Indian Summer
Page 49
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 s
ocially 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).