 "Mahatma Gandhi with the last Viceroy, Louis Mountbatten and his wife Edwina in 1947. It was Mountbatten's arbitrary choice of date for the British withdrawal, announced at a press conference, that underlined the British government's systematic failur")
KEEPING THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN
The British Betrayal of India
Author: Walter Reid
Publisher: Penguin Random House India
Pages: 288
Price: Rs 599
The general view is that the British worked towards an orderly transfer of power from India for decades before 1947. Nothing could be further from the truth, argues historian Walter Reid. In this excerpt from his book Keeping The Jewel in the Crown: The British Betrayal of India he shows how the British establishment improvised policy and focused on salvaging imperial prestige - and a defence presence - amidst the carnage and chaos of independence
Hastings ('Pug' and now Lord) Ismay, accompanied Mountbatten to India…. During the war he had served with great distinction as Secretary to the Chiefs of Staff. He ranks only behind Churchill and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alanbrooke, in forging Britain's military contribution to victory. In 1946 he retired from the army; but he volunteered to accompany Mountbatten for two reasons. First, he loved India. Secondly, he was afraid that Mountbatten might rush things.
In the event, after only a month back in the subcontinent, he reappraised the situation and told Mountbatten that he must make haste. He wrote to a friend, 'The communal feeling I have found, I just did not believe possible. It tore at you, all the time. There was slaughter everywhere. We British had all the responsibility and none of the power…. They were blamed by both Nehru and Jinnah for everything that went wrong. This was one reason why to delay partition would be to increase the disasters.' This was the extent to which Britain had prepared India for Independence by 1947.
At Mountbatten's request Ismay visited London on 3 May 1947. He took with him the plan for partition. Choices would be offered: Bengal and the Punjab could be split between India and Pakistan; or could join with one another; or could be independent. The destiny of the princely states was still uncertain at this stage. Mountbatten urged the Cabinet to approve a plan quickly. He appeared confident that it would be acceptable to the politicians in India. The Cabinet did indeed act quickly, and gave their approval within the week. The only changes were an emphasis on the right of different parts to decide their own future and a further opt-out for the North-West Frontier.
Mountbatten had been working seventeen hours a day for six weeks. He went off to Simla to recuperate and prepare for Ismay's return from London and the release of the plan to the politicians. He invited Nehru and Krishna Menon to stay with him and, on a last-minute hunch, as he called it, that Nehru might not like the plan, gave it to him, against the advice of his staff, to look at overnight. In the morning Nehru delivered what Mountbatten called the 'Nehru bombshell'. He had been prepared for the necessity of partition, but the extent of the non-Indian area appalled him. This turnaround was reminiscent of so many other episodes in negotiations over the years. Nehru had appeared to endorse the plan earlier, and the minor changes made in London don't explain why it was unacceptable now.
It was Krishna Menon who saved the day. He suggested that if India and Pakistan joined the Commonwealth, the apparent unity of the subcontinent would be preserved. Mountbatten convinced himself that not only had his 'hunch' been a brilliant piece of intuition, but that getting India into the Commonwealth had been his own coup….
But the idea of incorporating India into the Commonwealth was very far from new. It went back as far as the Balfour Report of 1926. The Commonwealth was a much more coherent entity than it is today, and much more controlled by Britain. It continued the imperial bond through strong economic and military commitments. It was precisely for that reason that Nehru had hitherto tended to see the Commonwealth as a limitation of India's Independence. Moreover, the preponderant sense of the policy urged on Mountbatten by both the service chiefs and the politicians had been to bring India within the Commonwealth nexus. It is indeed argued by his supporters that he had been quietly working towards this end from the start. But his reaction to the Nehru Bombshell was despair at the rebuff of the plan which he had so confidently commended to London, and what saved the day at Simla wasn't any negotiating triumph by Mountbatten. It was the way in which Krishna Menon found a way of saving Nehru's face. It was typical of Mountbatten that he could pocket someone else's success and believe it had been his all along.
That he did. Henceforth Mountbatten committed himself wholeheartedly to the Commonwealth solution…. On the basis that as soon as something can't easily be had, it becomes the more desirable, he made the prospect of Commonwealth membership all the more attractive by pretending to Krishna Menon that he had been told by London not to attempt to keep India within the Commonwealth. Although Nehru didn't like the idea of membership, he recognised that the concept might keep some states from opting for Independence and reduce the Balkanisation risk….
By 11 May Mountbatten was able to send a telegram to Ismay, still in London, saying that Independence would have to be granted in the course of 1947, on the basis of dominion status and with Commonwealth membership for both India and Pakistan. The Cabinet was taken aback to learn that the pre-Commonwealth plan which they had just approved and which they had been told would be acceptable to all parties was to be replaced by another one.
On 18 May Mountbatten returned to London, the amended plan apparently accepted by Congress and at least not objected to by the Muslim League. The Government could not hope to get the necessary legislation through parliament before the recess without the agreement of the opposition…. Mountbatten visited Churchill, not yet out of bed for the day. Churchill was mollified by the idea that 'Independence' would be moderated by membership of the Commonwealth and didn't oppose the legislation. ….
On 31 May Mountbatten returned to India, having been given 'a large measure of discretion to amend the details of the plan, without prior consultation with His Majesty's Government'. His plan was accepted by Congress and Jinnah said that he would recommend it to his League. It was now that the new fixed date emerged. Mountbatten gave a press conference to 300 journalists, speaking without notes for three-quarters of an hour. He faced fierce questioning about how the plan would work and he responded time and time again by indicating that this was no longer Britain's problem: 'Every time you ask me whether I am going to decide a question for you I say "No". If you put the same question in a second and third way, I still say my answer is "No". I am quite sincere when I say to you that you have got to make up your minds'. In answer to another question, and apparently without any great reflection, he said that Independence could be achieved 'about 15 August [1947]'. The 'about' was immediately forgotten....
Although it had been accepted that India would be divided into two parts, until astoundingly late in the day no one seems to have realised that precise boundaries were needed between Pakistan and India. … In March 1946 there were no papers in the official archives in Delhi dealing with the practical implications of partition until one, and only one, arrived from Lieutenant General Sir Francis Tuker, GOC, Eastern Command. He suggested that partition seemed likely and that some planning should take place for it.
Eventually Sir Cyril Radcliffe, QC, a leading member of the Chancery Bar, was sent out on 8 July 1947 - thirty-eight days before Independence - to draw the lines. … The systematic failure of British governments to contemplate or prepare for any planned transfer of power to India is epitomised by the fact that a man of Radcliffe's background and lack of experience (he had never been east of Gibraltar before he came to India) should have been asked to embark on such a fundamental task so very late in the day. He was only in India for six weeks.
