ACCLAIM FOR
Indian Summer
“An engaging, controversial, very lively and, at times, refreshingly irreverent tour de force. Alex von Tunzelmann has written a dramatic story, laced with tragedy and farce … a remarkable debut.”
–Lawrence James, author of
Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India
“Alex von Tunzelmann is a wonderful historian, as learned as she is shrewd. But she is also something more unexpected: a writer with a wit and an eye for character that Evelyn Waugh would surely have admired.”
–Tom Holland, author of Rubicon and Persian Fire
“Indian Summer is outstandingly vivid and authoritative. Alex von Tunzelmann brings a lively new voice to narrative history-writing.”
–Victoria Glendinning, author of Leonard Woolf
“Alex von Tunzelmann has produced a superb account of an event that still has the power to shock; her lucid and even-handed narrative guides us safely through the excitements and complexities of the period.”
–Trevor Royle, author of The Last Days of the Raj
Copyright © 2007 by Alex von Tunzelmann
Cloth edition published 2007
Emblem edition published 2008
Emblem is an imprint of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
Emblem and colophon are registered trademarks of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
First published in Great Britain in 2007
by Simon & Schuster U.K. Ltd.
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Von Tunzelmann, Alex, 1977-
Indian summer : the secret history of the end of an empire /
Alex von Tunzelmann.
eISBN: 978-1-55199-620-2
1. India – History – Partition, 1947. 2. India – History – Partition, 1947 – Biography. 3. Statesmen – India – Biography. 4. British – India – History – 20th century. 5. Great Britain – Colonies – Asia – History – 20th century. I. Title.
DS480.842.v66 2008 954.03′59 C2008-900913-4
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
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v3.1
To Nick and Carol,
with love and thanks
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Maps
PROLOGUE: A Tryst With Destiny
PART I: EMPIRE
1 In Their Gratitude Our Best Reward
2 Mohan and Jawahar
3 Civis Britannicus Sum
4 Dreaming of the East
5 Private Lives
6 We Want No Caesars
7 Power Without Responsibility
8 A New Theatre
9 Now or Never
PART II: THE END
10 Operation Madhouse
11 A Barrel of Gunpowder
12 Lightning Speed Is Much Too Slow
Photo Insert
13 A Full Basket of Apples
14 A Rainbow in the Sky
PART III: THE BEGINNING
15 Paradise on Earth
16 The Battle for Delhi
17 Kashmir
18 Maybe Not Today, Maybe Not Tomorrow
PART IV: AFTERWARDS
19 A Kiss Goodbye
20 Echoes
Notes
Bibliography
A Note on Names
Glossary
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In Britain, I would like to thank Her Majesty The Queen for allowing me access to the Royal Archives at Windsor, and the staff there, especially Pamela Clark; the staff at the Mountbatten Papers at Southampton University, especially Karen Robson and Chris Woolgar; the National Archives at Kew; the department of Asian & African Studies at the British Library, London; the Newspaper Library at Colindale; the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge; the Centre of South Asian Studies at Cambridge; the Modern Papers Department at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, especially Colin Harris and Helen Langley; the School of Oriental and African Studies, London; and the London Library. In India, I would like to thank all the staff at the National Archives, and at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, both in New Delhi.
During the course of writing this book, I made repeated approaches to the Mountbatten and Nehru-Gandhi families, in the hope that I would be allowed to use the private archive of letters that passed between Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten. Though their responses were courteous, neither family was keen to cooperate. Only a handful of carefully selected historians has ever been allowed to look at any part of this correspondence, a pity in view of the light it would undoubtedly shed on some of the twentieth century’s most fascinating personalities and politics. Lord Mountbatten himself is said to have wanted the correspondence published. At the time of writing, the letters remain closed.
Many people were generous in giving me their advice and thoughts. I would particularly like to thank M.J. Akbar, William Dalrymple, Saul David, Nicky Goldberg, Anna and James Hatt, Lawrence James, Julia Jordan, Edward Luce, Eleanor Newbigin, Dora Napolitano, Alexander van Praag, Nicole Taylor, Eugénie von Tunzelmann and Siraj Ulmulk. Special thanks must go to Nayantara Sahgal, for sharing with me her lucid and perceptive memories of the period and the people in this book and allowing me to see her wonderful collection of photographs and private letters. I would also like to thank Jeremy Paxman for giving me invaluable opportunities to hone my research skills, and for encouraging me to write my own book. Two friends in particular have offered indispensable help: Maddie Rowe, whose expert comments have been as witty as they have been perceptive; and Adi Bloom, whose exceptional reader’s eye and infectious enthusiasm for all things subcontinental have been inspiring.
The events of 1947–48 are still highly controversial, and some of those who spoke to me have asked not to be named. They may be assured of my gratitude nonetheless. Any errors in this book are entirely my responsibility.
For the production of this book, I would like to thank my editors, Andrew Gordon, George Hodgman and Chris Bucci; also Jennifer Barth, Kari Brownlie, Martin Bryant, Eva Diaz, Joanne Edgecombe, Lisa Fyfe, Sue Gard, Vicki Haire, Meryl Levavi, Vanessa Mobley, Emily Montjoy, Lindsay Ross, Kenn Russell, Rory Scarfe, John Sterling, and everyone at Simon & Schuster in London, Henry Holt in New York and McClelland & Stewart in Toronto. I am extremely grateful to Natasha Fairweather and to all at A.P. Watt, especially Philippa Donovan, Rob Kraitt, Naomi Leon and Linda Shaughnessy.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents for too many things to list here, but expressly for their unfailing support, wit, generosity, guidance and love throughout this project. It is a privilege to be able to dedicate this book to them.
PROLOGUE
A TRYST WITH DESTINY
ON A WARM SUMMER NIGHT IN 1947, THE LARGEST EMPIRE THE world has ever seen did something no empire had done before. It gave up. Th
e British Empire did not decline, it simply fell; and it fell proudly and majestically on to its own sword. It was not forced out by revolution, nor defeated by a greater rival in battle. Its leaders did not tire or weaken. Its culture was strong and vibrant. Recently it had been victorious in the century’s definitive war.
When midnight struck in Delhi on the night of 14 August 1947, a new, free Indian nation was born. In London, the time was 8.30 p.m.1 The world’s capital could enjoy another hour or two of a warm summer evening before the sun literally and finally set on the British Empire.
The constituent assembly of India was convened at that moment in New Delhi, a monument to the self-confidence of the British government, which had built its new capital on the site of seven fallen cities. Each of the seven had been built to last for ever. And so was New Delhi, a colossal arrangement of sandstone neoclassicism and wide boulevards lined with banyan trees. Seen from the sky, the interlocking series of avenues and roundabouts formed a pattern like the marble trellises of geometric stars that ventilated Mughal palaces. New Delhi was India, but constructed – and, they thought, improved upon – by the British. The French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau had laughed when he saw the new city half-built in 1920, and observed: ‘Ça sera la plus magnifique de toutes ces ruines.’2
Inside the chamber of the constituent assembly on the night of 14 August 1947, 2000 princes and politicians from across the 1.25 million square miles that remained of India sat together on parliamentary benches. Yet amid all the power and finery, two persons were conspicuous by their absence. One was Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, who was in one of those parts of the Empire that had just become Pakistan. His absence signified the partition of the subcontinent, the split which had ripped two wings off the body of India and called them West and East Pakistan (later Pakistan and Bangladesh), creating Muslim homelands separate from the predominantly Hindu mass of the territory. The other truant was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was sound asleep in a smashed-up mansion in a riot-torn suburb of Calcutta.
Gandhi’s absence was a worrying omen. The seventy-seven-year-old Mahatma, or ‘great soul’, was the most famous and the most popular Indian since Buddha. Regarded as little short of a saint among Christians as well as Hindus, he had been a staunch defender of the British Empire until the 1920s. Since then, he had campaigned for Indian self-rule. Many times it had been almost within his grasp: in 1922, 1931, 1942, 1946. Each time he had let it go. Now, finally, India was free, but that had nothing to do with Gandhi – and Gandhi would have nothing to do with it.
In the chamber the dignitaries fell silent as the foremost among them, Jawaharlal Nehru, stepped up to make one of the most famous speeches in history. At fifty-seven years old, Nehru had grown into his role as India’s leading statesman. His last prison term had finished exactly twenty-six months before. The fair skin and fine bone structure of an aristocratic Kashmiri Brahmin was rendered approachable by a ready smile and warm laugh. Dark, sleepy, soulful eyes belied a quick wit and quicker temper. In him were all the virtues of the ancient nation, filtered through the best aspects of the British Empire: confidence, sophistication, and charisma. ‘Long years ago,’ he began, ‘we made a tryst with destiny. And now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge; not wholly or in full measure, but substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.’ The clock struck and, in that instant, he became the new country’s first Prime Minister. The reverential mood in the hall was broken abruptly by an unexpected honk from the back. The dignitaries jerked their heads round to the source of the sound, and a look of relief passed over their faces as they saw a devout Hindu member of the assembly blowing into a conch shell – an invocation of the gods. Mildred Talbot, a journalist who was present, noticed that the interruption had not daunted the new Prime Minister. ‘When I happened to spot Nehru just as he was turning away, he was trying to hide a smile by covering his mouth with his hand.’3
It was the culmination of a lifetime’s struggle; and yet, as Nehru later confided to his sister, his mind had not been on the splendid words. A few hours before, he had received a telephone call from Lahore in what was about to become West Pakistan. It was his mother’s home town, and a place where he had spent much of his childhood.4 Now it was being torn apart. Gangs of Muslims and Sikhs had clashed in the streets. The main gurdwara – the Sikh temple – was ablaze. One hundred thousand people were trapped inside the city walls without water or medical assistance. Violence was a much-predicted consequence of the handover, but preparations for dealing with it had been catastrophically inadequate. The only help available in Lahore was from 200 Gurkhas, stationed nearby, under the command of an inexperienced British captain who was only twenty years old. They had little chance of stopping the carnage. The horror of that night in Lahore set the tone for weeks of bloodshed and destruction. Perhaps the Hindu astrologers had been right when they had declared 14 August to be an inauspicious date. Or perhaps the Viceroy’s curious decision to rush independence through ten months ahead of the British government’s schedule was to blame.
Emerging into the streets of Delhi, Nehru was greeted by the ringing of temple bells, the bangs and squeals of fireworks and the happy shouting of crowds. Guns were fired, in celebration rather than in anger; an effigy of British imperialism was burned, in both.5 Soon afterwards, Nehru arrived at the Viceroy’s House, a gated citadel at the end of Kingsway, New Delhi’s two-mile processional avenue. He and Rajendra Prasad, the leader of the constituent assembly, were to see the last of the viceroys, Earl Mountbatten of Burma.6
Mountbatten was young for a viceroy at forty-seven, but no less assured for it. Tall, broad-shouldered and handsome, he had a brilliant Hollywood smile, easy wit and immediate charm; it might never have been guessed that he had been born a prince, were it not for his ability to switch to a regal demeanour. The new earl and his countess, Edwina, had kept an appropriate distance from the festivities. While freedom was declared, the couple had spent the night at home, pottering around their palace, and helping the servants tidy away anything marked with an imperial emblem. They had taken a brief break to watch the latest Bob Hope movie, My Favorite Brunette. It was a pastiche of the fashionable noir genre: the story of a wayward but irresistible baroness, played by the sultry Dorothy Lamour, whose feminine wiles drag a number of men into a dangerous conspiracy. No more than a handful of those in the Viceroy’s House that evening could have realized what a very apposite choice of film it was.
While Nehru had been declaring his nation’s independence and worrying about the emerging crisis in Lahore, Mountbatten had been sitting in his study alone, thinking to himself – as he later recollected – that ‘For still a few minutes I am the most powerful man on earth.’7 At 11.58 p.m., he settled on a last act of showmanship, creating the Australian wife of the Nawab of Palanpur a highness, in defiance of Indian caste customs and British policy. It was an act epitomising Mountbatten’s character. King-making was his favourite sport. Two minutes later, and the power had vanished.
Nehru and Prasad were greeted by the Viceroy’s wife, Edwina Mountbatten, still on lively form despite the lateness of the hour. Vivacious, chic and slim, at forty-five Edwina was still in her prime. Her position as one of the world’s richest women had never made her happy. But, over the course of the previous few years, she had finally found a role for herself, leading health and welfare campaigns for the Red Cross and the St John Ambulance Brigade. The heiress to millions had never been happier than when she was working in the hot, rough and filthy refugee camps that had been set up across the riot-scarred Punjab. In India, Edwina had blossomed, both in the revelation of her own work and in her close friendships with the Indian leaders, particularly Gandhi and Nehru. It was the second of these friendships that was already the subject of gossip in Delhi society.
The warmth shared by India’s new Prime Minister and Lady Mountbatten was obvious. It was equally obvious that Lord Moun
tbatten minded not at all. In contrast to the erupting turmoil across the subcontinent, the scene between imperial lord and victorious revolutionary that night was one of astonishing civility. For half a century Nehru had devoted his life to this single goal of throwing off the yoke of the British Empire. Now it was done, and his first action as Prime Minister was to pay a call to the power he had just displaced – and to offer it a job. ‘When one thinks of the sad years that have led up to recent events,’ noted Lady Mountbatten, ‘I suppose this was the most surprising development of all.’8
Nehru and Prasad were invited into Mountbatten’s study, followed by an unruly gaggle of reporters. Photographers scrambled on to the furniture, standing on French-polished tables to get the best angles, firing off a blitz of flashbulbs which shattered noisily over the journalists who squeezed to the front. The exhausted Prasad began to stammer an invitation for Lord Mountbatten to become Governor General of the new Indian nation, but lost his words. Nehru stepped in to complete them, and Mountbatten graciously accepted. He then poured out glasses of port for those present. ‘To India,’ he proclaimed, holding his glass aloft. Nehru replied: ‘To King George VI.’ Few missed the significance of the moment. Some years before, Nehru had refused to attend a banquet in Ceylon on the grounds that toasts would be proposed to the King and the government.9
But while in Delhi the gentlemen toasted nations and kings, their new world was turning into a battlefield. As Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten had wielded unprecedented power over the fates of two nations and 400 million people. He had transferred power in a way that, within the next couple of days, would trigger a state of civil war in both nations, followed by a war between the two of them. Millions of people would be displaced; millions would be wounded; hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions more, would die. During the next few days, riots would spread across the divided states of the Punjab and Bengal, and a holocaust would begin.
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