Indian Summer
Page 26
During his tour of India in 1921, the young Dickie Mountbatten had admired the princely states, but was shocked by their inequality. In Udaipur, he wondered at the habit of feeding pigs when people were starving, an injustice that prompted him to note, ‘There are times when I do sympathize with the Bolsheviks.’20 Princely excesses were common in states where the vast majority of people were destitute. The Jam Sahib of Nawanagar had 157 cars and a wife with 1700 saris.21 The Nawab of Junagadh spent £21,000 on a wedding for two of his dogs.22 The Maharaja of Patiala moved into London’s Savoy Hotel, occupying all thirty-five suites on the fifth floor, and ordered that 3000 fresh roses be brought to decorate his rooms every day.23 Visitors to the miserly Nizam of Hyderabad would have seen that he used what looked like a crumpled ball of old newspaper as a paperweight – little suspecting that wrapped in it was the 185 carat Jacob Diamond, twice the size of the Koh-i-Noor.24 The Gaekwar of Baroda’s second wife, Sita Devi, earned herself the nickname of ‘India’s Wallis Simpson’ when she plundered the state treasury to finance her jewellery habit. Sita Devi made away to Switzerland with untold riches, including the incomparable Baroda pearl carpet. This remarkable object measured six feet by seven and a half feet, and was made up of 1.4 million pearls, 2520 rose-cut diamonds, and hundreds of emeralds and rubies, embroidered on to deerskin and silk in delicate arabesques.25
The journalist Webb Miller was treated to a glimpse of a typical princely attitude at the Cecil Hotel in Simla in 1930. His Highness Ali Nawaz Khan, the Mir of Khairpur, was dining that night. The Mir was striking to behold: so grotesquely fat that he could not get his face closer than two feet to the table. ‘His paunch was bespattered with soup spilled on its way from the plate to his distant mouth,’ remembered Miller.26 This glutton, who commanded a private army as well as forty lucky wives back in his state, had ordered his desperately poor subjects to oppose Gandhi, the independence movement and even any move to dominion status. ‘The interests of the Indian native rulers are identical with those of the British government,’ the Mir’s minister told Miller silkily. ‘They believe if the present status is altered it will injure their interests.’27 The Mir was by no means unique. Four decades after Curzon’s letter to Victoria, the then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, wrote a remarkably similar one to his monarch, George VI. According to him, the Nizam of Hyderabad was ‘an eccentric miser with a bad record of misrule’, the Maharaja of Kashmir ‘little better’, the Maharaja of Gwalior ‘a nice lad and means well, but cares more for his horses and racing than anything else’, the Khan of Kalat ‘stupid’, the Maharaja of Travancore ‘a non-entity’, and the Maharaja of Indore ‘a poor creature, physically and morally’.28
These are some of the grosser examples of princely behaviour, and should not be taken as a slander against every individual prince. Some among them were men and women of great intelligence, ability and compassion. A Gaekwar of Baroda introduced the first free, compulsory education in India in 1894. A Maharaja of Travancore introduced progressive land reforms in the early 1880s. One turn-of-the-century Maharaja of Cochin was greatly admired for his modernizing legal reforms – though he became so frustrated at the complacency of his British patrons that he abdicated in 1914.29 But the existence of a few commendable examples does not vindicate the system. The reason that the Indian princely states were uniquely badly ruled was the very fact of British protection. Aside from their consciences, the princes had no incentive to govern well. Foreign invaders would be dealt with, domestic challenges neutered, and the ravening mob readily suppressed, all by the might of the British Indian Army.
Mountbatten set up a States Department in July, convinced by then of the need to absorb the states into India or Pakistan rather than surrender them to the capricious rule of their princes.30 India’s offer to the states was straightforward. Control over defence, foreign affairs, and communications would go to the government of India. Their domestic affairs, including their privy purses, were to be their own concern. Nehru had told Mountbatten that ‘I will encourage rebellion in all States that go against us,’ which had caused the Viceroy to question his friend’s sanity.31 ‘On the subject of the States,’ Mountbatten reported to London, ‘Nehru and Gandhi are pathological.’ He was relieved that the unsentimental Vallabhbhai Patel had been made head of the department rather than the more emotional Nehru.32 For Patel’s part, he realized immediately that Mountbatten, with his own semi-royal status and personal friendships with many of the princes, was uniquely suited to help India achieve its aim of leaving no state behind.
Britain’s intentions towards the states had been deliberately left unclear by Attlee. Mountbatten was supposed to ‘aid and assist the States in coming to fair and just arrangements with the leaders of British India as to their future relationships’. But there was also the command that ‘You will do your best to persuade the rulers of any Indian States in which political progress has been slow to progress rapidly towards some form of more democratic government.’33 Mountbatten interpreted this to mean that he should exert pressure upon each prince to go with the majority of his people in deciding whether to join India or Pakistan. He agreed to help Patel, and pledged to deliver ‘a full basket of apples’ before 15 August. To London, he confided that he would take a great risk and side entirely with Congress, on the basis that his help would constitute a strong bargaining point. ‘I am positive that if I can bring in a basket-full of States before the 15th August, Congress will pay whatever price I insist on for the basket’, he wrote. ‘I need hardly say that unless we can pull this off, India will be in a bit of a mess after the 15th August.’34
With no Pakistani representative to match Mountbatten and Patel in the states department, the states would turn into a major point of conflict between Indian and Pakistani interests. But Jinnah did not clamour for the inclusion of a Muslim Leaguer. It was not that he took no interest; he did, and actively. But he was not especially concerned about whether states acceded to Pakistan or remained independent. His strategy was simply to stop them acceding to India. If enough states could be persuaded to stay out, Nehru and Patel would inherit a moth-eaten India to go with his moth-eaten Pakistan. And so the stage was set for one of the bitterest, most scandalous and most secretive battles of the transfer of power, in which Mountbatten and Patel would try every possible tactic to scare the princes into India, and Jinnah would do everything he could think of to scare them out of it.
On 9 July, representatives of the states met in New Delhi to ascertain their starting positions. The great majority inclined to join India. But four of the most important states – Hyderabad, Kashmir, Bhopal and Travancore – wanted to become independent nations. Each of these states had its own unique set of difficulties. The Nizam of Hyderabad was the richest man in the world; he was a Muslim, and his people were mostly Hindus. His state was enormous, and both France and the United States were rumoured to be ready to recognize it.35 The Maharaja of Kashmir was a Hindu; his people were mostly Muslims. His state was even bigger than Hyderabad, but more limited by its lack of trade routes and industrial potential. The Nawab of Bhopal was an able and ambitious Muslim prince, and one of Jinnah’s advisers: unfortunately for him, his state had a Hindu majority, and was stuck right in the middle of India, over 500 miles from the likely border with Pakistan. Uranium deposits had recently been discovered in Travancore, lending the situation there a greater international interest.
Mountbatten and Patel both adopted a pincer attack. On one hand, they described the princes as their ‘personal friends’ and offered them ambassadorships, honorifics and privileges; on the other, they threatened them with disaster. ‘I hope the Indian States will bear in mind that the alternative to cooperation in the general interest is anarchy and chaos,’ growled Patel.36 Mountbatten, meanwhile, used his royal connections to exert pressure on the princes to accede to India. Two of the agents acting for the princes felt so aggrieved by Mountbatten’s tactics that they compared him, rather excitably, to Hitler.37 The Nawab of Bhopal attempted to g
et the states to band together, so that they might hold out for independence: such a coalition might have formed an area the size of Pakistan. Not only Lord Mountbatten, but also Lady Mountbatten, crushed the plan, according to the Maharawal of Dungarpur: ‘It was an end brought about by one man and his wife.’38
Though Mountbatten’s heavy-handed strategy is certainly open to criticism, his aim was to bring the states’ people into a democratic India. British historians who have scolded Mountbatten for that aim have argued that the princes were strong supporters of Britain during the war, and that they had rights under the British paramountcy system which were discarded.39 Such arguments ignore the political and immediate realities of the situation. Many of the princes were regarded as tyrants by the All-India States Peoples’ Conference (president, 1935–46: Jawaharlal Nehru), an organization set up to represent the interests of the princes’ 100 million subjects – who counted as ‘British protected persons’.40 By supporting the princes against the people and against the new dominions of India and Pakistan, Britain would have undermined the entire process of transferring power to democratic institutions.
No significant figure in London was prepared to stand up for the princes. The request of some states for independence and dominion status had been described by Pethick-Lawrence as ‘rather fanciful’ on 18 April: they had never been formal British territory, and the British could hardly go around enrolling them into the Empire at this point, even if they begged to be conquered.41 By the middle of July, when some in Whitehall were beginning to question Mountbatten’s devices, Attlee allowed a telegram to be sent to him questioning whether he was riding too rough. Mountbatten’s response was to the point: ‘I am trying my very best to create an integrated India which, while securing stability, will ensure friendship with Great Britain. If I am allowed to play my own hand without interference I have no doubt I will succeed.’42 The India Office backed down completely and allowed him his hand back. Nor was the opposition prepared to stick its neck out. The Nizam cabled Churchill in June asking him to demonstrate his sympathy and support for the Indian princely order, a cause which he had championed in the past. Churchill replied with what can only be described as a snub, merely thanking him for his kind message.43
Mountbatten spent July hustling recalcitrant princes into the Indian fold. The Maharaja of Indore was most displeased when Mountbatten sent a crack team of fellow princes to cajole him. Faced with the intimidating sight of the Gaekwar of Baroda, four Maharajas, and his best friend, the Raja of Sandur, he absconded from his palace and had to be retrieved. When he returned, he ‘unceremoniously kicked out five of the Rulers literally into the passage, keeping only the Gaekwar’. The Gaekwar’s persuasive skills failed to turn him around. ‘It may not be a bad thing to have a thoroughly unsatisfactory State like Indore remaining outside the Dominion, as an example of what happens to States that try and stand on their own,’ Mountbatten reported. ‘If he does not change his mind and come in I prophesy that the people of Indore will kick their Ruler off the Gaddi [throne] before the end of September.’44
The Hindu Maharaja of Jodhpur, who had just turned twenty-four and had only succeeded to the throne in June, provided a dramatic moment. Jinnah had been courting him, with plans that Patel feared would create ‘a dagger into the very heart of India’, a spur of Pakistan that would run down through Jodhpur into Bhopal. Mountbatten explained to the Maharaja that he was legally entitled to join Pakistan, but reminded him of his Hindu majority. ‘Your Highness is free to stay out, if you like,’ Patel added. ‘But if there is trouble in your State as a result of your decision, you will not get the slightest support from the Government of India.’45 The Maharaja was shaken by this clear threat. He turned up at the Viceroy’s House, and was fobbed off with V.P. Menon while Mountbatten dealt with a Hyderabad delegation in Edwina’s study next door. Apparently, Menon was not to the Maharaja’s satisfaction. He pulled out a pistol concealed behind the nib of a very large fountain pen and screamed that he would ‘shoot him down like a dog if he betrayed the starving people of Jodhpur’. Menon talked him down, and the Maharaja eventually put the gun away – later making a present of it to Mountbatten, who ‘gave him hell’ for the incident.46
There was further trouble with Travancore. It was incorrectly rumoured that the state had already reached a private agreement with Britain over the fate of its uranium deposits, prompting Nehru to threaten that he would send the Indian Air Force to bomb it.47 Meanwhile, the Maharaja of Travancore refused to throw his lot in with India on the grounds that Nehru had established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.48 When Mountbatten cornered him, the Maharaja professed to see himself as only the Dewan, or Prime Minister, of Travancore. The real Maharaja, he explained, was the god Padmanabha, an aspect of Vishnu.49 The Maharaja’s actual Dewan, Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, turned up at the Viceroy’s House with a set of files to present to Mountbatten. ‘The first of these contained a number of rather amusing cartoons, to which he took the greatest exception,’ Mountbatten reported, ‘and in particular one published that morning showing him being spanked by me at this very meeting!’ Another file ‘contained cuttings to prove that Gandhi was a dangerous sex maniac who could not keep his hands off young girls.50 It took Mountbatten two hours to calm Aiyar down. Aiyar returned to Travancore, and shortly afterwards was viciously attacked with a swordstick and almost killed by a rogue agent of the local communist party. The States Peoples’ Conference put pressure on the Maharaja, who admitted defeat and telegraphed his instrument of accession to Mountbatten immediately. ‘The adherence of Travancore after all C.P.’s declarations of independence has had a profound effect on all the other States and is sure to shake the Nizam,’ Mountbatten noted with satisfaction.51
But it did not. The Nizam of Hyderabad, along with the Maharaja of Kashmir, was to prove Mountbatten’s biggest stumbling-block. The Nizam employed Sir Walter Monckton, a London lawyer with exceptionally strong connections in the British establishment, to fight his corner. Monckton advised the Nizam that, as an independence ruler, he could increase his army and start munitions factories as well as appointing his own ministers. ‘I shall do all I can to see that the new Viceroy understands the vital part which Indian India must continue to play,’ Monckton wrote.52
On 3 June, after Mountbatten had announced the plan for the transfer of power, Monckton lunched with both Mountbattens and discussed the fate of Hyderabad. The very next day, he took his concerns to Jinnah. ‘Mr. Jinnah said that Hyderabad could still give a lead to other States by declaring for independence,’ Monckton noted. ‘This would very likely hold Mysore independent and would be a source of strength to Travancore.’ Jinnah even suggested that the independent states could form a bloc to defend themselves against India.53
By late July, Jinnah was writing to the Nizam in his most honeyed tones. ‘I shall always remain a friend of Your Exalted Highness and the Mussalmans of Hyderabad,’ he declared, professing his willingness to help the delegation Hyderabad was sending to him. ‘But please do not take any final decision; and I hope, as you say in your letter[,] you will do so with my “concurrence and knowledge”.’54 Meanwhile, Mountbatten had managed to convince himself that Monckton was on his side. ‘Monckton and I have now agreed together on a co-ordinated plan of campaign to bring the Nizam in, and I have offered to fly down if Monckton feels that he requires my help to pull it off’, he wrote to London. ‘As a last resort I shall offer to make his second son “His Highness”‘.55 Both the Nizam and Monckton had set their sights rather higher than that, as Monckton’s note to Jinnah of the same week makes clear. Monckton wrote that the Nizam would definitely prefer to have a closer relationship with Pakistan than with India, but that his geographical position made this difficult. He requested that Jinnah explain what steps he could take ‘to assist and rescue Hyderabad’ in the event of political or economic pressure by India. Specifically, he asked whether Pakistan could guarantee that food, weaponry and troops be supplied. He wondered whether Pa
kistan would come to Hyderabad’s aid in the event of an internal revolt fomented by India, or whether Pakistan might help Hyderabad gain an outlet to the sea.56
Monckton’s note is stark evidence that Hyderabad was seriously considering a defensive war against democratic India. It may also have been considering a war of conquest – for Hyderabad was at least 100 miles from its closest port, and there could be no way to create an outlet to the sea without annexing Indian territory. The threat loomed large, until Jinnah pushed his luck too far. ‘Jinnah in effect said that the State must earn its own independence by standing on its own feet and making all sacrifices’, Monckton wrote on 6 August, ‘even, if necessary, including the abdication of the Nizam.’57 The Nizam had no intention of abdicating, and was forced to look again to Mountbatten and Patel. He sent Monckton back to Delhi to pull out all the stops. Monckton saw Ismay and Mountbatten on the afternoon of 10 August, and railed furiously against the Congress position. He deplored Patel’s intimidation tactics, which hinted that Hyderabad might face a blockade from India, and threatened to write to Churchill if the pressure was not let up.58