India Remembered

by India Hicks

  February – May Mountbatten family continue their tour schedule.

  20th June Last State Banquet.

  20th June The Mountbattens return to England.

  Riots and Refugees:

  August – November 1947

  Following a phonecall from V.P. Menon, we came back to Delhi. We thought at first that Nehru and Patel had requested that my father return to help, but this turned out not to be the case and they were furious. However, very quickly they came round to the opinion that my father could help and he immediately set up the Emergency Committee. My mother launched into action to tackle the refugee problems where she could, taking in another 5,000 people on the Estate and putting the whole of the Governor-Gerneral’s house on tight rations of spam and cabbage soup. She wrote in her diary that ‘Pammy has become quite fond of SPAM!’ although I must admit that I thought bully beef was better. I started working as Pete Rees’s PA in the Map Room... Meanwhile Gandhi, purely through his presence in Calcutta, galvanised peace across what could have been the most incendiary city. My father called him a ‘one man boundary force...’

  October 1947: Indian refugees crowd onto trains in one of the largest

  Saturday 16th August

  I went with Mummy and Panditji to watch him hoist the flag on the Red Fort in Old Delhi while a crowd of at least 800,000 people watched below. He spoke to them and they sang popular national songs and there were guards of honour.

  This afternoon Daddy showed the leaders the Radcliffe Award [following Sir Cyril Radcliffe’s recommendations for the boundary lines] and there was a conference in the Council Chamber.

  Liaquat (Ali Khan who is now Premier of Pakistan) came to dinner as discussions are resulting in them having to call a conference in Ambala due to the terrible conditions in the Punjab. This is all added to the profound worry resulting from the Boundary Commission Award.

  ‘Her tour of the Bombay slums was characteristic

  of her thoroughness and serves to explain the

  tremendous popularity she has gained for herself

  with the humbler Indian people.’

  Alan Campbell-Johnson on Lady Mountbatten

  Sunday 17th August

  We left for Bombay at five in the morning in order to arrive in time to see the first contingent of British troops embark on the ‘Georgic’ at 10 o’clock to return home. Government House is a series of charming little bungalows with Point Bungalow looking out over the sea. We went to a big reception at the Taj Hotel given by Kher, the new Premier of Bombay. There had been no publicity about it but once we were inside word got round that the new Governor-General was inside and a crowd numbering three quarters of a million gathered outside. It took us over an hour to drive back through the cheering crowds, a distance which had taken fifteen minutes before.

  I stayed in Bombay to accompany my mother and also I had an appointment of my own to meet Dinkar Sakrikar. I had been told that he would be very difficult to get hold of because he had only just been released from prison. I had also been warned that he might not want to meet me and that he would certainly be averse to meeting at Government House considering what it stood for. The chaos that followed the arrival caused me great embarrassment but again I was amazed by the Indian character.

  5th September 1947: Armed soldiers join Muslim refugees as they crowd one of the very few modern vehicles on the trek to the Muslim state of Pakistan.

  Monday 18th August

  Daddy had to return to Delhi.

  I went with Mummy and Lady Colville on an exhausting but extremely interesting tour in the morning. We visited the Bombay Mothers and Children Welfare Society’s Centre and then its school. Then the Naigum Social Service Centre, and the Matunga camp, where all the workers live in the most appalling slum conditions. Then on to the University Settlement for Girls, the Tata Institute of Social Services and the Siva Sadar domestic college, all in monsoon downpours, so we ended up soaking wet and covered in mud.

  Dinkar Sakrikar, the student leader connected with the Asian and Congress Students’ Conferences I have been trying to contact, came to have tea with me and brought half-a-dozen other students with him.

  In spite of the students having been kept for twenty minutes in the guard house, while I was wondering why they were so late, they could not have been more charming and friendly. They were only released after I had telephoned down to the ADC’s room several times asking them to ring through to the police box. It turned out that the police who detained them were the very same ones that had arrested them and they had all had a very enjoyable time reminiscing together, which could only happen in India.

  Tuesday 19th August

  Dinkar Sakrikar’s student friends called for me in the early morning with an enormous car covered in Dominion flags and took me to see their institutions. We went to the big G.S. Medical College and then to Bombay University and finally to the J.J. School of Arts, which was fascinating. Tore back dripping with bouquets, garlands and presents only to find that we could not fly owing to the bad weather.

  Wednesday 20th August

  We spent a quiet morning reading and writing and saying goodbye to all the Governors and wives who are sailing for England. Eric [Mieville] arrived on his way back to England, which is very sad but he really is not at all well.

  We were able to take off at mid-day.

  Friday 22nd August

  In the evening we had Panditji to dinner with the author, producer and director of the famous film he wanted to see, Neecha Nagan. It is being fought over in the law courts but it is very good and really the first serious Indian film.

  Saturday 23rd August

  Spent the morning writing and playing with the mongoose who has become the greatest ‘time waster’. We had lunch at the pool.

  In the evening I went to the Canteen. We had the first Indians to have come in for a long while. They were very self-conscious but hopefully more will come as they are starting to mix and the prices have been lowered so as to be more affordable for them.

  Sunday 24th August

  I spent a large part of the day battling between a firm Ronald Daubeny trying to ‘Comptrol’ eight hundred applicants into forty vacancies (the servants who have left for Pakistan) and a tearful and unbelieving Lila Nand intent on getting his younger brother, Amla Nand, a job. (We succeeded.)

  My mother left on a three-day tour with Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, the Minister for Health, a Christian and long-time disciple of Gandhi. My father and I did at least get to spend a little bit of time together alone – a rare treat indeed as there had been precious few moments like that in the last five months. Mummy reported the horrors – her PA, Muriel Watson, called it the ‘place of the dead’ and was quite upset. They found mass hysteria and no trust in the Punjab Boundary Force. My mother also managed to secure an interview with Master Tara Singh who was ‘at last beginning to tremble at the wrath he had so readily invoked’ in the Sikh community. My father’s executive responsibilities were over as the Punjab Boundary Force and the Joint Defence Council’s authority over it had been wrapped up, so we went to Simla to reinforce the idea in Congress’s mind that his day-to-day contact with government was over. My forlorn prediction that my parents would probably be working was prescient – most family meals were taken with them looking at paperwork on their knees.

  Monday 25th August

  I worked at the Clinic.

  Mummy is leaving for Lahore and Amritsar tomorrow to see the refugee camps which are said to be in complete chaos. The situation in the Punjab and Bengal is really terrible. I hope she survives. Baldev Singh, on his tour round, was shot at by the police in mistake for a raiding party.

  Tuesday 26th August

  I went for a long ride with Daddy in the morning. And we had meals alone upstairs which was nice.

  Wednesday 27th August

  Mummy rang up last night to say that she was staying a day longer so that she can go to Rawalpindi and Amritsar as the situation is so appalling.

 
; Bikaner came to dinner as well as Walter Monckton and Biddy Carlyle, now Lady Monckton.

  Thursday 28th August

  I went to the Clinic as usual. Then there was a terrible lunch party – very heavy weather with long silences and completely mute non-Englishspeaking women and my Hindustani quite inadequate.

  Mummy came back with the most horrifying and heart-rending accounts.

  Friday 29th August

  We left to spend ten days in Simla. A very welcome holiday for all and well deserved for Mummy and Daddy although I am afraid that they will probably work all the same.

  The river is in flood now which makes the journey very complicated and tedious.

  We flew as usual to Ambala where we picked up Daddy as he had gone on ahead for the conference at Lahore [the Joint Defence Committee Conference to discuss the fate of the Punjab Boundary force: 55,000 troops had tried to control the slaughter with little result], we went by train to Kalka and then the railcar. The rest of the party had gone on by road but were held up whenever the ‘Royal Train’ passed the points where the railway closes the road, so there was a lot of hilarious waving, cheering and saluting.

  Saturday 30th August

  It really does feel wonderful to be in Simla again and it seems quite extraordinary having everyone so good tempered again.

  ‘Lazed in bed all morning!’

  Louis Mountbatten’s diary entry on

  the first morning in Simla

  Mummy and I were very energetic and walked Mizzy for miles and miles up and down the hills.

  We have also brought the mongoose in his little wooden box, loudly protesting. But he is in fine form now as he is incurably inquisitive for new places.

  We went to see ‘Jane Steps Out’ at the famous little Simla Amateur Dramatic Company’s theatre. It was very good.

  Sunday 31st August

  The nearly engaged couple, Sarah Ismay and Wenty Beaumont, came to dinner. He is leaving for Bombay to become Comptroller ADC to the Colvilles.

  Monday 1st September

  The Chief, or rather Supreme Commander Field Marshall Auchinleck, came to lunch with his sister Cherry Jackson and her son who is now ‘the Auk’s’ military secretary. In the afternoon we went shopping in Simla and then for a drive round Jacko Hill but got ignominiously stuck round a narrow bend and had to bale out and walk back for miles through the town which was much more fun!

  Our happy relaxed holiday was short-lived. We had only been in Simla for three days when the bad news started to flood in: firstly the shocking news of the carnage on the train taken by Sarah and Wenty, and then the horrific news of the death of our old Treasurer and his wife and son brought the horror of the troubles very close.

  News came through that the train Sarah and Wenty went down on was stopped and attacked (the first on the Simla line) and 150 Muslims were killed. The only one to survive was Wenty’s bearer, hidden under their seat. They swore that there was no-one else in the compartment.

  Tuesday 2nd September

  Last night the old Treasurer’s son was killed returning from college in Delhi. Against all persuasion his parents left for Delhi by train this morning. They were both murdered on the way in spite of the Hindu chaprassi with them haranguing the crowd on their behalf that they were citizens of the Union of India with fifty years government service. He himself arrived naked, stripped as a suspect Muslim. There seems no end to it all as it is just retaliation after retaliation. But one can hardly expect them to keep their senses when they have experienced such atrocities. Unfortunately it is always the wrong people who suffer. However, the situation in Bengal is better although the Punjab is still terrible.

  1st October 1947: Purano Qila fortress refugee camp where thousands of Muslims who had fled their homes in terror of Hindu attacks were trying to survive until they could organise a convoy for the long march to the West Punjab, which had become Muslim Pakistan.

  Wednesday 3rd September

  Last night we had dinner with the Auk. Compton Mackenzie was there and we watched coloured films of his trips to Nepal and Tibet including good close-ups of a tiger.

  This evening Jim and I went to dinner with Shou Shou and Moumou, two of the married daughters of the Tikka Rani of Kapurthala and very charming.

  Thursday 4th September

  V.P. rang up at lunch time to say that the situation is deteriorating and they feel it would help if Daddy came back to give advice at once. We never seem to have much luck with our holidays.

  All proposed tours have been cancelled and it has been announced that we would neither give nor attend social gatherings or entertainments.

  In spite of this, I nipped out to have tea with Shou Shou and Moumou and they came back and had dinner with us.

  I had a very sweet letter from Lilibet about bridesmaids’ dresses and the wedding.

  Friday 5th September

  We motored down to Ambala in an open police car as ours is still somewhere between Delhi and Karachi as it has never returned from the ceremony. We were a very make-shift party as we took no Muslim drivers or servants and most of the ADCs and staff were driving. My Lila Nand is in his element looking after two Excellencies.

  We are now faced with the problem of getting eighty Muslim servants and personnel down as well as 150 Hindus and the European staff. They are going in trains under armed escort of the Bodyguard and then flown in batches.

  Saturday 6th September

  The news from Calcutta is that Gandhiji’s presence there is managing to keep the peace – which everyone describes as a miracle.

  Sunday 7th September

  There was a stabbing on the Estate today.

  Campbell-Johnson writes on 8th September, that he was told by Peter Howes, the chief ADC, that among all the ADCs, ‘attendance of Lady Mountbatten is hardly the most popular [as] it usually involves assisting her to bring into the local infirmaries any bodies they may see in the streets. She is not deterred from [doing so] even when passing through areas where sniping is going on.’

  Monday 8th September

  I could not go to the Clinic as Daddy said if I went out I should take a guard (which I naturally would not do as they are needed desperately everywhere else). Anyway, the Canteen is closed and we have very few patients at the Clinic as no-one can get about now.

  Tuesday 9th September

  Mummy spent most of her time tearing round the hospitals trying to get them guards, food and fuel and help with the refugee committee. Daddy went to see Gandhiji who is returned from Calcutta.

  Wednesday 10th September

  Food is now the immediate and major problem. The shops are mostly shut because of the curfew and when open have no supplies because there is no way they can be brought in and all the labourers and workers have taken flight.

  I went with Mummy to see the rationing centre where we try to feed the 5,000 people on the Estate. When they do get their food they often can’t eat it as there is no fuel. In the house all meals are very meagre and our rations will only last for a week as there are no surplus stores.

  Lord Listowel arrived [Secretary of State for India] – not a very good time to choose but at least he will get first-hand information which is invaluable at a time when newspaper scares are rampant.

  We took an extra 5,000 people into the Estate and food supplies were short.

  When my mother flew up to the Punjab in the worst of the riots she took Captain Jim Scott – one of Wavell’s old ADCs – and an Indian ADC who had been lent by the Army. They were driven from Viceroy’s House to Palam Airport to be greeted with a message from the Governor of the Punjab who had telephoned, and a signal had been sent also, saying that it was imperative she did not travel as the situation was too dangerous. But my mother merely said that it was imperative that she go, they were already late and so they must take off immediately.

  After a couple of hours they were circling over the landing strip and saw an enormous number of people, a lot of them Sikhs with their religious weapons, the kir
pan. Everybody was milling around in agitation, protestors were shrieking and it became immediately apparent that it was a very disturbed, threatening crowd.

  When they landed, Jim Scott looked at the young officer and patted his revolver; he admitted that he had never had to shoot in anger, but this might have to be the first time. My mother rushed ahead and as they watched half a dozen leaders detached themselves from the crowd and headed towards her with the crowd following. The two ADCs said that they saw danger, they saw anger, they were absolutely terrified and, although she had forbidden them to go with her, they were about to leap forward and follow.

  At that moment my mother held out her arms and the leaders stopped for a moment. She moved on and they put their weapons down and put their hands out to her. ‘She saw love, she didn’t see danger,’ was how they described it. ‘And the crowd saw love. And they hugged and they embraced and everybody was hugging and embracing and they took her into the camp and, she did the work she came out to do in the camp.’ They said it was the most extraordinary performance, that there was no question that she was afraid or being brave, it was just she had a job to do.

  In a letter to my mother dated 10th September, Sarojini Naidu, the daughter of her mother’s old friend, and Governor of the United Provinces, wrote to her: ‘No woman in your place has ever put herself in touch with the people... the last of the Vicereines is creating her own immortality in the hearts of suffering India.’

  Thursday 11th September

  Yesterday, we went to see Martin [Gilliat] in hospital. Tuesday night he and Alan Campbell-Johnson [went] to see whether the guards had at last been put outside the hospitals when they were shot at by a sentry – over enthusiastic with regard to the ‘shoot on sight’ orders which are in force. The driver was killed outright and Martin was wounded, however, luckily not very badly…