Spitfire Singh

by Mike Edwards

  He was a member of Attlee’s Labour party, and the Prime Minister sought his counsel on all matters Indian. He was yet to enter Harjinder’s life, but when he did, it was with far-reaching consequences.

  Mountbatten wanted no part in moving India towards Independence. Although he whole-heartedly endorsed the idea that Britain must leave India, during his time in South-East Asia, he had thrown himself into understanding the region, and so had no illusions about the magnitude of the task. He had, in his time commanding the troops in South-East Asia, requested an audience with the representative of India’s various factions, including one with Nehru, then imprisoned in Ahmednagar, in January 1944, which was promptly denied. After the war, Mountbatten did meet with him in Singapore, ignoring his advisers’ comments about the ‘rebel whose shoes still bore the dust of a British prison’. The mutual affinity the two leaders struck up was immediate, they delighted in each other’s company and sympathised with their adversary’s position. To the horror of those advisers, Mountbatten spontaneously decided to ride through Singapore in an open car with Nehru. When told it would dignify the anti-British rebel, he retorted; ‘Dignify him? It’s he who will dignify me. One day this man will be Prime Minister of India!’

  Mountbatten may have found he could relate to, and work with Nehru, the future Prime Minister, but he knew the task being discussed by Attlee had no solution. In the previous year, the Muslim League had held a Direct Action Day in Calcutta to protest the killing of Muslims by Hindus and Sikhs. Within 72 hours, more than 4,000 people lost their lives, and 100,000 people in the city of Calcutta were left homeless. These were no minor street skirmishes.

  The age-old antagonism between the 300 million Hindus/Sikhs and 100 million Muslims had suited Britain’s Divide and Rule; Keep the communities divided under the threat of the Empire’s military umbrella. The Muslim leadership now demanded tearing through the British enforced unity, and thereafter to provide a separate Muslim state. An ultimatum was issued, if their demands were not met, the bloodiest civil war in Asia would be unleashed. Proof of the potential wreckage that religious violence could incur already seemed to exist, if the events in Calcutta were anything to go by. However, how could a country’s borders be drawn up purely on religious grounds? Gandhi, the father figure that the majority of Hindus, and many Muslims, would turn to, insisted that India must remain whole. The people were Indian; religion should not enter the discussion.

  Mountbatten laid out a set of minimum requirements to Attlee. He reasoned that without complete resolution of certain matters, the task could not be undertaken, let alone resolved. He wanted full powers without reference to London. He insisted on a public announcement of the date Britain would pull out, thereby forcing all the parties to take the negotiations seriously. He knew that no Prime Minister would agree to these conditions, and therefore, he wouldn’t be handed the poison chalice; the role of Viceroy to India. One can only imagine his shock, as each one of his requests was complied with, right down to his request for his original private aeroplane from Asia, and his specified team of secretaries. He had been tasked with the impossible! As he drove back past Buckingham palace he realised it was 70 years to the hour when his Grandmother had been proclaimed Empress of India, on a plain outside Delhi. The princes of India had attended and publically requested for her ‘power and sovereignty to remain steadfast forever’, motivated no doubt by the knowledge that their own grasp of power depended upon British rule. Now, on the first day of 1947, he was going to put an expiration date on ‘forever’. It wasn’t just Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah that he had to convince, there was also the minor issue of the 565 maharajas, nawabs, rajas and rulers holding hereditary sovereignty over one third of India. The Hindu Maharaja, Hari Singh, ruling over the mainly Muslim state of Kashmir was going to be a real problem.

  On the 18th February 1947, Attlee rose from his green leather-clad bench in the House of Commons and stepped up to the Table of the House, in his hand he had a short text written by Mountbatten, replacing his own lengthy draft. He looked across the table to the seated opposition party and in particular their leader, Winston Churchill. ‘His Majesty’s Government wishes to make it clear that it is their definite intention to take the necessary steps to effect the transference of power into responsible Indian hands by a date not later than June 1948.’

  A stunned silence followed, Attlee continued, introducing Mountbatten as the man who would make this happen, and the powers vested in him as Viceroy. Afterwards, Churchill spoke; ‘It is with deep grief that I watch the clattering down of the British Empire with all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind. Many have defended Britain against her foes. None can defend her against herself.’

  However, not even the words of the master orator could change the realities of the modern world, and Churchill knew it. His party still held power in the higher house, the House of Lords, but he urged his fellow Conservatives to support the Bill, believing it was too important to be the gift of one political party.

  Now that the timetable to Independence was official, the enormity of the situation began to dawn on the Air Force. They were ten squadrons strong, but soon, much of the leadership was going to be ripped out and sent home to the UK. Talk of partition was in the air too, but it seemed unlikely that India would be split into several parts; undoable. However, if this eventuality were to occur, the carcass left behind by the RAF’s sudden exit would be picked at further, until the Air Force was stripped to the bone.. A vast majority of bases were in the North, the area that might be lost if this partition happened. The Air Force was told to be prepared, and plan for this split if it came to pass. Every man was given a chit to indicate his choice; India, or this new state that was being called Pakistan. In real terms this meant an Air Force that was only 15 years old would lose a third of all the personnel, aircraft and equipment, and have no bases from which to run its operations.

  With the British personnel being withdrawn, it would mean rapid promotion for some men in every department of the Air Force.

  The thoughts of the husband and wife doctor team from Simla, who stayed behind when the Burmese Government left, were very much focused on the future of India and on their own family. Dr Nanda had a two-year-old son of his own, and was searching for the right suitor for his sister. He had heard about a talented man from Simla, Sergeant Saigal, the same man who had helped Harjinder load the bombs on to Jumbo’s Lysander in Burma. The arrangements were made for 9th March 1947. A Sergeant would have seemed a poor choice a few years previously, but Dr Nanda was very progressive, and reasoned that this talented young man would be commissioned as an officer and shoot up the ranks once the British left.

  Harjinder, too, was promoted to Wing Commander in early 1947, reaching the same rank as his hero Jumbo. With the rank came additional power and the chance to work with Mukerjee on establishing the technical back-up that any Air Force needs. Even with the gulf of Airman to Officer, Harjinder had never held back with Mukerjee but now, as Wing Commander to Air Commodore, they were closer in rank and closer as friends and coworkers. Harjinder’s first act, with Mukerjee’s approval, was to have the number of technical trainees increased to 2,250, and the school shifted to Tambaram near Madras. He dissociated himself from the RAF, setting up a new office with a signboard outside his door saying, ‘Wing Commander, Technical-RIAF’. There was no such appointment in Air Headquarters, he made it up, but nobody seemed to notice!

  It was not all desk work for Harjinder; he kept himself busy outside of the RIAF business too. From his first faltering steps as a pilot, despite the Harvard crash in the North-West Frontier, Harjinder was determined to continue on and become a pilot. He began to take flying lessons at the Delhi Flying Club. One day Wing Commander Narendra asked him to come into the Flying Club hangar to inspect his L5 light aircraft that he kept there. During his visit he noticed another L5 lying in a corner, it looked positively toy-like when compared to the imposing Harvard he was used to. Upon enquiry he was told
that the little aircraft had been in a crash, although it appeared to have escaped any major damage. Harjinder preached to all who would listen, that it was a great pity that such national assets were allowed to go to waste through lack of technical ability; he hated to see aircraft idle, or even worse, abandoned. The Chief Engineer, an Englishman named George Floate, mistook his comments as a personal slur to his professional competence, and challenged Harjinder, ‘If you think you are a better engineer than us, you repair it.’ When Narendra tried to quieten him down and expand on Harjinder’s legend, it only served to infuriate Floate more. He said, ‘I have heard that before. I have met many boasters. Let us see what your friend can do to this aircraft.’

  Harjinder took a different approach for a change, and instead made an offer to the owner. The gentleman in question could hardly believe his ears when Harjinder offered him two thousand rupees for what he considered to be a wreck. The deal was done, and Harjinder became the owner of an aircraft.

  On the 24th March 1947, the land of ceremonial splendour, with the blend of Victorian pomp and Moghul magnificence, provided the backdrop for the last ceremony of its kind. Mountbatten proudly wore his uniform tunic, weighted down by the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Star of India, the Order of the Indian Empire, and the Grand Cross of the Victorian Order. When he walked to the Durbar hall, the guard of honour, sabres gleaming, included the Royal Indian Air Force for the first time. As he pronounced the concluding words of the Viceroy’s oath, the cannons of the Royal Horse Artillery rumbled outside. From Landi Kotal on the Khyber Pass, to Cape Comorin in the South, from Fort William in Calcutta, to the Gateway of India in Bombay, the cannons fired their own salute in unison. It was not lost on anyone present at the proceedings that the fading of the echoing gunfire was signalling the fading of the British Empire. Mountbatten, now Viceroy of India, had already broken with tradition by being seen face to face with his predecessor, not, as protocol dictated, passing in their own ships in the waters off Bombay to save the locals the ‘embarrassment’ of having two versions of the same god in India at one time! He now broke another tradition by addressing the gathering, much against the advice of his staff. ‘I am under no illusion about the difficulty of my task. I shall need the greatest goodwill of the greatest possible number, and I am asking India today for that goodwill.’

  Five days later, that goodwill seemed in short supply, when news of the deaths of 99 Hindus and Muslims in Calcutta was received. Two days later, 41 mutilated bodies were left on the pavements of Bombay.

  Life at Air Force Headquarters was hectic; trying to provide a plan, a platform, for an event they didn’t know exactly when, or in what form, would happen. However, Harjinder was used to burning the candle at both ends, and RIAF duties didn’t stop the engineer within him. Soon his new acquisition, the little L5, was repaired, and the whole of the Flying Club turned out to witness the flight of Harjinder’s latest rebuilt plane. He had carried out all the tests imaginable on the previous evening and stepped up to carry out the first test flight himself. This little L5 had the wing running on top of the fuselage, with a pilot seat in the front and passenger seat directly behind, similar in layout to the Lysander. However in the Lysander, as with all the military aircraft he had flown, Harjinder scaled steps in the huge fuselages to get to the cockpits. With the small L5, he had to duck his tall frame under the wing, and fold himself into the front seat of his plane. The engine burst into life encouragingly and Harjinder taxied the short distance to the runway. After doing his power checks on the engine, he stopped the aircraft briefly to look down the length of the runway to focus on the task ahead. No point in delaying any further, he thought, and so opened up the engine to full power, and was rewarded with the small tail-wheel lifting off the ground almost immediately. The throb of the engine at full power reverberated throughout the aircraft, but the main-wheels had barely left the ground when the throbbing suddenly ceased as the engine stopped stone dead. Harjinder’s focus flicked from the horizon in front of him to the remainder of the runway below him. Luckily, the engine had stopped soon enough for him to ease the machine on to the remaining runway and, just as importantly, to stop it before it entangled itself in the boundary fence at the far end! When the heart had slowed and the sweat had eased, Harjinder dived under the cowlings to discover that an insect in the vent pipe of the fuel tank had cut the flow to the engine. Ever the optimist, Harjinder saw this as a good omen, believing that success after failure is more worthwhile! This certainly seemed to hold true, as Harjinder flew over 300 hours in his small L5 during the years he owned it. When he sold it, the aircraft kept flying for 20 years with the Bombay Flying Club. Not bad for an old abandoned wreck.

  The escalating violence that was spreading throughout the country made it clear to Mountbatten that a speedy resolution was required. Advised by George Abell, a man known for his brilliance and deep understanding of India, he was left in no doubt that India was heading for civil war. Mountbatten’s Chief of Staff, General Lord Ismay, described India as; ‘A ship on fire in mid-ocean with ammunition in her hold.’

  Lord Ismay’s question was, could they get the fire out before it reached the ammunition? Field Marshal Auchinleck, the man who should have pinned Harjinder’s MBE to his uniform, was still in command of the Indian Army in cooperation with the police. He confirmed there was nothing the police and army could do to maintain law and order when faced by the sheer number of people. He also went on to say ‘The partition of the RIAF into two forces…will lead to the disintegration of the RIAF as it now exists, to an extent which will leave India well-nigh defenceless against air attack for a period of years which cannot be estimated.’

  Luckily, Harjinder, Mukerjee and Engineer would soon prove him wrong.

  With civil war staring him in the face, Mountbatten knew he must work fast. He was already working a successful charm offensive over the Indian public by being more accessible than his predecessors, and now decided to scrap the conference table and meet each leader separately, with no staff present on either side. The first was Nehru, in his white congress cap, a fresh rose twisted through the third buttonhole of his waistcoat. They both slipped back into the warm undercurrent of relaxed, mutual sympathy and understanding. Mountbatten led the way, talking openly about the fears he had for the task ahead. His opening line to Nehru; ‘View me not as the last Viceroy but as the first to lead the way to a new India.’ Nehru’s response was; ‘Now I know what they mean when they speak of your charm as being so dangerous.’

  The next man through the Viceregal door was Churchill’s ‘half-naked fakir’. Mountbatten thought ‘he’s rather like a little bird’, but he was under no illusion of the importance of the man. He had already predicted that on his death; ‘Mahatma Gandhi will go down in history on a par with Christ and Buddha.’ They talked for two hours and the easy nature of the conversation led to a stroll through the grounds of the Viceroy’s Palace. When they left the furnace-like Delhi temperatures to return to the air-conditioned room Gandhi started shaking uncontrollably from the sudden temperature change, Edwina Mountbatten thought her husband had killed India’s icon. She turned the air-conditioning machine off, threw open a window and grabbed something to cover Gandhi up with. It would have seemed inappropriate, so unfortunately, the opportunity was missed to take a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi sitting in the Viceroy’s study, wearing an old, tatty Royal Navy uniform sweater!

  When they returned to the business at hand, Gandhi left Mountbatten in doubt over his thoughts on the future of the country they called India; ‘Don’t partition India’ he begged, ‘even if refusing to do so means shedding rivers of blood’.

  He went further, raising an idea that had not even entered Mountbatten’s thoughts. Give the Muslims the baby instead of cutting it in half. Give Jinnah all India. Mountbatten assured Gandhi he would take the suggestion seriously if Gandhi could assure him that the Congress party would accept. The press noted that when Gandhi left the palace he seemed to ‘bubble wi
th happiness’.

  It was said that the air-conditioning that nearly did for the frail Gandhi, was not required for Jinnah, since the austere and distant leader of the Muslim league cooled the atmosphere sufficiently by his presence alone. Things were not helped when Jinnah’s attempt to inject a degree of informality backfired. He knew he would be photographed with the Mountbattens, no doubt with Edwina in the middle. As they were shuffled around he ended up in between the two Mountbattens, but could not stop his prearranged lines from tumbling out; ‘A rose between two thorns!’

  It may not have been a good start, but the social gaffe did not stop the discussions between the two men. They had six crucial meeting throughout the month, but despite Mountbatten using ‘every trick in the book’, he could not get the steadfast Jinnah to relax his views on a separate Muslim state. With Jinnah’s absolute control over the Muslim League, and the memories of the bloodshed in Calcutta still very raw, there was only one thing the men did agree upon; there must be a resolution as quickly as possible. Jinnah reassured Mountbatten over his concerns of bloodshed following partition by stating that once his surgical operation had taken place, all troubles would cease, and India’s two halves would live in harmony.

  Gandhi’s attempts to convince Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, the driving force within the Congress party, of an India run by Jinnah naturally fell on rock-hard ground. They had a limit to the price they would pay for Independence, and handing power over to Jinnah crossed that line. Nehru was a torn and anguished man, caught between his deep love for Gandhi, and his new admiration and friendship for the Mountbattens. Nehru detested the idea of a partition, but his head told him that it was the only choice. Once Nehru voiced his agreement, the rest of the Congress party fell in line. He informed Mountbatten that, while Congress remained passionately attached to the idea of a United India, it would accept partition provided the great provinces of Punjab and Bengal were divided. One thing Nehru had in common with Jinnah is they both believed, unlike Gandhi, that the bloodshed would stop after partition. It seemed the cast was being set. Had Mountbatten, Nehru and Patel known about the existence of several carefully developed pictures lying in a safe belonging to Dr J.A.L. Patel in Bombay, their rush for Independence would have been reigned in, and possibly, the history of the region would have been very different. Standing out in the centre of the pictures were 2 dark circles ringed with a ragged white corona, looking like twin pictures of a celestial solar eclipse. The black circles on the X-ray pictures showed the extent of the advanced TB had destroyed whole sections of the lungs, and the spread of the corona indicated the patient had little time left. The lungs belonged to Jinnah; he was surviving on cigarettes and coffee. He was the unmovable rock for Pakistan’s Independence, and his dictatorial style meant that those below him, with more flexible thoughts, could not challenge their leader. Mountbatten admitted, that had he known of Jinnah’s condition, he would have slowed the train hurtling towards partition, if he knew there was a chance to deal with those behind Jinnah. How the region would have progressed if Gandhi had his wish of a single India, can only be guessed at. However, the existence of the X-rays was known only to the Doctor, his patient and a few members of the family. Mountbatten had his last meeting with Jinnah on the 10th April where he begged, cajoled, and pleaded with him for a united India. When all his efforts were unsuccessfully spent, he sat alone in his study, meditating. It was becoming clear that the only way forward, was to give Jinnah what he wanted. The next day, he called Lord Ismay and told him to start drawing up the plans for partition. Mountbatten would look back on his failure to move Jinnah as the single greatest disappointment of his career. He wrote; ‘It is sheer madness, and no one would ever induce me to agree to it, were it not for this fantastical communal madness that has seized everybody, and leaves no other course open.’