Empire: World History - 15. The Last Viceroy of India

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

In this episode, Anita and William are joined by Alex von Tunzelmann to discuss Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India. Listen in to hear all about his superstar marriage to Edwina Ashley, his relationships with key figures such as Nehru and Jinnah, and the role he played in the partition of India.   To get your free two week trial for Find my past, go to www.findmypast.co.uk and sign up.   LRB Empire offer: lrb.me/empire   Twitter: @Empirepoduk   Goalhangerpodcasts.com   Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.empowerpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnden. And me, William Durimple. Just so, so difficult. Anyway, in the previous episode, we were talking about Jinnah. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about one of the other key figures,

who plays a really important part in the end of the British Raj in India, the last viceroy of India. He was the man who oversaw partition. He was also a seminal influence in now King Charles's life. I'm talking, of course, of Louis Mountbatten. And this week, we're very lucky to be joined by the fantastic Alex von Tunselman. Alex has written countless very good books. Indian summer remains, I love it, I'm such a good book.

It's been on the bestseller list for an annoying length of time. But anyway, Alex is just super. And Alex, a good way into this story is, I think, to discuss Lord Mountbatten and his marriage to the then Edwina Ashley, because both were superstars of their day, weren't they? So tell us a bit more about them. Well, yes, and it was the Society of Wedding of the Year. 8,000 spectators turned up, just members of the public, to watch this happen. Queen Mary was there, Queen Alexandra, the Prince of Wales, you know, all sorts of celebrities in attendance and so forth.

So, you know, I guess you can tell even from that that these were people of some social significance in Britain. So Mountbatten himself was part of what had been the Battenberg family, kind of connected to British royalty, connected to German royalty and so forth. But in World War I, the name had been changed, Battenberg to Mountbatten, to sound more British. So that explains that sort of name change. So his father was Prince Louis of Battenberg, but he was known as Louis Mountbatten. But he didn't have a German accent or he wouldn't have stood out as being? No, not at all. No, he'd grown up in Britain. He'd gone, you know, gone through kind of a naval education, very much sort of very British upbringing.

he certainly wouldn't have had an accent or anything his father might have. But they considered themselves completely British. But he was connected to the royal family, but the family wasn't hugely wealthy. Now, who was hugely wealthy was Edwina Ashley, as she then was. Who was indeed considered by some, it's a bit hard to compare the numbers at that time, but considered by some to be possibly the wealthiest heiress in the world at that time. She'd inherited a huge amount of family money from Sir Ernest Castle, who was a banker and friend of the then king, Edward 7th.

That's why she was named Edwina, in fact, was after him as her godfather. So they were connected. But the family also had Jewish origins. So in British society at the time, where there was a lot of anti-Semitism around, that was seen as a bit disqualifying from social positions. So effectively, Mountbatten had a huge amount of social cachet. Edwina had a huge amount of money. So it was one of those celebrity marriages, really, between the class and the cat.

It's Jane Austen. Absolutely. And I mean, they were beautiful people, though. I mean, let's paint a picture as well, because he had that sort of patrician look of a very handsome man who knew he was handsome in a uniform as well. Very handsome. I mean, among royalty who I'm afraid are generally not speaking famed for their great looks

and, you know, sort of have to replenish the old gene pool occasionally by going outside, he stood out. He was very, very handsome. In fact, I think later on when he's played in which we serve by Noel Couch. That's a rare case of on film the actor actually being markedly less handsome than the character they're playing. So, yes, very good. It looked absolutely the picture of sort of noble British kind of stock, or at least the picture that they would like to project, should we say. And yes, Edwina, I mean, tremendously damrous.

I mean, she'd had a very sheltered upbringing being sent to these awful sort of women's colleges where she was taught to do things like cook and clean and sew. I mean, things that a woman really with her sort of status would never actually. have to do, but this was thought to sort of, I suppose, instill some sort of subservient femininity. Well, it did exactly the opposite. And she came out quite a rebel. Was he bride? Was he sort of noted as a smart man? No, I mean, not particularly. He was, you know, not stupid either. I mean, not necessarily, you know, he was very confident, was a great speaker, very charming. I don't think people particularly remarked that he was smart. Edwina was definitely seen as smarter. She was somebody who had, you know, been poorly served by this education that she'd been

given that was very sort of heavily domesticised, but actually clearly did have intellectual interests in what was happening in the world. But he was famously flashy and he loved speed. He really did. And he loved glamour. He loved being around famous people. He loved being in the spotlight, you know, he had a great love of kind of flash and dash in every possible capacity. And I think in a way, although Edwina certainly went along with some of that for a while, certainly during the 1920s and the early years of their marriage, you know, what you can sort of see happening by the 1930s is her clearly emerging as a rather more serious thinker. And Dickie, as he was known, you know, technically Louis Mountbatten, but always known by the

family as Dickie, really somebody who is very much sticking with his flash and dash. What exactly is then the trajectory of a happy couple who are living the high life, racing around in expensive cars, going to the best parties, to suddenly become embroiled in what is the very, very tangled part of Anglo-Indian relations? I mean, it certainly seems unlikely from that point of view. But of course, their marriage is in 1920, so that was far earlier. So there's a lot of time that passes in between. And crucially, in that time, we have massive events like World War II.

which went down. And now Mountbatten himself served in the Navy, rose to a very high position during World War II. And he was, again, not necessarily very successful. He was actually nicknamed in the Admiralty, the Master of Disaster. He lost one of his ships, didn't he? He did.

And I mean, he kind of beat up quite a few ships. He was actually seen as somebody who was really quite unreliable in charge of things, but he did have this glamour. And it's kind of interesting that if you speak to him, of course now, you know, very few veterans are with us, but when you speak to people at different levels, the overwhelmingly, the impression I got was that, you know, his juniors, men who served under him, generally loved him because he was

incredibly charming, he was lovely, he'd remember their wives' names and their kids' birthdays and all of this kind of stuff. He was very kind of good at engaging with people in that way, whereas people who were sort of his fellow officers and sort of on a level with him tended to be highly, highly critical. I had an uncle who had fought. his way during the Second World War down through Burma. And this was famously one of the most grueling campaigns. They were fighting in the jungle. It's this Kohima.

Kohima down from Imphal. The Japanese came right up through Burma, got as far as a tennis court in Imphal. And there they were halted. And between the tennis court and the bungalow, there was a kind of, I think, a one-month standoff. And then from this sort of high watermark, the Japanese had pushed down. and it's a horrible, horrible campaign. There are mosquitoes, there are mud, there is monsoon rain.

It's ethically very complicated because a lot of the troops they're facing at various points are Indian troops who are now fighting for the Japanese, have gone into the Indian National Army, and are followers of Subaz Chandra Bose, who's a great hero in India, little known in Britain, but increasingly one of the most prominent figures. Oh, they're building very large statues to him in India. Very large statues. Very popular statues, yes.

And my uncle, who was part of that came, hated Mountbatten because he said that having fought all the way down, they got to Rangoon, and they found that Mountbatten had just flown in by flying boat or speedboat or whatever it was, had taken all the best rooms in the Strand Hotel and his staff had sort of set themselves up. and all these guys who, you know, were covered in leeches and stick thin, haven't eaten a proper meal, found that sort of Mountbatten's and all his followers had sort of eaten up all the lobster and the prawns. In a pristine, pressed white uniform sitting there to take the glory. Yeah, I mean, this is a familiar story to anyone who's studied Mountbatten. And I mean, he was, he had, by that time he'd become supreme Allied commander of Southeast Asia, a major theatre, as you say, in World War II.

And this was largely not because he was he was competent, but because he was beautiful and connected to the royal family. Was it really that simple? I mean, yes, is the answer to that question? I mean, you know, there were other aspects to it, but yeah, his connections were very important. And he also got on very well with Winston Churchill, for instance, initially, although that changed later on.

You know, him and Churchill were both absolutely obsessed with kind of innovative technology to win wars. They had a very close relationship around this. Not very successful really coming from either. them. But, you know, so he did have these connections. And at the same time, of course, during the war, I mean, now his relationship with Edwina had gone through an enormous amount of complexity in the 20s and 30s. It had not been an entirely successful marriage, quite honestly. And certainly not a very faithful one. Well, who cheated more? Because there

are rumours swirling around the pair of them at this time. I mean, Edwina cheated much more is the only conclusion you can realistically draw if you look at any of the evidence. You know, it was very much her going off and having affairs with all sorts of incredibly interesting men of various types. And all the letters between them are really Mount Basson kind of, you know, I mean, being sort of extraordinarily understanding about this a lot of the time. They used to even within the family, they even had a name for her lovers. They'd call them the ginks. These were the sort of men that clustered around her. And I mean, you know, and he was very liberal about it.

I mean, he went off and had a sort of consolation affair with this French woman. But he doesn't really seem to have done very much about that. He really just like buying her presents and flirting. He wasn't, I don't think he really was. You know, I know all sorts of rumours about him, but the impression I got overwhelmingly again and again from papers and from people who knew them is that actually Mountbatten wasn't a terribly sexual person.

He was, you know, very, he loved romance. He loved, you know, the performance of it. But, you know, and he may well have flirted with men and women and, well, you know, it was a, it was, this happened at the time as well. But he wasn't very up for it. So he used to write these very kind letters. And at one point when Edwina actually was considering divorcing him, he wrote this very understanding letter about, you know,

well, you know, never mind, we'll sort it out. I'm sure we all want the best for you and all of this. But he was very nervous about being divorced. He wanted her to stay in the marriage, ideally. It was very important to him to keep that unit together, at least notionally, of a marriage. So while this whole soap opera is unfolding, Matt Batten's back from Burma.

And meanwhile, A Labour government has been elected in London. Churchill is kicked out. And Britain is suddenly finds itself on rations, is impoverished and is exhausted. And is facing for the first time the fact that having won the war, they're about to have to start losing the empire. Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, there's really no money left. And worse than that, they're massively in debt to them.

massively in debt and not being helped out by the kind of Marshall Plan and so on because we're not occupied or invaded. And Americans are very happy to having been great allies and super helpful and very close to to the British during the war. They now realise that their interests are diverging. They do not want a British empire. They certainly don't want the British to hang on in India. And they're actually beginning to tighten the financial screws, which will encourage

the Labour government to take the momentous decision finally to say that India can have its independence. What brings the Attlee government to make that decision? Yeah, I mean, I think you can overstate the role of the Americans. They certainly had a natural disinclination towards empires, particularly the British Empire, of course, having thrown off that yoke themselves quite famously in 1776 or soon after. But they were quite careful about staying out publicly

of most of these conversations. They, you know, obviously would have preferred. the empire to cease, but they were quite careful about how they put it. When the active government came in, there were a number of factors, and it really was, I mean, the urgent factor was certainly financial, was the fact that Britain was broke, to put it in a very, very simple terms. But it was also ideological. I mean, you know, Labour politicians have been arguing for home rule from the end of the 19th century for India. They had been advocating for this. I mean, you know, Ramsey MacDonald was the first Labour, Prime Minister who believed in Indian home rule and independence.

aptly, of course, had been out to India at the Simon Commission and so on. And really ideologically, the Labour Party had no interest in continuing the empire, shall we say. And from the point of view of people at home, you know, when you're looking at British soldiers, come back from the war, you know, India by 1946 was really beginning to be in a state of what we might really call civil war. It was being very underreported, but when you look at Indian newspapers from the time rather than British ones, you can see that the levels of violence were getting really high. there were naval mutinies and so on, you know, a lot of rebellions. And the only way, traditionally to fix this in an empire would have been to send loads more British soldiers out there. And it's absolutely zero appetite for that in Britain. Zero appetite. No, finances, tired, men. You've got two men, though, in this particular scenario who are very, very different.

I mean, you've got sort of glamorous old Mountbatten who doesn't really take life very seriously from the sound of things. And you've got Clem Attlee, who is on a mission to do something that will change history. How do they rub along together and what brings them together? Well, they don't necessarily get on particularly well, one or one. But at least, obviously, during the war,

as Churchill's deputy prime minister, effectively, had new Mountbatten. And in some ways, it was quite a clever appointment because in 1946, the last kind of, there was an effort, the cabinet mission plan, kind of a last effort to create a federal India. That would have created a federal, of Indian states with the view to after 10 years kind of referendum on did India want to stay together or be partitioned or what would happen next.

And I think most historians, I would certainly count myself among them, see that as really the last chance to avoid what would happen in 1947, partition and all the associated violence. But that had failed. And it failed, I mean, for all sorts of reasons. But really, if you want to pin one particular reason on it, Gandhi was greatly in opposition to that plan. So by the end of 1946, it was really looking desperate. And actually, Atlee, we're really trying to figure out, okay, look, we've got to get out of India. I mean, this is not working. And there's a feeling also that if the British do cling on, that the two things are going to happen. A, they're going to completely lose control.

And secondly, they're going to be supervising a blood bath. Absolutely. And I mean, you know, there's no positive outcome at this point from that. And if you want something done quickly, not necessarily well, but quickly, with great. PR around this and a really good public image, the person to call was Dicky's your man. So, oh, can I mean just, so this idea of getting it done quickly. Now, there's a big question mark over who was in the biggest hurry over this. There's talk of deadlines. Now, who actually said, we have got a deadline in mind and it is going to be really, really soon? Well, there's a whole

progress of negotiations over this. So when Attlee originally summoned Mountbatten, 18th of December, 1946. So the end of 1946, I say that's when he told him he wanted to make him vice-roy of India. Manbatten was deeply unsure about this. And you can see from the correspondence between them that one of his big sticking points to Mountbatten said, I've got to have an end date. I can't do it if you don't give me some kind of end date. So what they agreed in the end is that the absolute firm end date would be the 1st of June 1948, but that would be flexible within a month. So there would be a little bit of flexibility on that. But that was the latest possible date. That was the kind of dead stop. And Mountbatten's instructions were that if negotiations have failed by the 1st of October

1947, that it was nine months and he was out, whatever happened. Alex, could you paint a picture for us now? We've got a pretty good image in our head now of post-war London, bomb damage everywhere, ration coupons, the country suddenly finding that it's got no money, everyone exhausted. What's going on in India? How bad is the violence and how long has that balance been going on? It's really bad is the simple answer to that. I mean, I looked at newspapers from March 1947, so when Mountbatten went, so he arrived on 22nd March, 1947.

I looked at newspapers from kind of a week or so before that from all over India and traced some of the violence that was going on. And I mean, it was absolutely extraordinary. There were incidents all over India at that time. There were hundreds or even thousands of casuals. even within that one week. And these were just the things that were being reported. So, you know, who knows what else was going unreported.

So I think it's not really an exaggeration to say that India was really on the tipping point towards a civil war at this point. It was in a really bad state. And tell us about the different Indian leaders and their relationships. Who are the people that Matt Batten is going to have to be working with? Absolutely. I mean, although, and to say about Gandhi, I mean, he's on the scene at this point, but his importance of being diminished quite. substantially by 1947 as a negotiator. He wasn't, he was there.

He was this kind of presence that was very important emotionally and so on, but he was not negotiating the details of this deal, really. He's more of a kind of guru in the background. The negotiators really by this point, I mean, primarily you've got Congress in the Muslim League. And now, bear in mind, 1946, they were all being three rounds and rounds of negotiations. They'd actually agreed amazingly.

But Gandhi had blown that one apart. In 1947... What did they agree? Well, they'd agreed to the cabinet mission plan. Which was? Which was the federalised India. And then after 10 years, some kind of referendum on whether that would continue. And I guess the real positivity about that plan, the positive over what would then happen

is that that would have given 10 years for all those politicians to really build up some experience in office to handle it for India to go through whatever political transition it would have done. And even after that point, had partition happened, it would have been, one can imagine, it may well have been a much more civilised way of doing it, because there would have been, you know, clear administrative units and a lot more local knowledge on behalf of Congress. And negotiation. I mean, just time for things to cool down.

Time for things to cool down. But there is deep inherent mistrust between two of the major figures here. And we're talking about Jowal Nairu, who is now the acolyte of Gandhi, who is leading Congress, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who is the head of the Muslim League, men who actually, you know, should have got on fairly well, but they do not. They loathe each other. What is the point of difference? Because again, from the outside, you'd imagine both are anglicised, both of them, smart dresses, both of them quite like a bit of glamour. I mean, in a sense,

you'd have thought there'd be more difference between Neru and Gandhi than there would be between Nerr and Jinnah. Why do these men now have a deep distrust of each other? Well, I mean, I always think a little bit it's like when you get the villain in a movie and they say you're so like you and I to the hero. I think in a way there could not be two of Nero and Janoi. There were too many similarities in some ways. And I mean, you know, and Nero's relationship with Gandhi had also been very complex. I mean, you know, he loved him in many ways and, you know, was in obviously close to him, but disagreed with him politically and almost everything. And economically. And economic, absolutely. And found him personally frustrating. I mean, there's that very famous

line that's attributed to Nero that it costs us a fortune to keep him in such poverty. I mean, you know, it's, they had huge differences between them, but they did have a very close relationship, of course. So paint a little picture of both those men. So no, well, both of them had kind of, as you say, outwardly in some ways quite similar. They'd both grown up in a sort of very anglicised way. In fact, later in life, both of them had issues really with making speeches and speaking in Hindi in Nauru's case or Urdu in Jinnah's case because actually they hadn't really spoken those languages in their households growing up. They'd had to really kind of learn them later on.

So Nairu had grown up. He was the son of Motilal Nairu, who was one of the most important Indian politicians of the early 20th century, an absolute force in Indian politics, a very, very wealthy lawyer who had... A man whose entire understanding of... the British and India had been changed by the Gillian Waller-Barg massacre. From that point, he thought no more, there could be no more truck with these people.

Yes, it was a real crucial breaking point for him. And he had previously very much tried to work with the British, had very much been in it. And, you know, had been very successful. And British loved him. They invited him to parties. He was wonderful, you know. So he'd gotten on very successfully. But yes, Amritsa was really a change point in his experience.

And he was, you know, in the Indian National Congress, which at that time was extremely inclusive and broad. And it was only really kind of after the return of Gandhi in kind of, you know, around sort of 1917 to 1920. He comes back from South Africa. Yes, and introduces

what is kind of a more spiritual dimension. And the effect of that is that people like Jinnah, well, specifically Jinnah, actually left the Indian National Congress because they were uncomfortable. And it's because it's so Hindu, it's a kind of Hindu-centric. You know, Satya-Graha, this, this, this, this,

idea of a spiritual awakening and non-himsa and non-violence. They're all very much rooted in the Sanskrit and scripture and Vedas and stuff. And it just really ticked Jinnah off because he's not, he's not, he's a secular man. He doesn't understand why this is all being dragged into parable. Is his problem that it's religion or is it the problem that it's Hinduism or is it both? I mean, it's both. He makes it quite clear, but that's the sticking point. And he at the same time, so Jinnah also like Nero had a less privileged background than Nero. I mean, Neri was from an extremely wealthy background. It had gone to Cambridge and, you know, had all of this stuff.

Jinnah was from a rather more humble origins, but both of them had, you know, become very, very successful lawyers, made a lot of money, became very wealthy and so forth. And he's quite glamorous as a young man. I mean, the trouble is that so many of, certainly my generation's views of Jinnah are formed by the wonderful Richard Attenborough Gandhi film, where Jinnah is the demon. And he sits there kind of muttering, I will destroy India. And also humorous, you know, he's not fun. You know you'd want to be stuck in a lift. And with Attenborough's characters, you'd know it'd be fun. Jinnah, you know, you'd want the engineers out very quickly.

The portrayal was not favourable of him. No, I mean, it's a terrific movie, but my goodness, don't watch it for historical accuracy or balance. And a lot of it derives from the version that La Piers and Collins put out in Freedom at Midnight, which itself is fed to them. Mountbatten? Yes. I mean, what happened with that book

is that Mountbatten, you know, they interviewed Mountbatten very late in his life. And look, Mount Batten was never a person who was entirely given to, should we say,

a clear-eyed assessment of himself. He was always somebody who would have given you the absolute best possible gloss on whatever he had done. By late in his life, that had really gone to quite an extreme to the point where he's just inventing stuff.

And that book just took that all at face values to pray it forwardly. Let's take a short break. So let's go back to where we are in this timeline. So we've got Mountbatten, Claire Matley saying, right, you need to go out. Matt Batten's saying, give me a deadline or I'm not taking the job.

He's going to an India where the two major protagonists loathe each other with a passion. Again, we need to, I think, slightly say why that is. What's happened during the war to set those people against each other? Well, it's not just the war. It goes back much longer than that. I mean, they had kind of, there's all sorts of interesting personal connections between the two of them. Despite the fact in India such a massive country, this political class was so small and so incestuous that actually, you know, they had had run-ins personally.

And, you know, even to the point where it was said that Jinnah had gone off to the UK and to London and had this very, very successful legal career was doing very well. And the reason that he stopped that and came back is that somebody said that Nairu had said at a dinner party, Ginner is finished, at which point to patch his bags, back to India, I'm not finished, I'm getting involved again. You know, yeah, I mean, Ginna was a very glamorous figure. And I mean, yeah, I mean, they were absolutely, despite being so similar, they absolutely did not get on. And, you know, by this point, after years of negotiation, they got on worse and worse, they really didn't trust each other's motives.

And in the beginning of the Second World War, all the Congress leaders had decided to take quite understandable umbrage at the fact that the British had not consulted them before declaric war, while Jinnah had supported the war effort and stayed out of jail? Absolutely. So quit India, of course, in 1942, had seen all the Congress leaders rounded up and put in prison because they had resisted the British leadership. The Muslim League, of course, had not done this. And as a result, did extremely well politically because they were then really the spokesman with all the Congress people in jail. We were able to campaign. And many Muslims who previously had seen the future in a United Indy.

and wanted to stay in India and with the Congress, shear off and join the Muslim League. The Muslim League doubles the size of its catchment. It's a huge recruiting event for the Muslim League. So at what point does Mountbatten put his finely stitched shoe into this fray? And what immediately confronts him and his wife when he goes to India? So when they arrive, March 947, it becomes immediately apparent to them. the situation is considerably worse than they've been told.

The day-to-day violence is out of control. And at this time, of course, the British troop numbers are only going in one direction, which is down. That's already happening. And not only is the violence out of control, but any means of possibly quelling it is rapidly receding. This is because after the Second World War troops that have been on fighting in India or fighting against Japan want their leave.

They've had enough and they're resigning from the army. I mean, partially there's that happening, but it's also the British government has a policy and the British services have a policy of drawing down troops in India that begins very rapidly and actually is supported by everybody. I mean, Nehru had this idea and many people did in Congress and I know it seems really hard to get your head around now, but genuinely a lot of them believed that when the British troops went, there would be much less violence in India. They thought that the presence of those troops was a big part of that. I mean, it's really weird that they thought that because, you know, we had an echo of

what was to come in partition in 1946, you know, direct action day. which was this appalling bloodlet that took place. The clashes between Hindus and Muslims is appalling. And the British, you know, they have troops there at that time, but they don't go out. They do nothing. They lift not one finger to get involved in this until British interests are threatened.

So it's very interesting. I've always been baffled by this, Alex, that they thought that the quick leaving of British troops would be okay and that they were all for it. I know. I mean, I think in retrospect, as I say, it's really quite hard to get your head around how they thought this is the case. But they really did.

I mean, Nero later said a few months later, he admitted he'd been completely wrong. I mean, he saw that this had been a huge error. But I think, you know, it's the fact is he wasn't the only person saying this. It really was quite a widespread thought. I mean, you know, and partly that is related to ideas about divide and rule, which had been a genuine policy and which had certainly created a lot of trouble. But the problem is, I think, by this point that those feelings have become so, endemic that they're simply removing perhaps what might have been originally the cause of that

didn't, was the injury was open. You know, it was too late to close that injury. But I don't think they really appreciated that. Everybody thought it. You have a very nice phrase in your book that I always remember about how by the time of the First World War, there was still very much a strong joint world between Hindus and Muslims that are fish eating Bengali Muslim would have more in common with his fish-eating Bengali Hindu neighbour than he would with the Pashdun up in the north-west frontier. You had that lovely phrase that Indians, the boxes that the British made them ticks didn't fit the diversity of their own identities or their own minds.

Yes, absolutely. And I mean, really literally, because if you look at, you know, and you have to go back a bit. But if you think about 1870 when they began to introduce a census in India, they were literally giving you boxes to tick. The British were literally introducing and concretising, firming up, these very very precise notions of caste. I mean, there's quite a lot of evidence that actually before that that caste was considerably more fluid, that codifying it in this way really reinforced it.

And indeed, religious identity, because you have fragments of it still, although it's almost dying now in India, but Hindus and Sikhs going to Sufi Muslim shrines and village Muslims going to temples and leaving offerings to village temple deities. That world, which is nearly over now, is beginning to fray for the first time. Is that a deliberate campaign, or is that just because the British love bureaucracy and love boxes? I mean, I sort of wonder about this. I know there are many Indian historians who say this is, you know, from cunning central. In my period, in the East India Company, I've always looked for the phrase divide and rule and never found it.

So I just wonder whether, you know, this idea of sort of corraling people into their ethnic and religious groups, which does happen over time during British rule, which may not have happened if the British weren't in charge. I mean, who knows with these thought experiments? But is it deliberate or is it accidental? It comes up. So, Willie, it comes up in Kipling. He describes it very clearly in the late 19th century, but no, your period, no. And it doesn't mean they use the exact words, of course. They don't write down on a piece of paper.

Now we're doing divide a rule. They just describe a policy. I think it's, I mean, Anita, in answer to your question, I think it's kind of a bit of both. I mean, I think the British found India very hard to understand because it was massive and diverse and complicated and there were lots of things they didn't. So in a sense, kind of putting it in boxes in this way, you could see sort of an attempt to understand it and quantify it in a way that was, you know, as you might say loving admin, but could be a legitimate attempt actually to do that.

But there was certainly, and I mean you can see by the late 19th century very specifically attempts to pursue policies that would equate to divide a rule, even if those precise words, are not used. So I kind of think there's a bit of both. But what I think we can potentially avoid the idea of is that there was some kind of brilliantly coherent master plan from London because actually what there was was always immense disagreement about how to do the empire. Should there be an empire? Are we just wasting money?

What about people at home? All of this stuff was always under discussion. You know, not necessarily from a we must free the Indians point of view, but certainly from points of view of whether this was really beneficial and so forth. It was incredibly controversial all through the 19th century. So Mountbatten steps into it. this divided political, religious land of schisms and mistrust. What does he make of the protagonist and what does he start doing? Well, quite quickly, I mean, what we can see, which I think is just

extraordinary, is that within, you know, a very short period of time. Now, the Mountbatten's met Neh once before in Singapore in 1946, this rather extraordinary event where the crowds rushed forward and Nehru and Matt Batten had to sort of lift up at all. weena and savour from the crowds. So I suppose that had probably established a little level of intimacy between them that was probably quite unusual because it was such a tumultuous occasion. But that was the only time they'd previously met. But what we can see is that extraordinarily quickly the Mount Bassas and Neri became quite close with each other. And the way I can show that is by this photograph, which is in my book, and you can see it elsewhere as well

from the 28th March. So that's five days after they arrive, very short period of time. where you can see it's in what was then, Viceroy's house, of course, in Delhi. And it's during a garden party, a Viceroy's garden party. And you can see Edwina went back and sitting on a sofa next to Nan Pundit, who was Nero's sister. And Nero is sitting cross-legged, as he often likes you, on the floor next to Edwina.

Now, it's the most extraordinarily relaxed pose. And you could not imagine this photo existing with any previous vice reign. This is, you know, what this shows us is that very, very quickly, they were very comfortable with each other, that they had a meeting of minds, whatever it was and got on. It's an extraordinary image. So we know that they got on very well, very quickly. And we also know that there wasn't such a good connection with Jenna, that the Mountbatten's

failed to form such a close, easy relationship with Mohamed Ali Jinnah or with his sister, Fatima, who's also incredibly important. In fact, not only do they not establish a connection, but they actually find him chilly, reserved and unpleasant. Yes, they mostly do, or they begin to increasingly find that. I mean, they did try a bit at the beginning. It's necessary to say that they didn't arrive primed for this to be the case. This is what emerged, I think, from those relationships. And, you know, even at their first meeting, for instance, there was this sort of,

but you see, again, this could have gone either way, but there was this sort of fair part in that there they were having their photo taken at Vice Rose House with Mount Basson and Jinnah and Edwina and they were having their photo taken and Jena made this little crack about, as Edwina was standing in the middle of the three of them, he said, oh, it's a rose between two thorns. But as he said that, Edwina moved round. So he was in fact in the position of the rose

describing the Mountbatten's as the thorns. But they all had a good laugh about it. I mean, you know, so that could have been fine. That could have established actually an intimacy. But for whatever reason, and it really is clearly a personality thing, and it's quite hard to trace exactly the progress of it. But it becomes clear that they just don't get on.

And maybe that is partially also because the jinners are very suspicious of this closeness with Nairu. Now, can we talk about, can we, can we just between us talk about the closeness with Nero? Because so many rumours about a rapidly developing romance between Nairu and Edwina Mountbatten. How much is true and how much is hype? I mean, it's completely true. The only question would be exactly at what point this friendship became a romance, which is very hard to prove. we certainly know that it had by late 1947 after partition. I think the kind of crucial question which, of course, we cannot possibly answer

unless the Mountbatten family, the Nairagandhi family and the Government of India decides to release letters between them, is how soon that relationship developed between March 1947 and October 1947. When we say relationship, let's just call it out, it is a sexual, romantic, passionate affair. Well, we don't know if it's sexual because we never know if it's sexual because I don't have a little periscope into their bedroom. I mean, the assumption, I think, and the general assumption is that it became sexual after independence and partitioned, that there was probably a sexual relationship in Britain, but it was probably a romance in India. Would you agree with that or not? I mean, I wouldn't agree with that because I wouldn't take a position on whether it was sexual or not at all.

Because she's a very, very good historian who's not peeking under the sheets. I have a little personal angle, I should say, and come lean here. Brace, brace. That my father was around at this time as a young ADC. And he is ADC to a man called General Frank Miservi, who's in charge of Eastern Command and has been fighting the campaign in Burma. So he is the commander-in-chief and living in what's now, teen morty house and my dad aged 19 is there and I remember very distinctly when I was at university going to

have dinner with my dad in his club the guards club where he met Mountbatten's ADC Jim Scott and Jim Scott said oh hello Hugh how are you very nice to see you I can't tell you what's such a funny thing happened I had this woman called Morgan coming around trying to find out about Dickie and Edwina. And I told them both that it was absolutely clean. Nothing happened at all. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And the two of them collapsed into giggles,

the implication being, of course, that it was definitely sexual. So that's my wonderful family. My auntie says they definitely did it. It's based on nothing, but she says they did. You know, I think what I did find during the research for the book is a photograph, which again is in my book and now quite viral. I found the first photograph of the two of them,

hands. Yes, you do. So here we are. We've got this complex, very human tapestry of relationships where some people like others more than others. And can it be really as banal as this as to why? These human frailties lead to what will become one of the biggest bloodbaths in human history. And today linger on as one of the big potential nuclear conflicts of the modern age?

Absolutely. No, it's not just about these personal relationships. It's about an awful lot of enormous global historical forces going on as well. But in terms of how the negotiations panned out that spring and summer, it had a lot to do with those personal relationships. So when Mountbatten is sent out, the British still seem to want to keep India united. But the Muslim League have decided that they want their own country

for Indian Muslims and the reason they're giving is that they feel threatened by the Hindu majority. Tell us all about that. What's that about? So you're correct. So the Pakistan movement had started in about 1930 when some students at Cambridge University of North Indian origin came up with this word, Pakistan, and the idea of separatism. And it was really adolphed the land of the pure. The land of the pure.

Jinnah had initially opposed it, hadn't he? He had initially opposed it. He'd been called the apostle of Hindu Muslim unity in his earliest incarnation, as he Absolutely. I mean, before he left the Congress, he was seen absolutely as a uniting figure. And really, so I think, you know, you've got a progression of him leaving the Congress over this kind of very Hindu-focused spirituality that Gandhi was bringing in, which he just liked enormously, felt very uncomfortable with. And then after that, this kind of, when this idea came up of Pakistan, this was something that became quite appealing to him as a separation, increasingly feeling that a sort of very Hindu-dominated India would be a very dangerous place for Muslims to be. And why do they think that? What's happening among the Hindu population to make them feel threatened?

Well, really, I think the religiosity brought in by Gandhi is something that a lot of people are uncomfortable with. And there's a sense that among some Muslims that really British rule is the thing keeping them safe from that majority. That's not among all Muslims, of course, but that is what some Muslims begin to think. and that's kind of really reinforced in World War II, you know, when, as you say, lots of the Congress leaders are in prison

and the Muslim League leaders are telling them this repeatedly. So here we are, divided characters, suspicion, religious fervor, being whipped up on both sides, in fact. But what does Mountbatten decide to do? Well, he makes the rather extraordinary decision in retrospect to speed the transition of power up. he decides that in his words lightning speed is much too slow

that this end date of 1st of June 1948 is way too far away and I think the really big factor in that is him realising how bad the situation on the ground in India is that there's simply no way I mean you said earlier on does the British government want to preside over a bloodbath it becomes very clear that that to him that's probably going to happen and with Mountbatten's great instinct for PR he realizes that it would be very, very bad for the British government to preside over such a thing,

and that it's going to happen. And indeed, that British troops might get caught up in it, and you might get again a repeat of 1857. That you have two options. Either British troops get caught up in it, in which case that could go wrong in all sorts of horrible ways, or British troops have been almost completely removed, in which case it looks like massive negligence, which indeed would be. Neither outcome is good for Britain. And you have to remember at this point, Mountbatten's job was to do what was good for Britain.

That was what he had effectively been charged with. So he made this decision to speed up the transfer of power to the rather extraordinary date of 15th of August, 1947. Now, many historians have taken the view that this was suicidal and that Mountbatten helped precipitate the bloodbath that came by that decision. Do you agree with that? I don't. And the reason I don't is quite specific is that I think, although he certainly made the decision, decision on his own. He wasn't, he later tried to say that everybody had told him to do this. That's completely untrue. It was definitely just him. I think he genuinely was in a position

where it was tricky to see what else he could do because of the troop situation. Because if Britain wasn't going to send more resources to keep the peace, particularly more troops, then I think his assessment was correct that he could not keep the peace. I think a lot of the kind of accusations focusing just on Mountbatten about speeding up this timetable for the transfer of power. The effect that has is to move focus from putting the blame on the British Empire and the whole way it was run. Much like, as you've written with Jali Unwalabug, putting all the blame on dire, ignores the fact that the British Empire was much more broadly violent in the way it was run. But this wasn't an exceptional event, actually. It was part of a pattern of violence.

And I think when we look at trying to pin all the blame on that batten for something that was quite clearly the results actually of, you know, 90 years of violent rule, of divide and rule, of failing to introduce democracy in any kind of reasonable timetable, very, very slowly doing so at the end, dragging the feet on things like Dominion status that could have been done much earlier. You know, I think really we have to be careful of just saying that one man is responsible for all of these failures because that's just ridiculous. You know, the climate had not been created by Mountbatten. And I think the argument that changing the date at this point was the only factor in kicking all of those things off is just completely absurd. So Mountbatten makes the decision that the deadline's going to be moved up and they are out of there.

But there is another really very important decision that's been made at the highest level. And what is that decision? That is the decision that India will be partitioned. That there is really at this point no way to persuade the Muslim League to stay with. within India, that it's too powerful that you will not get an agreement on keeping the whole thing together. So partition of some form will occur. And what does Nairu think about this? Because he's resisted this all this time. I think he was heartbroken about it. But I also think he saw at that time that this was the only option. And I would say that there's something

quite interesting, not just in Neri's own thoughts about this, but actually you can really see this in Jinnah's thoughts too. And there's been lots of work on this by Pakistani historians. that actually they didn't necessarily assume this would be permanent. They certainly have thoughts that longer term this might come back together and you can see that in things so simple as Jinnah never sold his house in Bombay. How interesting. Malabar Hill. How interesting.

Indeed. And even in 1947, even at the very end, he thinks that he can come and go from Karachi to Malabar Hill. Yeah, yeah, completely. I mean, I think they all assumed that there would be a point at least of congeniality, whether it would have been a, like we saw in Germany, of a coming back together, a departition, a reunification, who knows. But I think they certainly saw, they were of the opinion that this would not be a permanent break to the extent it has been for sure.

This is a catastrophic cocktail now. So Mountbatten's hurry to get out, the decision or capitulation to this idea that the country needs to be divided in half. I mean, you know, history revolves around huge characters, but it affects normal people. And so you've got people in particularly two areas, of India. You've got the Punjab and Bengal who don't know if they're living on the right side or not. Yes, and that's why you begin to see when this all becomes very clear in July,

that's the beginning really of those migrations that begin to happen before partition is because people don't know which side of the line they're going to be on. So some people, the people with the money and the resources to do so, start moving at that point. Tell us who Cyril Radcliffe is and what's his role in all this. Yes, he comes in as terribly consequential and importance at this point. Radcliffe was a British civil servant who had been who was drafted in

to draw this partition line he'd never been to India before he'd never really been east of it's always said east of Gibraltar or something but I feel like quite a little bit of Britsy there are all sorts of these things north of Paris

anyway let's say legitimately he'd certainly never been Not gone around Radcliffe had never been to India before he did not know the territory but that was sort of supposed to be an advantage because he was supposed to be seen

as not biased on that base So he was flown out rather reluctantly to draw this partition line. He was given a small committee of various Indian civil servants to help with this. And he was given this impossible job in a sort of rather biblical way of, effectively 40 days and 40 nights to draw this partition line through Bengal and the Punjab. And Jinnah has a very different conception of what he's going to get to what he actually is given. He thinks he's going to get great chunks of possibly even Delhi and great chunks of northern India, which he never gets.

Yes, well, I mean, obviously the Pakistan plan originally really relied on the whole of the Punjab and the whole of Bengal being part of a Pakistan. And in fact, you know, Jinnah at some points was really very unhappy with it being partitioned and, you know, even if it's going to be this moth-eaten thing, then, you know, better to not have it rather than have this moth-eaten version. But by this point, events are proceeding. He also had an idea, I believe, that it wasn't going to be a kind of Muslim-only state. it was going to be another version of India

where all different faiths would live, but under Muslim rule. Yes, I think Jinnah, again, as somebody who'd lived in Britain for a long time, of course, Britain nominally a Christian country, in fact, with, you know, religious figures in the legislature and so on. Even so, he'd seen this sort of country

that could operate with theoretically a religious framework, but actually in a highly secular way. And I think he very much thought Pakistan could be this kind of, what he would have seen as a sophisticated, informed democracy with tolerance and with, you know, a kind of multiplicity of faiths and identities being allowed within it. Well, I mean, eventually that is not what happens. And we're going to have a whole podcast on partition itself coming up. But Alex, I mean, it's so brilliant having you on this.

Just talk us through the sun setting on the British Empire for the last time. How do they leave and when do they leave? and what's going on around them as they leave? Well, there's all sorts of complexity going on right up to the last minute, partly because the actual line of partition, now you mentioned your family being there asleep in the Punjab, not knowing where the line was, well, they wouldn't know until after independence.

Now, is that, now, see, this is really perplexing. So I think, you know, just to make this very, very clear, the countries are becoming independent, and my family from the Punjab, and there are, you know, countless families who goes through the same thing in in Bengal. They have literally no idea if they're on the right side or not.

They have literally no idea whether the stream is going to be divided from the dam, the village is going to have a line down the middle. They don't know anything. And is it Mountbatten's idea to keep that from them

for a few days till after he goes until after, you know, he has his moment with the trumpets and the fanfare and the photo opportunity? It suited the agenda that this wasn't published

and there was generally a feeling that if it was published, that violence would break out and that people would start moving in numbers, of course that's what happened anyway. But two days later. But not on Britain's watch. Not on Britain's watch. So on the 14th of August, he takes the salute in what is newly born Pakistan. On the 15th of August, he does exactly the same thing on what is now newly created India.

And there's a very, very famous speech given by Nairu on a crackling radio, which is very, I mean, it's still very powerful words. Do you have the words? Do you want me? Alex, do you want to read them or shall I read them? I think you shouldn't. It's right. I'll read them.

Okay. Long years ago, we made a trist with destiny. And now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not holy or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out of the old to the new,

when an age ends, when the soul of a nation long suppressed, finds utterance. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labour and to work and work hard, to give our reality to our dreams. These dreams are for India, but they are also for the world. Goodbye.