The Shadow of the Great Game

by Narendra Singh Sarila

  At a discussion in the State Department on 16 December 1947, US Ambassador Grady had this to say on the British attitude to the US Mission in Delhi:

  The British have been friendly but have made no attempt to consult with us on common problems or to ask our advice. Neither [Terence] Shone [the UK high commissioner in Delhi] nor Mountbatten think of us in any way as partners…on more than one occasion Mountbatten has warned Nehru against dollar imperialism…25

  Unlike Wavell, Mountbatten scrupulously avoided any reference in his reports or minutes, which are available for examination, to British strategic considerations. Instead, he used Ismay’s flying trips to London for consultations with the civil and military authorities to handle this matter. Mountbatten’s role in detaching the NWFP from the Congress Party’s control shows that he was fully cooperating, under Ismay’s watchful eye, to promote British post-war defence strategy in the region. Kashmir’s adherence to Pakistan was considered a foregone conclusion by the entire British establishment. However, there was one very important difference from the earlier Churchillian policy. Having acquired Britain’s minimum strategic requirements in the subcontinent through the creation of Pakistan, the British Labour Government did its best to consolidate the India that remained.

  The period immediately after the Indian acceptance of the partition plan was a high watermark in Indo–British reconciliation. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean were left with India. This was done despite the demands of the British military chiefs to retain them as bases to guard the sea lanes in the Indian Ocean and despite the Pakistani claim to them on the ground that they would provide a connecting sea link between its eastern and western wings. Since India was to be a dominion in the British Commonwealth, Attlee, on the viceroy’s advice, saw no need for these islands to be detached from, or to raise a controversy over them with, India. Mountbatten and Attlee knew that India’s status as a dominion was temporary and its adherence to the Commonwealth by no means certain. The islands, not having been part of the ‘Menonite’ trade-off, India could do very little, if they were retained under British control. Their handing over was, therefore, a gesture of British friendship to India, reflecting their desire to cooperate on strategic matters relating to South-east Asia and encourage India to adhere to the Commonwealth. It was an attempt to open a new chapter in Indo–British relations – once the essential business of partition had been accepted.

  Similarly, HMG accepted the Indian demand that it should inherit the Indian seat at the United Nations, and that Pakistan as a new entity should apply for membership of the world organization.

  The most important service rendered by the Attlee Government, and particularly by Lord Mountbatten, to India, was to persuade their allies, the princes, to accede to the Indian dominion, before they withdrew on 15 August 1947. The value of this service has not been fully recognized, because the operation went through so smoothly. The princely states occupied nearly one-third of the British Indian Empire; the territory involved was vast. There were problems, of course: Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh. But imagine the situation if there were ten or more Kashmirs and Hyderabads to contend with, as was quite possible considering that Jinnah was offering Hindu rulers of Hindu-majority states attractive terms to accede to Pakistan and several Hindu princes were on the verge of doing so. Sardar Patel provided the support and V.P. Menon the staff work during the negotiations with the princes, but it was Mountbatten, who, with a mixture of courtesy, panache and menace, actually roped them in.

  The princely states were autonomous, but subject to British overlordship or ‘paramountcy’, as it was called. Until 1947, British policy towards the princely states, announced in 1942, was that on British departure, ‘paramountcy’ would lapse and the states – big or small – would become free agents. No provision was made as to how thereafter the relationship between them and the Centre would be regulated.

  Princely states, by and large, lay interspersed with British provinces and depended for communications, currency, electric power, water for irrigation, imports and exports and other related matters on them, and for security on the Central Government. Out of the 350* princely states only five or six could hope to survive as independent entities. The others – about 50, 500 to 5000 square miles in area, the rest not more than 25 to 200 square miles in size – were too small to survive without the backing of the Central Government. In a demi-official letter marked ‘very secret’, dated 30 November 1943, Sir Francis Wylie, secretary of the Political Department, while answering a query from Sir Arthur Lothian, the resident in Hyderabad, lifts slightly the veil around British policy towards the majority of the princes. Sir Francis wrote: ‘It is realized that they may ultimately be overthrown, perhaps violently,’ but it was ‘very high policy to let the situation drift for the time being’.26

  In order to leave the door open for some of the bigger states to become independent, the fate of the overwhelming majority was to be left in the lurch. The policy had the support of Field Marshal Lord Wavell who had taken over as viceroy in September 1943. The British chiefs of staff took the independence of some princely states as a foregone conclusion. Those that remain independent could provide air transit facilities to British aircraft going eastwards. They had particularly in mind the airport in the large state of Hyderabad in peninsular India.

  In 1947 this policy changed. In his letter of instructions to the viceroy, Prime Minister Attlee had said: ‘It is of course important that the Indian States should adjust their relations with the authorities to whom it is intended to hand over power in British India...but HMG do not intend to hand over power and obligations under paramountcy to any successor State.’27 This modification of the earlier policy had left the door open for the viceroy to work out a new relationship between the princely states and the successor dominions. ‘Accordingly’, reported Mountbatten, ‘for India a standard Instrument of Accession was drafted to be put before the rulers for them to accede and hand over control to the Central Government on three subjects only – Foreign Affairs, Defence and Communications.… Sardar Patel had made it clear...only if I could offer the promise of accession by all or very nearly all of the States – the “full basket”… – before 15th August, would it be possible for him to persuade the Congress to abide by this limitation of subjects.’28 That this was part of the wider deal struck with the Congress Party, on the lines proposed by V.P. Menon mentioned earlier, is apparent from Sardar Patel’s statement in the Constituent Assembly in July 1949:

  In exchange for Indian acceptance of partition, Britain had agreed to withdraw not only within two months but [also] not to interfere in the question of Indian States.29

  ‘So far as Pakistan was concerned, Mr Jinnah...insisted on dealing with each State separately.… This’, reported the viceroy, ‘seemed reasonable in view of the fact that [the] only States which appeared likely to accede to Pakistan were Kalat, Kherpur, Bahawalpur, Chitral, Dir, Swat and possibly Kashmir.’30 (Kalat, Chitral, Dir and Swat were small principalities in the mountainous tribal belt of the North West Frontier Province, between Afghanistan and Kashmir.)

  ‘Operation Princes’ was launched by Mountbatten on 25 July 1947, at a meeting of the Chamber of Princes.* The chamber had been brought into being in 1921 as a deliberative, consultative and advisory body to function under the presidency of the viceroy. Its formation was a further step in the evolution of British policy initiated after the Mutiny in 1857 to turn potential enemies into potential friends, indeed, into pillars of the Raj. After the Mutiny, the British had signed treaties or given guarantees to all those rulers and chiefs whose territories had not been annexed and incorporated into British India till then.** They promised to respect the autonomy of their domains as long as these rulers remained loyal to the King. Indeed, every effort was made to build up the importance of the princes. It was hoped that the chamber would help them coordinate policies among themselves – and with the viceroy – on the changing political scene in India.
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br />   The British expectations about the princes reached their zenith with the promulgation of the All-India Federation Act of 1935, as explained in Chapter 2. One-third of the Lower House of the Central Legislature was to be filled by the nominees of the princes who, if they could work unitedly and coordinate their policies with the conservative elected leaders, could dominate the federation. However, the princes dithered to join the federation because of the fear that their participation in a legislature with elected representatives might increase pressure for elective government in their own territories. Overdependence upon the British had rendered them incapable of thinking for themselves, individually or collectively, or taking any meaningful political initiatives. It was after the war started and the idea of the All-India Federation shelved, that the policy – that paramountcy over the rulers would lapse at British departure – was announced.

  The meeting of the Chamber of Princes on 25 July 1947 was its last. I, standing in for my father, was a witness to Mountbatten’s performance at this meeting. The viceroy appeared on the podium in the white uniform of an English admiral with an imposing array of civil and military decorations. For a moment, in the hushed silence, he stood still, very upright, but slightly moving his head to the left and to the right in perfect showmanship. Then he started to address the gathering in a loud and clear voice: ‘Your Highnesses and gentlemen...’, he began. Speaking extempore Mountbatten made two points: First, that the princes were being provided with a political offer that was not likely to be repeated, as, under the proposed Instrument of Accession, they were conceding rights (on foreign affairs, defence and communications), which they had never enjoyed anyway; and, second, that after 15 August he would no longer be in a position to mediate on their behalf as the representative of the King Emperor with the Government of India. He succeeded in creating the impression that he was a friend who was trying to help the princes and his bearing and enthusiasm were infectious.

  The speech was followed by a question-and-answer session. The questions showed that the dramatic shift of British policy towards the states was not grasped by most who were present. An amusing scene then took place. The diwan of Bhavnagar said that since his ruler was abroad, he could not obtain instructions on whether to sign the Instrument of Accession or not. Mountbatten immediately picked up a glass paperweight from the rostrum and said: ‘I will look into my crystal [ball] and give you the answer.’ There was pin-drop silence while he looked at the glass for several seconds and then announced: ‘I see that His Highness asks you to sign the Instrument of Accession.’ Mountbatten’s reply brought the house down. Alan Campbell-Johnson in his diary records: ‘...it was wise to strike a humorous note as being the best method of penetrating what seemed to be quite a high proportion of thick skulls.’31

  In the days that followed, an overwhelming number of states acceded to India. The princes’ euphoria that on British withdrawal they would become independent to do what they willed evaporated very fast. ‘Without entering into some kind of an organic relationship with the Central Government Your Highnesses would be totally exposed to the Congress Party-inspired agitations with no help to come as until now from the Crown Reserve Police (CRP) under the Political Department’, warned the Maharaja of Nawanagar. Most signed up. ‘But there were some “sluggards”’, noted Mountbatten. ‘Apart from Hyderabad and Kashmir (and Junagadh), the states which gave the most trouble were Travancore, Indore, Bhopal, Rampur, Jodhpur and Baroda.’32

  Bhopal state, situated in Central India, was the largest Muslim-ruled state after Hyderabad. Its ruler, Nawab Hamidullah Khan, with some neighbouring Hindu princes, did not attend the 25 July meeting of the Chamber of Princes, saying that they were being invited like the Oyster to attend the tea party with the Walrus and the Carpenter. Rulers of Jammu and Kashmir and Travancore-Cochin were also not present. The former had not been invited. (The Nizam of Hyderabad never attended the chamber believing that he could not be placed at par with the other princes.) Hamidullah, by 1947, had fully entered the Pakistani camp and was busy persuading his Hindu princely friends whose territories lay between Bhopal and the western wing of Pakistan, such as Indore, Baroda and the Rajasthan states, not to accede to the Indian dominion. Mountbatten records in his report:

  A serious effect which Jodhpur’s defection from New Delhi would have been to open up opportunities for contiguous States such as Jaisalmer, Udaipur and Jaipur to accede to Pakistan through the contiguity provided by Jodhpur.33

  Mountbatten then describes how he frustrated Bhopal’s plans:

  The young Maharaja of Jodhpur was next taken to see Mr Jinnah in the presence of the Nawab of Bhopal and Sir Mohd. Zafrullah Khan, the latter’s Adviser (who became the first Foreign Minister of Pakistan).

  Mr Jinnah offered the Maharaja the use of Karachi as a free port, free import of arms, jurisdiction over the railways which ran between Jodhpur and Hyderabad in Sind and a large supply of grain for famine-threatened districts in the State – all on condition that Jodhpur would declare its independence on 15 August and subsequently join Pakistan.34

  What Jodhpur told me in 1948 contained the following nugget: ‘After explaining the offer Jinnah pushed across the table a blank paper with his signature on it asking me to fill in our other terms for acceding to Pakistan. Expecting trouble from the Congress-wallas after independence I was frankly tempted. But the heir-apparent of Jaisalmer who was with me suggested we consult my mother, the Dowager Maharani, and the Sardars (the feudal lords) at Jodhpur. So I thanked Mr Jinnah for his offer and said we would think about it and then return. As soon as I said this Jinnah pulled away rather brusquely the blank paper with his signature that I held in my fingers.’

  Mountbatten’s report goes on: ‘A family Council attended by some headmen (feudal lords) was held in Jodhpur on 5th August whereat the majority was against joining Pakistan. The Maharaja however still thought that Mr Jinnah’s offer was the best and telegraphed to the Nawab of Bhopal saying that he would meet him to fix up details in Delhi on 11th August. On 7th August the Maharaja of Jodhpur left for Baroda to persuade the Gaekwad (of Baroda) not to sign the Instrument of Accession. The same day a telegram was sent to the Maharaja saying that I wanted to see him at once.… It was apparent that Sardar Patel (the Home Minister) was prepared to go to any lengths to prevent this from materializing. Sardar Patel agreed that Jodhpur should continue to allow his Rajputs to carry and import arms without restrictions...[Patel] also undertook to provide food for their famine-stricken districts...and finally [assured] that he would give the highest priority for the building of railway from Jodhpur to a port in Kutch (in western India).’35 On these terms – and no doubt on account of the viceroy’s pressure – young Hanwant Singh gave in.*

  Mountbatten then turned his attention to other wayward princes. ‘Indore (a Maratha prince), another of Bhopal’s friends, refused to come and see me’, reported Mountbatten. ‘I got hold of the Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda and Maharaja of Kolhapur and asked them to collect other Maratha rulers and fly down and bring the Maharaja of Indore back with them.’ When Indore eventually agreed to show up in Delhi on 5 August, Mountbatten told him ‘that he had shown a lamentable lack of sense of responsibility towards his people apart from discourtesy which he had shown to the Crown Representative.… The Maharaja handed me a long letter that argued that my policy was against the one announced by the British Government in Parliament’.36 He went back to his state without signing the Instrument of Accession. But he sent it to the States Ministry by ordinary post to reach on 15 August 1947. The Maharaja of Baroda subsequently told the viceroy that the prime minister of Indore, a British ex-police officer called Ralph Albert Horton (together with Bhopal), was behind his recalcitrance.

  Mountbatten, according to his report, spent hours reasoning with Bhopal because ‘he was his friend and did not want his dynasty destroyed by bringing upon himself riots and trouble in the State’. Bhopal confided in him that ‘he had been promised high positions in Pakistan, possibly as Gov
ernor and even as an eventual successor to Mr Jinnah as Governor-General’. When Bhopal finally gave in, he stipulated that his accession to India be kept secret for ten days after India’s independence. Mountbatten persuaded Patel to accept this stipulation.38 Bhopal possibly wanted to avoid queering his pitch for the high appointment in Pakistan he expected to be made immediately after 14 August. But would not Jinnah, even if he gave him a high post, denounce him as soon as his secretive accession to India became known? Anyway, Hamidullah waited for the appointment for ten days, in vain.

  Hamidullah’s tragedy was that, faced with the loss of his beloved Bhopal, he turned in panic to the protection of Muslim separatists, forgetting his family’s integration into India and his ancestors’ and his own tolerant rule over his subjects of all faiths, plus his high standing in the country. And once again became the rootless wanderer his forefathers had been in Central Asia two hundred years ago, before they settled in Central India. Faced with the same dire prospect of losing their kingdoms, his Hindu brother princes, even the direst of diehards such as Panna and Dholpur, who detested the Congress Party like the plague, nevertheless, remained irrevocably tied to their old country. And their children, after a time, were able to make the adjustments, so that Panna’s son was elected a Member of Parliament in the 1970s and his grandson, a Member of the Legislative Assembly of the federated unit of Madhya Pradesh in the 1980s. The daughter-in-law of Dholpur became the minister of state for external affairs and, in 2000, the chief minister of Rajasthan.

  Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah had no time for Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir, who left his state to settle down in Bombay after Abdullah formed the government in Kashmir. However, Karan Singh, his heir, became the Sadr-i-Riyasat or governor of Jammu and Kashmir and later a minister in Indira Gandhi’s Government and yet later the Indian ambassador to the United States of America.