India Remembered

by India Hicks

  25th July: My father addressing the Chamber of Princes.

  My father appeared at the conference resplendent in full uniform and decorations. During his speech, which was delivered with great sincerity and passion, he spoke without notes and was, in the words of V.P. Menon, the very ‘apogee of persuasion’. A lot of lobbying followed but after a big Princes’ lunch on the 1st August he had persuaded most of them – with of course the exception of Kashmir.

  There was another dramatic moment when one of the Princes’ dewans (Chief Minister) who had been sent without a brief, pleaded that he didn’t know how to answer my father’s request to accede. My father thinking quickly, picked up a glass paperweight in front of him and held it aloft saying, ‘I will look into my crystal…’ There was a lengthy pause while no-one said anything. ‘His Highness asks you to sign the instrument of accession,’ my father said with great portent. Of course this served to break a lot of the tension that had pervaded the conference and brought some welcome laughter to the proceedings, which were otherwise extremely distressing for most who attended.

  Friday 25th July

  The Jinnahs came to dinner.

  It was at this dinner party that George Abell came to the conclusion, as he told Alan Campell-Johnson, that Jinnah’s ‘attitude to the Sikh situation was perilously unsound’. My mother was also becoming frustrated by him; she vented her feelings in her diary: ‘He has already become meglo-maniac… so God help Pakistan.’

  Saturday 26th July

  Panditji, his daughter Indira and her husband and Mrs Pandit came to dine.

  While dining with the Maharaja of Gwalior we admired his silver train, which circled the dining table delivering port, brandy, cigars chocolates to the dinner guests. The controls were in front of His Highness, and if a guest was out of favour they might find that the train sped away before they could help themselves.

  The Maharaja of Gwalior’s silver train set.

  The Transfer of Power:

  August 1947

  The date for the transfer of power came around all too quickly. We had only been in India for a little less than five months and the India that we had known for that short time was about to change for ever. Of course, at the time, everyone was far too busy to reflect upon the true significance of events. It was a time of excitement and raw nerves. When the time came, my diary pages for the 14th and 15th of August overflowed and I resorted to filling in the back pages of the book in order to capture as much of the momentous events as I could.

  Guards of Honour and some dismounted Bodyguard beginning to form up for Ceremonial departure.

  My father’s ADC, Sayed Ahsan, was a Muslim and therefore went to work for Jinnah. It was at this time, when he and the Muslim sentries and police started to leave, that I really began to understand what partition would mean for the communities.

  Saturday 9th August

  Immediately after breakfast there was a review of the garrison company, and the Viceregal and C-in-C sentries and police, who are all Muslims, and so are leaving for Pakistan and will have to be replaced.

  Sunday 10th August

  Played with the mongoose who is very tame now and quite intoxicating and always runs about in my rooms when I am there. It is developing into rather a menace, as it chews up everything.

  Monday 11th August

  It was a terrible day at the Clinic, very overcrowded and everyone hot and damp and extremely cross.

  The Netherlands Ambassador came to present his credentials and there was a lunch party for them all afterwards.

  Eric [Miéville] was there and seemed much more cheerful although still far from well.

  Tuesday 12th August

  I had a Hindustani lesson, but it is very difficult now that I have done all the actual grammar but still do not know enough words to be able to make conversation. We do the lessons without books, and as there is nothing else one is terribly tempted to lapse into English. As all the servants speak such good English it is therefore not a case of being able to learn through absol-ute necessity, and the more one practises the less time there is at the Clinic.

  9th August: Group with Field Marshall Auchinleck and Officers of the Viceroy’s Garrison Company after the farewell parade in Delhi.

  A letter written to my father by his cousin, King George VI.

  Wednesday 13th August

  We all flew to Karachi for the preliminary transfer of power ceremonies. It seemed so strange to be greeted at the airport by Sayed Ahsan [my father’s former chief ADC] The Jinnahs were in very good form and they certainly have the most lovely modern Government House. However, everything was of course rather chaotic and poor Sayed was obviously having to run the whole show. When we first arrived, the town, predominantly Hindu in itself, was flying mainly Congress flags but the Pakistan Star and Crescent were eventually substituted! There was a big dinner party and reception and it seemed so queer meeting the Scotts and Yakub and various other members of our staff whom we knew well but who of course have left us.

  Thursday 14th August

  We went to the Ceremony at the Constituent Assembly and Mummy and Daddy drove back in state with the Jinnahs, in open cars. I drove with Begum Liquat and there were quite thick crowds and cries of ‘Quaid-e-Azam Zinderbad’ and ‘Mountbatten Zinderbad’. Immediately afterwards we flew back to Delhi in order to be in time for the ‘Midnight Mysteries’! Tomorrow being in itself an inauspicious day we have to have part of the ceremonies at midnight. Therefore Panditji and Rajendra Prasad came after the meeting of the Assembly to ask Daddy to accept the governor-generalship.

  We toasted the King-Emperor for the last time and drank the Viceroy out and the Governor-General in. By midday we said goodbye, Miss Jinnah embracing Mummy and Mr Jinnah still emotional, declaring his eternal gratitude and friendship.

  The 14th August was the actual day of independence. Jinnah’s personality was cold and remote but it had a magnetic quality and the sense of leadership was almost overpowering. He made only the most superficial attempt to disguise himself as a constitutional Governor-General and one of his first acts after putting his name forward was to apply for the authority to hold immediate dictatorial powers unknown to any constitutional Governor-General representing the King. Here indeed was Pakistan’s King-Emperor, Archbishop of Canterbury, Speaker and Prime Minister concentrated into one formidable Quaid-e-Azam. (Jinnah had very effectively quashed my father’s hopes of becoming Governor-General of Pakistan – in an attempt to retain a balanced position towards both countries – back in July.) The proceedings were over within an hour and then we drove away in state, arriving back at Government House.

  Jinnah was an icy man, but on this occasion he showed emotion. He leant over to my father, put his hand on his knee and said with evident feeling, ‘Your Excellency, I’m so glad to get you back safely.’ There had supposedly been a bomb that was to be thrown during the processional drive. My father thought, ‘What do you mean? I got you back safely.’

  We then flew back to Delhi. Before the Constituent Assembly met, my father was sitting at his desk waiting for Nehru and Rajendra Prasad to come to invite him formally to be Governor-General. There was an hour or two where nothing happened. My father suddenly became aware that, as Viceroy of India, he had had enormous power, but in about an hour’s time, as a constitutional Governor-General, he would have very little indeed. It seemed a terrible waste to let this power slip away without making some use of it. Then he remembered that his dear friend the Nawab of Palampur had long entreated him to make his wife, the Begum, a ‘Highness’. The Colonial Office had always refused because she was Australian and they said it was inapplicable – even though she was enormously popular in the state and continued to do wonderful work there. So my father thought, ‘Ah, with the last power remaining to me I shall draw up an instrument and make the Begum of Palampur a Highness.’ And he did so with great satisfaction.

  After the meeting of the Assembly, we toasted the King-Emperor for the last time and drank
the Viceroy out and the Governor-General in. When they came with the invitation to my father, Nehru also presented him with an imposing envelope that he said contained the list of the names of the new government. After they left my father opened the envelope and found a blank piece of paper – in the rush of events someone had stuffed in the wrong piece of paper.

  13th August: My parents arrive at Karachi and are received by Jinnah’s new ADC Sayed Ahsan, until recently the Viceroy’s Naval ADC.

  14th August: Arriving at the Constituent Assembly to transfer power to the new Dominion of Pakistan.

  Friday 15th August

  Independence Day. Swearing-in ceremony in the Durbar Hall. Daddy sworn-in as the first Governor-General of India by the new Chief Justice, Dr Kania, before himself swearing-in the members of the Cabinet. Daddy has been created an Earl, so Mummy is a Countess and I have the courtesy title ‘Lady’ before my Christian name. Lovely!

  The entry in my diary for the 15th August runs to four pages (not surprisingly) and the last two are written in tiny hand on the blank pages at the end of the book as it was so important that I got everything down for this most important of days.

  Mummy wore a long gold lamé dress and a little wreath of gold leaves on her head. With the golden thrones and golden carpets and the red velvet canopies over the thrones spot-lit it was very sumptuous. The trumpeters in scarlet and gold had heralded a splendid entrance. At the end of the ceremony the great bronze doors were thrown open and ‘God Save the King’ was followed by the new Indian national anthem, ‘Jana Gana Mana’ – and the new Indian flag, which Panditji had described to us, was flying. Then Mummy and Daddy, escorted by the Bodyguard, drove in the state carriage down to the Constituent Assembly. I was already sitting with the staff but when the carriage arrived the Council House was entirely surrounded by a quarter of a million frenzied people chanting ‘Jai Hind’. With the laughing, cheering crowd already engulfing the carriage, it looked as though it would be impossible for Mummy and Daddy to make their entrance. Panditji and other government leaders had to be summoned to help calm the crowd and to make a passage for them. Daddy read out the King’s message to the new Dominion of India. And then he gave an address that resulted in prolonged cheers because, as one Indian said, ‘His gift for friendship has triumphed over everything.’

  My father receiving a purported list of the new Cabinet (the paper turned out to be blank!).

  Midnight 14th/15th August: Prime Minister Nehru and the President of the Assembly, Rajendra Prasad, report taking over power.

  Then the President of the Assembly, Rajendra Prasad, read out messages from other countries, and gave an address in which he said, ‘Let us gratefully acknowledge that while our achievement is in no small measure due to our own suffering and sacrifices, it is also the result of world forces and events, and last though not least it is the consummation and fulfilment of the historic tradition and democratic ideas of the British race.’ He followed with tributes to Mummy and Daddy. After the ceremony they could not get out of the doors for some time as the crowds were still so thick. They clapped and shouted themselves hoarse with cries of ‘Pandit Mountbatten ki jai,’ ‘Lady Mountbatten’, ‘Jai Hind’ and all the popular cries for the leaders. Driving along, some even recognised me and shouted ‘Mountbatten Miss Sahib’ or even ‘Miss Pamela’ and when they did not know who one was they cheered one for being ‘Angrezi’.

  In the afternoon we went to a fête for 5,000 children. It was terribly hot and, of course, very, very noisy but the children and their young parents were wildly enthusiastic. I enjoyed handing out sweets but did not enjoy the sight of a fakir apparently biting the head off a snake.

  We had to rush back from Old Delhi in order to change for the Flag Salutation Parade in Prince’s Park. The programme had been arranged weeks beforehand, grandstands had been built and military parades organised, but no one had anticipated the enthusiasm of the crowds. My parents were to drive in state and I went ahead with Captain Ronnie Brockman – who had been Personal Secretary to the Viceroy and would now be Personal Secretary to the Governor-General – his wife and Muriel Watson, my mother’s Personal Assistant, and Elizabeth Ward, my mother’s Personal Secretary. The Parade, however, was non-existent. The grandstands were buried under a sea of people and the only sign of the parade was a row of bright pugarees (turbans) somewhere in the centre, the men still standing at attention because the crowd was so closely packed that there was not room for them to stand at ease. There was no ceremony at all, but it was the day of the people of India and far more impressive than any pageantry could have been. We fought our way on foot from the cars to what would have been the stands had they not been buried under five hundred thousand people. There was no room to put a foot down. There was no possible space between people. In fact, it was raining babies! Lots of women had brought their babies with them and they were being crushed, so they threw them up in the air in despair and you just sort of caught a baby as it came down. And some people had come with bicycles. There was no question of putting the bicycles down: they were being passed round and round overhead.

  Panditji came to rescue me and led me to the tiny platform that surrounded the flagstaff. He grabbed me by the hand, but I said ‘I cannot come. Where do I put my feet? I cannot walk on people.’ He said, ‘Of course you can walk on people. Nobody will mind.’ Of course, nobody minded him walking on them but I had high-heeled shoes which would hurt a lot. So he said, ‘Well, take those shoes off, then nobody will mind.’ And he walked over human bodies the whole way, and the extraordinary thing is that nobody did mind. So I took my high-heeled shoes off, and he and I literally walked over the laughing, cheering people seated on the ground. In this way we reached the platform where I joined tiny Maniben Patel, Vallabhbhai’s daughter. Panditji made her and me stand with our backs against the flagstaff as he was afraid we might be knocked over in all the excitement. The state carriage finally inched its way into sight together with its own crowd and we and the whole platform were buried under a mass of shouting, pushing, sweating people, but incredibly good tempered and friendly.

  15th August: Ceremony of the transfer of power to the new Dominion of India in the Constituent Assembly Council Chamber.

  The carriage could not get near, neither could the bodyguard escorting it. Daddy had to remain standing up in the carriage and salute the flag at a distance of twenty-five yards. Panditji had travelled back over people to try to make a passage for the carriage. Having failed, he then could not get back, so Daddy hauled him into the carriage where he sat on the hood. And they ended up having to drag four women, a child and a press photographer into the carriage as they were in danger of being crushed under its wheels. It finally left with most of the crowd running along beside it, Mummy and Daddy standing up waving and people hanging onto the carriage cheering and shaking them by the hand and throwing flowers and flags into it. The final tally was the Prime Minister riding on the hood and ten refugees crammed inside with Mummy and Daddy.

  When the bits of us that remained arrived back at what is now Government House I was bruised from top to bottom. But one never minded a bit. Everybody was so thrilled and excited that nothing could have mattered. We immediately went out to see the firework displays and illuminations. Afterwards there was a big Independence Day dinner party for over one hundred, followed by a reception for 2,500, each one of whom was presented to Mummy and Daddy. Quite tiring! All the state rooms and drawing rooms were open and the party overflowed into the Moghul Gardens which were flood-lit and festooned with fairy lights, and blissfully cool.

  Returning from the Flag Raising Ceremony with Nehru and others we had saved from being crushed by an enthusiastic crowd.

  Leaving the Constituent Assembly on 15th August 1947.

  Part II

  The First Governor -

  General of India

  Chronology of Events

  August – September 1947 Rioting throughout India and Pakistan, as refugees from both countries seek
safe passage to their new homelands.

  29th August Mountbattens travel to Simla for a 10-day stay, formally signifying Mountbatten handing the reins of leadership to Congress.

  5th September Mountbatten asked to head up an Emergency Committee following spiralling violence and civil disobedience.

  6th September News reaches Delhi that Gandhi’s single presence in Calcutta is miraculously keeping the peace there.

  13th September Pamela starts working in the Map Room to help with the crisis.

  October – December First Kashmir War.

  9th – 24th November Mountbattens travel to England for Princess Elizabeth’s wedding.

  24th November Emergency Committee disbanded.

  December – 31st January Mountbattens start their hectic tour of the provinces and states with the intention of visiting all of them before they leave.

  13th – 18th January 1948 Gandhi’s last fast.

  20th January First attempt on Gandhi’s life.

  30th January Gandhi assassinated.

  31st January Funeral and cremation.

  1st February First Governors’ Conference after Partition, now with Indian Governors.

  14th August Independence ceremony takes place in Karachi, Pakistan with Mountbattens present, who then fly back to Delhi for the Indian independence ceremonies. Just before midnight Mountbatten formally invited to act as India’s first Governor-General.