India Remembered

by India Hicks

  Spent most of the day catching glimpses of Mummy and Daddy tearing in and out.

  This incident really drove the message home to us all that we should be very careful and my mother was told she must have an escort. One evening she came back from old Delhi and said ‘Dickie, I do actually think you are right because I was quite frightened to see I was being followed by a car with the most terrifying ruffians in it, with their rifles sticking out...’ My father had to smile to himself, because that car was a security car with plain clothes police.

  Friday 12th September

  The situation in Delhi seems much better now and almost under control. The shops and offices are opening and very few incidents have been reported; but the curfew is still very strict and the streets almost deserted. Lord Listowel and party left after having been fed entirely on spam and bully beef.

  Saturday 13th September

  I spent the morning writing and then in the afternoon started my first ‘job’.

  General Pete Rees (of Gurkha fame from the Burma Campaign, where he commanded the Dagger division) has arrived. He had been commanding the Boundary Force but this has now been disbanded. He has now set up a Map Room, a sort of war room for information and conferences to deal with the present crisis. (He will head the Military Emergency Staff). However, very few of his staff have arrived, just two British officers and four Indian. He has no secretary and only a part-time stenographer. As he is swamped with work Daddy has told me to help out. I spent the afternoon telephoning, typing lists and notes, sending messages and being the General’s dogsbody. Rather alarming to begin with but very interesting and it feels so good to be doing something.

  Sunday 14th September

  We work in the Map Room from nine to one and two to six, including Sundays. I had to type letters and papers and make arrangements and a lot of telephoning. After dinner a film was shown in the cinema, which we do as often as possible. Tonight it was ‘The Web’ which was excellent. That was a relief as it was one of my selections.

  Monday 15th September

  The conferences in the Map Room have been reduced in number as there really were too many. Now there are just Cabinet ones on even days, two a week for the Diplomatic Corps and although there is a daily press conference, General Rees only conducts one of these each week. I only attend the Cabinet conferences. The ‘undiluted accounts’ are obviously extremely interesting. It is difficult getting used to all the Army terms and having to cope with GIs and GIIIs etc. when one is given a string of initials over the telephone it is hard to turn it into an individual. Anyway the telephone is not much use as nearly all the operators have gone and so most have been disconnected.

  Tuesday 16th September

  I spent most of the day working in the Map Room.

  Cholera and a few cases of smallpox have broken out in the refugee camps and we all had to have cholera inoculations.

  I went with some of the staff to have dinner with the Ismays. Very enjoyable and masses to eat as they have paid no attention to rationing – really rather naughty under the present circumstances, but I suppose that we are rationed particularly strictly as the staff is so large that it does make catering difficult.

  October 1947: The bodies of those who were killed in the riots in New Delhi are loaded into trucks during a lull in the fighting.

  Wednesday 17th September

  I have had to give up the Clinic and the Canteen for the time being as they don’t fit in with the Map Room hours. Mr Lal came to see me about the Hindustani lessons as they are going to be difficult to arrange, particularly as he cannot come during curfew hours.

  Daddy and I went for a short, quiet ride in the grounds as the horses are not fit as they have had to be turned out as fodder is so scarce.

  Nevertheless they were maddening through lack of exercise. I went with the General to a cocktail party given by Major Thakar, one of our staff, who is leaving for China as Military Attaché.

  Thursday 18th September

  A Dr Eugene Bartlett, head of all the American YMCAs, was down in the arrangements as staying. But he has arrived and could not have been nicer – which is a very pleasant surprise – although just why he is staying no-one can quite make out!

  One of life’s endless knitting campaigns has started. This one is for the refugees, against the coming weather. The needles are home-made wooden ones and the dye from the wool comes off on one’s fingers so at least it is different.

  Friday 19th September

  Both Prime Ministers, Liaquat and Panditji, came to supper.

  Sunday 21st September

  Mummy and Daddy flew off with Panditji, Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Pug Ismay and Alan C-J to survey the movement of refugees in the Punjab.

  Monday 22nd September

  The Emergency Cabinet is making urgent moves to defend the refugee trains as the horror stories get worse and rumours only fuel the violence.

  Tuesday 23rd September

  Cholera has broken out in Amritsar and all trains passing there have been cancelled. There are horrible stories around of trains which set off with thousands of passengers arriving with merely hundreds alive.

  Tuesday 30th September

  There was a senseless attack on the defenceless patients in a hospital in Delhi today.

  The Creation of Lady Earnestine

  At the beginning of October I wrote to my friend Mary in England: ‘For the past six weeks we have been living on spam and bully beef, Delhi has been under martial law in all but name, and the refugees keep pouring in to a city where there is no means of receiving them. Delhi has been bad but it is nothing compared to the situation in the Punjab. It is heartbreaking to see so much destroyed in so little time that will take so long to rebuild, and all for no real reason. It is senseless, but one sees no end except by gradually wearing itself out as it is just retaliation after retaliation.

  A Military Emergency Staff has been set up under General Rees and there is a Map Room to deal with the present situation, gathering in all information and coping generally and giving conferences to the Cabinet, the Diplomats and the Press. I have my first job too now! They were very short of staff and so I am the PA to the General, typing all his letters and papers, telephoning, fixing things generally and getting thoroughly bewildered by all the funny terms! However, it is extremely interesting and great fun but the hours are quite long being from nine to six (with an hour off for lunch) every day including Sunday, but the “six” is more often seven or eight as work just seems to pour in.’

  30th October: With scouts and delegates to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conference in Delhi.

  Indeed, so serious was I by this time that when my sister and brother-in-law arrived in December they renamed me ‘Lady Earnestine’. The progression of my employment from the Canteen through the Clinic to Pete Rees’s PA in the Map Room, and my endless tours with my mother, and meeting with students had moulded a sternly serious eighteen-year-old!

  In spite of this I was severely rebuked by the Prime Minister for being frivolous on one particular occasion. In the same spirit as people flocking to nightclubs to raise their spirits in wartime London, the Commander-in-Chief, General ‘Kipper’ Cariappa, started a nightclub in his house, to which the ADCs took me one night. It was my first taste of nightclubbing and I loved it. But Panditji got to hear and was shocked. He closed it down immediately.

  Thursday 2nd October

  We had quite a hectic day with work pouring in at the office and the telephone ringing ceaselessly but never functioning when one came to using it oneself !

  Monday 6th October

  Mummy and Muriel have left for Jullandur and Amritsar.

  Saturday 11th October

  We left to spend a few days in Simla which will be lovely. We are just going up alone except for Peter Howes, and will be staying at the Retreat at Mashobra.

  We stopped off at the Lawrence Royal Military College at Sanawan on the way to celebrate its centenary.


  Saturday 8th November

  The Nizam of Hyderabad has asked for another delay in signing his standstill agreement until we are back from London!

  Sunday 12th October

  It really is glorious being up in the hills again and Mummy and Daddy are actually able to take a little rest with nobody to get at them all the time. We went for a long walk and met some of the mule caravans coming along the Tibet road. We bought Tibetan and Nepalese ornaments and jewellery and boxes from some peddlers.

  The Captain of the Gurkha Guard is staying in the house. He is a twenty-one-year-old boy from Ilford called Peter Pring. Extremely self-possessed and adored by his Gurkhas.

  Monday 13th October

  Visited the famous Bishop Cotton School which is really the only firstclass civilian school in India for boys of every nationality and creed. Spent part of the afternoon in Viceregal Lodge garden and then I had to go to a tea given by the Simla branch of the Caravan of India. In the evening we accompanied Daddy when he presented a shield to the Simla ADC.

  Friday 24th October

  Bad news from Kashmir as reports say that NWFP tribesmen are marching upon Srinagar.

  Monday 27th October

  Indian troops have been sent to Kashmir to face the invasion of tribesmen. Mummy left for a tour of refugee camps in West Bengal.

  Thursday 30th October

  Attended the International Labour Organisation conference in Delhi.

  Saturday 1st November

  Daddy has flown to Lahore to discuss the Kashmir crisis with Jinnah.

  Sunday 2nd November

  Maharaja of Bikaner came to dinner. He gave a speech with a film describing about the refugees in his State.

  There was so much trouble at this time that my parents were worried about leaving to go to Princess Elizabeth and Philip’s wedding, where I was to be a bridesmaid. They were persuaded to go in order not to draw attention to the crisis.

  Tuesday 4th November

  Mummy and Daddy are worried about the trip to England for the wedding and whether it should be cancelled because of the Kashmir crisis. Baldev Singh’s report from the front to the Defence Committee was not at all good about the situation there.

  Sunday 9th November

  We flew back to London for Philip and Lilibet’s wedding on the 20th at which I am to be one of the eight bridesmaids. Rajagopalachari will be Acting Governor General in Daddy’s absence.

  We returned to Delhi on the 24th after a hectic and amazing ten days. We had taken with us, as a gift for Princess Elizabeth and Philip from Gandhiji, a piece of white fabric which he had woven especially for them – when the gifts were displayed later Queen Mary was horrified to discover what she took to be a ‘loin cloth’.

  Back in Delhi my father wrote in his diary, ‘Lovely to be home.’

  Friday 28th November

  The Emergency Committee met for the last time today.

  11th November: We were met at Northolt by Philip on arrival in London for his wedding.

  Tours Part I:

  December 1947 –

  January 1948

  We began our tour along with Patricia and her husband John: we planned to visit Jaipur, Bombay, Gwalior, Bikaner, Bhopal, Nagpur, Madras, Allahabad, Dehradun, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Calcutta, Orissa, Assam, Trivandrum, Travancore, Cochin, Udaipur, Mashobra, Simla, Patna, Gwalior, Mysore, Ootacamund, Bangalore, Jodhpur and Bundi, taking in a dizzying plethora of schools, colleges, hospitals, institutes and temples along the way.

  Our friends also started to arrive as we had invited them out thinking that this would be a quiet period, hence we had Yola and Kay Norton in December, and Bunny and Gina Phillips in January and later Malcolm Sargent – unfortunately my mother was so busy with her various causes she found it very difficult to find time to see her friends.

  The Maharaja of Jaipur, or Jai.

  Friday 12th December

  To Jaipur for Jai’s Silver Jubilee. We watched a parade of the Jaipur Guards and Infantry. They are extremely smart and are drilled by NCOs from the Brigade of Guards. Jai is a major in the Life Guards. He and his regiment had a fine war record; a wonderful visit (he came to the gadi when he was ten years old). Daddy played his first game of polo in 8 years. Daddy met the man who taught him to play in Jodhpur in 1921!

  Sunday 14th December

  Daddy invested the Maharajah with the GCSI [Grand Commander of the Star of India] at the Durbar.

  The celebrations were magnificent with many other Princes attending. Jai looked marvellous bedecked in jewels, but it was quite a shock to see him sacrifice a goat during the religious ritual. And having only met the beautiful Ayesha it was a surprise to find that in the Zenana she, as Third Her Highness, is very much the junior hostess. Beautiful Jo Didi, Second Her Highness, is the senior Maharani. When Jai was 14 he was married to a princess from Jodhpur, 12 years his senior, and he was at the same time betrothed to her niece, Jo Didi, then only 5. They were married when she became 12. First Her Highness died 3 years ago but I very much liked her daughter, Mickey, who is my age, and her son Bubbles who is 16. Second Her Highness has two boys, Joey and Pat, a couple of years younger.

  Peggy D’Aremberg and a friend of hers came out for the jubilee and they brought a hairdresser with them. My father was very cross, thinking it very bad form when there were starving Indians all around, and the riots were happening. Other guests included Yola and Kay Norton who had once found her bearer looking through a keyhole into her room; when reprimanded, he replied quite obviously, ‘but if I don’t, how do I know when to go in?’

  12th December: My father inspecting the Guard of Honour, 1st Jaipur Infantry on arrival at the Maharajah’s Palace.

  Thursday 18th December

  We returned to Delhi. Patricia and John have arrived for a long visit, which is lovely.

  Sunday 28th- Monday 29th December

  A very enjoyable visit to Gwalior – for the famous tiger shoot.

  Saturday 3rd January, 1948

  Private investiture for small party on the New Year’s Honours list.

  To add to her GBE, which Mummy got at the end of 1947, she now has the Brilliant Star of China. Campbell-Johnson and Vernon got the CIE and Ronnie Brockman the CSI.

  Sunday 4th January

  Burma Independence Day. Daddy and the Ambassador took part in a particularly elaborate presentation with much pomp and ceremony in the Durbar Hall. Daddy presented the Ambassador with an historic Burmese Taktaposh and carpet. He also announced that he would be paying an official visit to Burma in March, when he would hand over the immense throne of King Theebaw, the last King of Burma.

  Saturday 10th January

  A large dinner party for all the Princes to whom Daddy has been speaking in two conclaves this week, one for the major and another for the minor Princes.

  This was my father’s last attempt to see that the Princes were left as secure as possible and that they would be well enough informed to look after their own fate. They felt rather desolate when my father left and wondered how they would cope with being part of the future in a very socialist-minded state. My father had encouraged them to make themselves available for senior positions. Indeed the Maharajah of Jaipur became ambassador in Spain and then became Rajpramukh – the senior Governor over a huge province. And Patiala became the Chief Minister in Patiala State. Several indeed were thus employed. One of the junior Princes, who was a favourite of my father’s, was the Rao Raja of Bundi. He was a handsome, gallant young man who had won an MC in the war. My father took us on a brief visit to Bundi in 1948 and was always glad to see him. However, on one of his later visits, after India had become a republic, he was at a formal dinner party at what was now President’s House and he noticed Bundi, as an ADC to the President, not seated at table as he would have been as an ADC in our time, but standing behind the President’s chair. After dinner my father received a message asking whether His Highness could see him. My father agreed with some trepidation, expecting Bundi to complain, instead of
which Bundi thanked him for having encouraged him to offer his services to the President and to say how proud he was that they had been accepted.

  P sitting next to the Maharajah of Kapurthala at the Durbar in the City Palace, Jaipur.

  About ten years later Bundi was in England and my father invited him to lunch at Broadlands. After lunch they were sitting talking in the drawing room. Bundi suddenly leant towards my father, who also leant forward, thinking that Bundi wished to say something very confidential. But Bundi leant further and further until he fell down dead at my father’s feet. My poor father was so astonished and appalled that the only thing he could think of doing was to telephone the Queen for help. When she answered he said, ‘I have just had Bundi to Lunch.’ ‘How is he?’ asked the Queen. ‘Dead,’ replied my father. But of course, she was magnificent and she saved the situation.

  Then there was the news of Gandhiji’s proposed fasts because of his distress that Congress were withholding fifty-five crores from Pakistan’s partition of assets as a sanction. His fasts were incredibly powerful social catalysts, as Alan Campbell-Johnson wrote on the 12th January, ‘You have to live in the vicinity of a Gandhi fast to understand its pulling power. The whole of [his] life is a study in the art of influencing the masses, and judging by the success he has achieved… he must be accounted one of the greatest artists in leadership of all time.’ It was decided that we would still all travel to Bikaner on the 14th but, as a mark of respect for the fast, there would be no state banquet.

  My parents and Jai – official investiture photograph.

  Group photograph taken after the Durbar.

  Monday 12th January

  After Gandhiji’s prayer meeting he came round to see Daddy to tell him that at 11 o’clock tomorrow will begin another of his major fasts, his decision made in the face of the communal hatred which he has fought all his life to remove from society. It would only end ‘if and when I am satisfied that there is a reunion of hearts of all communities brought about without any outside pressure but from an awakened sense of duty.’