Indian Summer

by Alex Von Tunzelmann

  73 Queen Mary cited in Pimlott, The Queen, p. 185.

  74 Seshan, With Three Prime Ministers, p. 28.

  75 See ibid, passim.

  76 JN cited in Seshan, With Three Prime Ministers, p. 28.

  77 Oliver Lyttelton cited in ‘Mountbatten’s Wife Enraged Churchill’, Daily Telegraph, 3 January 2004. EA was herself outraged at Lyttelton’s statement: see Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 468–9.

  78 TNA: FO 371/107577.

  79 WSC cited in Seshan, With Three Prime Ministers, pp. 28–9; Henry Hodson attributes a similar story about WSC to Rab Butler rather than Indira Gandhi. Hodson, The Great Divide, p. 401.

  80 WSC, 8 August 1953, cited in Moran, Winston Churchill, pp. 449–50.

  81 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, pp. 337–9. The conversation is reported more mildly in Pandit’s book; this account was told to the author by Pandit’s daughter, Nayantara Sahgal, 8 April 2006.

  82 Sahgal, From Fear Set Free, p. 171; also Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 347.

  83 Queen Elizabeth II cited in Parker, Prince Philip, p. 220.

  84 Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 171.

  85 DM cited in Pimlott, The Queen, p. 254.

  86 Ibid, pp. 470–1.

  87 Private collection of the Mountbatten family, Broadlands.

  88 JN cited in Seton, Panditji, p. 270.

  89 EA and JN cited in Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 474.

  90 Ramachandra Guha, ‘A Mask That was Pierced’, Hindu, 24 April 2005. Guha and Sunil Khilnani both guessed that the author was more likely to be Penderel Moon.

  91 Amrit Kaur to EA, 21 July 1958. MP: MB1/R127.

  92 DM cited in Seton, Panditji, p. 270.

  93 Amrit Kaur to EA, 12 May 1959. MP: MB1/R127. Emphasis is Amrit Kaur’s.

  94 JN cited in Seton, Panditji, p. 253.

  95 JN to Indira Gandhi, 23 April 1959. Nehru & Gandhi, Two Alone, Two Together, p. 625.

  96 DM cited in Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, pp. 822–3.

  97 Mullik, My Years with Nehru, p. 168.

  98 Coward, Diaries, 16 January 1960, p. 427.

  99 London Gazette, 8 February 1960. It is clear that the Queen wanted to change her surname as a gift to Philip. TNA: LCO 2/8115, ff 8–11.

  100 Hough, Edwina, p. 3.

  101 Seton, Panditji, p. 281.

  102 Ibid, pp. 282–3, and see plates between pp. 268–9.

  103 Hough, Edwina, p. 7.

  104 Robert Noel Turner cited in ibid, p. 8.

  105 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 480.

  106 Seton, Panditji, p. 284.

  107 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 125.

  108 Coward, Diaries, 15 May 1960, p. 439.

  109 According to William Evans, in ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History.

  110 Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 481.

  111 ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History.

  20. ECHOES

  1 Seton cited in Paul Gore-Booth to Sir Saville Garner, 16 April 1963. TNA: DO 196/210.

  2 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 20 June 1962. Cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 602.

  3 S.K. Patil cited in Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 175.

  4 Mullik, My Years with Nehru, p. 107; Robert Schulman, John Sherman Cooper: The Global Kentuckian (University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 1976), p. 70.

  5 Kux, The United States and Pakistan, p. 115.

  6 Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 247, footnote.

  7 According to B.K. Nehru, cited in Kux, Estranged Democracies, p. 193; see also pp. 194–5. See also Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 248.

  8 Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 248.

  9 Ibid, p. 249.

  10 Ibid, p. 320.

  11 Lee Radziwill, Happy Times (Assouline, New York, 2000), p. 110.

  12 Hutheesing, We Nehrus, p. 28.

  13 Jacqueline Kennedy cited in ibid, p. 28.

  14 Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 353.

  15 Ibid, 9 December 1962, p. 517.

  16 Mountbatten, From Shore to Shore, p. 82.

  17 Report from P.H. Gore-Booth to Sir Saville Garner, 3 January 1964. TNA: DO 196/311.

  18 P.H. Gore-Booth, report of DM’s account of a meeting with JN, 3 January 1964. TNA: DO 196/311.

  19 Ibid.

  20 DM cited in Brown, Nehru, p. 335.

  21 Brittain, Envoy Extraordinary, pp. 160–1.

  22 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 378.

  23 Seton, Panditji, p. 472.

  24 JN, will and testament, SWJN (2), vol 26, p. 612.

  25 R.H. Belcher, report on the funeral of JN. TNA: PREM 11/4864.

  26 Seton, Panditji, p. 474.

  27 Brittain, Envoy Extraordinary, pp. 163–4.

  28 Report by Acting British High Commissioner in India, R.H. Belcher, to Secretary of State for Commonwealth Development, 17 June 1964. PREM 11/4864; CRO ref: 2SEA 50/5/1.

  29 Healey, The Time of My Life, pp. 261–2.

  30 Patrick Nairne to Derek Mitchell, 26 March 1965. TNA: PREM 13/159. See also Solly Zuckerman to Michael Berry, 7 February 1964. MP: MB1/Z2; ‘Peterborough’, Daily Telegraph, 30 January 1964.

  31 Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 257; Montague Browne, Long Sunset, p. 315.

  32 John Beavan, ‘The Man of Influence’, Daily Mirror, 29 October 1964, p. 9.

  33 TNA: HO 191/167, 195/6/65, 195/8/124, and several more.

  34 Sampson, Anatomy of Britain Today, p. 364.

  35 Solly Zuckerman to DM, 30 March 1962; DM to Solly Zuckerman, 14 June 1962; Solly Zuckerman to DM, 15 June 1962, all MP: MB1/Z2. DM’s articles were ‘Identity of Carcass Still a Scientific Mystery’, Nassau Daily Tribune, 15 March 1962; ‘Is Monster Unknown Extinct Sea Animal?’, Daily Gleaner, 12 March 1962; Envoy, March/April 1960.

  36 Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 258.

  37 MP: MB1/K202.

  38 Yorkshire Post, 15 November 1968.

  39 Pimlott, The Queen, pp. 349–50.

  40 Ibid, p. 387.

  41 Sir Morrice James to Burke Trend, 9 August 1968. TNA: FCO 37/133.

  42 DM cited in Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 134.

  43 DM to Solly Zuckerman, 21 February 1969. MP: MB1/Z1.

  44 DM to General Cariappa, 5 December 1965. MP: MB1/K147.

  45 DM to Harold Wilson, 24 May 1966. TNA: PREM 13/1072.

  46 DM to Indira Gandhi, 19 January 1966. MP: MB1/K147.

  47 Lyndon B. Johnson and Indira Gandhi cited in Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, p. 206.

  48 Indira Gandhi cited in Sahgal, ‘The Making of Mrs. Gandhi’, p. 192.

  49 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 25 August 1967. MP: MB1/K147.

  50 King, The Cecil King Diary 1965–1970, p. 12; Sampson, Anatomy of Britain Today, p. 140.

  51 King, The Cecil King Diary 1965–1970, p. 14.

  52 Ibid, 12 August 1967, pp. 138–9.

  53 Zuckerman, Monkeys, Men and Missiles, p. 463.

  54 Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 337; Ziegler, Mountbatten, pp. 659–61.

  55 Solly Zuckerman, ‘Working with a Man of destiny’, Observer, 2 September 1979.

  56 Solly Zuckerman cited in Hugh Cudlipp, Walking on the Water (The Bodley Head, London, 1976), p. 326.

  57 Cecil King’s Diary, cited in ‘Mountbatten and the Coup that Wasn’t Quite’, The Times, 3 April 1981, p. 4.

  58 ‘Queen Told of “Coup” Threat’, Sunday Telegraph, 16 August 1981, p. 3.

  59 Private Eye, no 362, 31 Oct 1975, p. 5. There is a copy of this in MP: MB1/K162A.

  60 Private information. See also King, The Cecil King Diary 1965–1970, 22 May 1969, p. 259; and Zuckerman, ‘Working with a Man of Destiny’. There is a conspicuous hole in the otherwise regular correspondence file with Solly Zuckerman among DM’s papers, between 29 January and 18 October 1968.

  61 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 157.

  62 DM cited in Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 53.

  63 ‘Mountbatten’, Secret History, Channel 4 Television.

/>   64 Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 86; Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 96.

  65 DM cited in Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 152.

  66 Barbara Cartland, I Reach for the Stars: An Autobiography (Robson Books, London, 1994), p. 123.

  67 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 2.

  68 Frank, Indira, p. 402.

  69 Adams & Whitehead, The Dynasty, pp. 261–5; Frank, Indira, pp. 404–7.

  70 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 29 August 1977. VLP: correspondence with DM. See also Indira Gandhi to Barbara Cartland, 20 September 1981. Cited in Cartland, I Reach for the Stars, 1994, pp. 73–4.

  71 Pandit, The Scope of Happiness, p. 27.

  72 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 13 November 1978. VLP: correspondence with DM.

  73 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 21 November 1978. VLP: correspondence with DM.

  74 Barbara Cartland cited in the Evening Standard, 13 November 1978.

  75 Barbara Cartland cited in the Daily Telegraph, 14 November 1978, p. 19. Six years later, Indira Gandhi would meet her death by assassination. She was shot with semi-automatic pistols by her Sikh bodyguards, in revenge for ordering the army into the Golden Temple at Amritsar. Her son Sanjay had been killed in a plane crash after flying loops over Delhi in 1980. Her other son, Rajiv Gandhi, became the third Nehru Prime Minister, winning a landslide in 1984 despite having little political experience. Following a disappointing tenure and lacklustre result at the 1989 elections, he resigned, though his personal popularity remained high. In 1991, he was on the verge of a return to power – but assassination awaited him too, strapped under the kurti of a Tamil suicide bomber. Rajiv’s widow, Sonia Gandhi, an Italian he had met while studying at Cambridge, led a return to power by Congress in 2004. To the surprise of commentators, she became President of Congress rather than Prime Minister. Her son, Rahul, is often talked of as a future Prime Minister; her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, has been active in Congress campaigns. Meanwhile Sanjay’s widow, Maneka Gandhi, forced out of Congress by Indira, defected to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and became a member of the Lok Sabha. Maneka’s son, Varun Gandhi, has followed her into the BJP. It is not out of the question that the future of Indian democracy could see a billion people being offered an electoral choice between cousins.

  76 Bradford, Elizabeth, p. 321; Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, pp. 140–1; Pimlott, The Queen, pp. 358–9.

  77 DM to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 27 February 1979. VLP: correspondence with DM.

  78 DM cited in Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 11.

  79 Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 21.

  80 Patricia Mountbatten speaking on Woman’s Hour, Radio 4, 10 August 2005. See also Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 29.

  81 Pimlott, The Queen, p. 470; Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, p. 136.

  82 JN to Motilal Nehru, 7 November 1907. SWJN (1), vol 1, p. 37. See also Nehru, An Autobiography, p. 25.

  83 Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 39.

  84 Smith, Fifty Years with Mountbatten, p. 12; TNA: MEPO 10/31.

  85 Barry, Royal Service, p. 95.

  86 Charles cited in Pimlott, The Queen, p. 471.

  87 Ashley Hicks cited in Hoey, Mountbatten, p. 32.

  88 Statistics from United Nations World Food Programme.

  89 These tales were collected by Minakshi Chaudhry in her entertaining Ghost Stories of Shimla Hills (Rupa & Co, New Delhi, 2005).

  90 Cited in Amrit Dhillon, ‘India’s New Rich Go On Spending Spree’, Sunday Times, 3 April 2005.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  There are two great problems facing any historian of the end of the British Empire in India and Pakistan: the sheer quantity of evidence, and the extreme nature of bias in most of it. The most popular work on the transfer of power has been Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. That book, largely and unquestioningly based on the rose-tinted reminiscences of Lord Mountbatten in the 1970s, is highly entertaining, but so imaginative that it is best read as a novelization of events. Meanwhile, the memoirs written by those closest to the action – including Maulana A.K. Azad’s India Wins Freedom, Alan Campbell-Johnson’s Mission with Mountbatten and Shahid Hamid’s Disastrous Twilight – were all written with the benefit of considerable hindsight, and with overwhelming political motives.

  This bibliography includes works that have been cited more than two or three times, or that have been used for general background. Further works have been cited in the Notes.

  ABBREVIATIONS IN NOTES

  AAS Asian & African Studies, formerly the Oriental & India Office Collection, British Library, London.

  AP Attlee Papers, Modern Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

  CP Churchill Papers, Churchill Archive, Churchill College, Cambridge.

  CRA Clement Richard Attlee.

  CSAS Centre of South Asia Studies, University of Cambridge.

  CWMG Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Government of India, New Delhi, 1958–94).

  DM Louis ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten.

  EA Edwina Ashley (later Edwina Mountbatten).

  JN Jawaharlal Nehru.

  LAP Amery Papers, Churchill Archive, Churchill College, Cambridge.

  MAJ Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

  MKG Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

  MP Mountbatten Papers, Hartley Library, Southampton University. Copies of the official parts of the papers are also available at Asian & African Studies, British Library, London; and at the National Archives, Kew, London.

  NAI National Archives of India, New Delhi.

  NML Nehru Memorial Library, New Delhi.

  ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004).

  QP Quaid-e-Azam Papers (Papers of Mohammad Ali Jinnah), Asian & African Studies, British Library, London. The original papers are held in the National Archives of Pakistan, Islamabad.

  RA Royal Archives, Windsor. Used with the permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

  SWJN Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, edited by Sarvepalli Gopal. First series (1): (Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi, 1972–82); Second series (2): (Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi, 1984–).

  TNA The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office), Kew, London.

  ToP The Transfer of Power 1942–47, 12 vols, edited by Nicholas Mansergh et al (HMSO, London, 1970–83)

  VLP Papers of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Nehru Memorial Library, New Delhi.

  WMP Walter Monckton Papers, Modern Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

  WSC Winston Spencer Churchill.

  OTHER SOURCES

  Adams, Jad, and Phillip Whitehead. The Dynasty: The Nehru-Gandhi Story (Penguin Books & BBC Books, London, 1997)

  Ahmed, Akbar S. ‘The Hero in History: Myth, Media and Realities’, History Today, vol 46, no 3, March 1996.

  —Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin (Routledge, London & New York, 1997)

  Akbar, M.J. Nehru: The Making of India (Roli Books, New Delhi, 2002)

  Ali, Aruna Asaf, in association with G.N.S. Raghavan. Private Face of a Public Person: A Study of Jawaharlal Nehru (Radiant Publishers for Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi, 1989)

  Allen, Charles. God’s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad (Little, Brown, London, 2006)

  —and Sharada Dwivedi. Lives of the Indian Princes (Century Publishing, London, 1984)

  Ambedkar, B.R. Gandhi and Gandhism (Bheem Patrika Publications, Jullundur, 1970)

  Anon. Mountbatten: Eighty Years in Pictures (Macmillan, London, 1979)

  Aronson, Theo. Crowns in Conflict: The Triumph and the Tragedy of European Monarchy, 1910–1918 (John Murray, London, 1986)

  Azad, Abul Kalam. India Wins Freedom: An Autobiographical Narrative (Orient Longmans, Calcutta, 1959)

  Bakshi, S.R., ed. Kamala Nehru. Indian Freedom-fighters; Struggle for Independence, vol. 76 (Om Publications, Faridabad, 1998)

  Barratt, John, with Jean Ritchie. Wit
h the Greatest Respect: The Private Lives of Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Prince & Princess Michael of Kent (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1991)

  Barry, Stephen P. Royal Service: My Twelve Years as Valet to Prince Charles (Macmillan Publishing Co, New York, 1983)

  Bose, Nirmal Kumar. My Days with Gandhi (1953; Sangam Books, London, 1987)

  Bourke-White, Margaret. Portrait of Myself (Collins, London, 1964)

  Bradford, Sarah. George VI (1989; Penguin Books, London, 2002)

  Brecher, Michael. Nehru: A Political Biography (Oxford University Press, London, 1959)

  Brittain, Vera. Envoy Extraordinary: A Study of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and Her Contribution to Modern India (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1965)

  Brown, Judith M. Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1989)

  —Nehru: A Political Life (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2003)

  Burke, S.M. and Salim Al-Din Quraishi. Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah: His Personality and His Politics (1997; Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2003)

  Campbell, Beatrix. Diana, Princess of Wales: How Sexual Politics Shook the Monarchy (The Women’s Press, London, 1998)

  Campbell-Johnson, Alan. Mission with Mountbatten (Robert Hale Ltd, London, 1951)

  Cannadine, David. The Pleasures of the Past (Collins, London, 1989)

  —Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (Allen Lane: The Penguin Press, London, 2001)

  Carrington, C.E. An Exposition of Empire (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1947)

  Carthill, A.L. The Lost Dominion (William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh & London, 1927)

  Cartland, Barbara, inspired and helped by Admiral of the Fleet the Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Love at the Helm (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1980)

  Channon, Sir Henry. Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon. Ed. Robert Rhodes James (1967; Phoenix, London, 1999)

  Chaplin, Charles. My Autobiography (The Bodley Head, London, 1964)

  Chaudhuri, Nirad C. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (Macmillan & Co, London, 1951)

  —Thy Hand Great Anarch! India 1921–1952 (Chatto & Windus, London, 1987)

  Chisholm, Ann, and Michael Davie. Beaverbrook: A Life (Hutchinson, London, 1992)

  Chopra, P.N., with Prabha Chopra and Padmsha Das. Secret Papers from the British Royal Archives (Kornak Publishers PVT Ltd, Delhi, 1998)