 194–5. See also Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 248.
8 Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 248.
9 Ibid, p. 249.
10 Ibid, p. 320.
11 Lee Radziwill, Happy Times (Assouline, New York, 2000), p. 110.
12 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 28.
13 Jacqueline Kennedy cited in ibid, p. 28.
14 Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 353.
15 Ibid, 9 December 1962, p. 517.
16 Mountbatten, From Shore to Shore, p. 82.
17 Report from P.H. Gore-Booth to Sir Saville Garner, 3 January 1964. TNA: DO 196/311.
18 P.H. Gore-Booth, report of DM’s account of a meeting with JN, 3 January 1964. TNA: DO 196/311.
19 Ibid.
20 DM cited in Brown, Nehru, p. 335.
21 Brittain, Envoy Extraordinary, pp. 160–1.
22 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 378.
23 Seton, Panditji, p. 472.
24 JN, will and testament, SWJN (2), vol 26, p. 612.
25 R.H. Belcher, report on the funeral of JN. TNA: PREM 11/4864.
26 Seton, Panditji, p. 474.
27 Brittain, Envoy Extraordinary, pp. 163–4.
28 Report by Acting British High Commissioner in India, R.H. Belcher, to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Development, 17 June 1964. PREM 11/4864; CRO ref: 2SEA 50/5/1.
29 Healey, The Time of My Life, pp. 261–2.
30 Patrick Nairne to Derek Mitchell, 26 March 1965. TNA: PREM 13/159. See also Solly Zuckerman to Michael Berry, 7 February 1964. MP: MB1/Z2; ‘Peterborough’, Daily Telegraph, 30 January 1964.
31 Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 257; Montague Browne, Long Sunset, p. 315.
32 John Beavan, ‘The Man of Influence’, Daily Mirror, 29 October 1964, p. 9.
33 TNA: HO 191/167, 195/6/65, 195/8/124, and several more.
34 Sampson, Anatomy of Britain Today, p. 364.
35 Solly Zuckerman to DM, 30 March 1962; DM to Solly Zuckerman, 14 June 1962; Solly Zuckerman to DM, 15 June 1962, all MP: MB1/Z2. DM’s articles were ‘Identity of Carcass Still a Scientific Mystery’, Nassau Daily Tribune, 15 March 1962; ‘Is Monster Unknown Extinct Sea Animal?’, Daily Gleaner, 12 March 1962; Envoy, March/April 1960.
36 Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 258.
37 MP: MB1/K202.
38 Yorkshire Post, 15 November 1968.
39 Pimlott, The Queen, pp. 349–50.
40 Ibid, p. 387.
41 Sir Morrice James to Burke Trend, 9 August 1968. TNA: FCO 37/133.
42 DM cited in Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 134.
43 DM to Solly Zuckerman, 21 February 1969. MP: MB1/Z1.
44 DM to General Cariappa, 5 December 1965. MP: MB1/K147.
45 DM to Harold Wilson, 24 May 1966. TNA: PREM 13/1072.
46 DM to Indira Gandhi, 19 January 1966. MP: MB1/K147.
47 Lyndon B. Johnson and Indira Gandhi cited in Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, p. 206.
48 Indira Gandhi cited in Sahgal, ‘The Making of Mrs. Gandhi’, p. 192.
49 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 25 August 1967. MP: MB1/K147.
50 King, The Cecil King Diary 1965–1970, p. 12; Sampson, Anatomy of Britain Today, p. 140.
51 King, The Cecil King Diary 1965–1970, p. 14.
52 Ibid, 12 August 1967, pp. 138–9.
53 Zuckerman, Monkeys, Men and Missiles, p. 463.
54 Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 337; Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 659–61.
55 Solly Zuckerman, ‘Working with a Man of destiny’, Observer, 2 September 1979.
56 Solly Zuckerman cited in Hugh Cudlipp, Walking on the Water (The Bodley Head, London, 1976), p. 326.
57 Cecil King’s Diary, cited in ‘Mountbatten and the Coup that Wasn’t Quite’, The Times, 3 April 1981, p. 4.
58 ‘Queen Told of “Coup” Threat’, Sunday Telegraph, 16 August 1981, p. 3.
59 Private Eye, no 362, 31 Oct 1975, p. 5. There is a copy of this in MP: MB1/K162A.
60 Private information. See also King, The Cecil King Diary 1965–1970, 22 May 1969, p. 259; and Zuckerman, ‘Working with a Man of Destiny’. There is a conspicuous hole in the otherwise regular correspondence file with Solly Zuckerman among DM’s papers, between 29 January and 18 October 1968.
61 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 157.
62 DM cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 53.
63 ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television.
64 Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 86; Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 96.
65 DM cited in Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 152.
66 Barbara Cartland, I Reach for the Stars: An Autobiography (Robson Books, London, 1994), p. 123.
67 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 2.
68 Frank, Indira, p. 402.
69 Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, pp. 261–5; Frank, Indira, pp. 404–7.
70 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 29 August 1977. VLP: correspondence with DM. See also Indira Gandhi to Barbara Cartland, 20 September 1981. Cited in Cartland, I Reach for the Stars, 1994, pp. 73–4.
71 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 27.
72 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 13 November 1978. VLP: correspondence with DM.
73 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 21 November 1978. VLP: correspondence with DM.
74 Barbara Cartland cited in the Evening Standard, 13 November 1978.
75 Barbara Cartland cited in the Daily Telegraph, 14 November 1978, p. 19. Six years later, Indira Gandhi would meet her death by assassination. She was shot with semi-automatic pistols by her Sikh bodyguards, in revenge for ordering the army into the Golden Temple at Amritsar. Her son Sanjay had been killed in a plane crash after flying loops over Delhi in 1980. Her other son, Rajiv Gandhi, became the third Nehru Prime Minister, winning a landslide in 1984 despite having little political experience. Following a disappointing tenure and lacklustre result at the 1989 elections, he resigned, though his personal popularity remained high. In 1991, he was on the verge of a return to power – but assassination awaited him too, strapped under the kurti of a Tamil suicide bomber. Rajiv’s widow, Sonia Gandhi, an Italian he had met while studying at Cambridge, led a return to power by Congress in 2004. To the surprise of commentators, she became President of Congress rather than Prime Minister. Her son, Rahul, is often talked of as a future Prime Minister; her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, has been active in Congress campaigns. Meanwhile Sanjay’s widow, Maneka Gandhi, forced out of Congress by Indira, defected to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and became a member of the Lok Sabha. Maneka’s son, Varun Gandhi, has followed her into the BJP. It is not out of the question that the future of Indian democracy could see a billion people being offered an electoral choice between cousins.
76 Bradford, Elizabeth, p. 321; Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, pp. 140–1; Pimlott, The Queen, pp. 358–9.
77 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 27 February 1979. VLP: correspondence with DM.
78 DM cited in Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 11.
79 Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 21.
80 Patricia Mountbatten speaking on Woman’s Hour, Radio 4, 10 August 2005. See also Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 29.
81 Pimlott, The Queen, p. 470; Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 136.
82 JN to Motilal Nehru, 7 November 1907. SWJN (1), vol 1, p. 37. See also Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 25.
83 Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 39.
84 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 12; TNA: MEPO 10/31.
85 Barry, Royal Service, p. 95.
86 Charles cited in Pimlott, The Queen, p. 471.
87 Ashley Hicks cited in Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 32.
88 Statistics from United Nations World Food Programme.
89 These tales were collected by Minakshi Chaudhry in her entertaining Ghost Stories of Shimla Hills (Rupa & Co, New Delhi, 2005).
90 Cited in Amrit Dhillon, ‘India’s New Rich Go On Spending Spree’, Sunday Times, 3 April 2005.