When Nehru and Patel Urged Mountbatten to run the country!

 

 

 

When Nehru and Patel Urged Mountbatten to run the country!

Following the partition of India in 1947, the communities which had lived side by side for generations fell upon each other in an orgy of hate. In a bewildering frenzy, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims turned on each other, rivaled in savagery.

The authors of Freedom at Midnight-Dominique-Lapierre and Larry Collins- have given a vivid account of horrors of the partition. They wrote: “Horror had no race and the terrible anguish of those August days in the Punjab was meted out with almost biblical balance an eye for an eye, massacre for massacre; rape for rape, blind cruelty for blind cruelty.” Twelve of the Punjab’s districts were aflame, which 55,000 heavily armed professional soldiers and the Punjab Boundary Force failed to douse.

The situation in Punjab was out of control. Keeping aside their stature and pride, Nehru and Patel-the duumvirate- had turned to Mountbatten with all humility to save the country from the calamity. They met him on the morning of 6 September 1947 and urged him to take over the administration of the country. What transpired on that day would be the most closely guarded secret of the last Viceroy’s life, for the next quarter of a century. Had the decisions taken at the meeting become known, the knowledge could have destroyed the career of the charismatic Indian Prime Minister who would emerge in the years to come as one of the world’s great statesmen.

Nehru and Patel were sombre, visibly depressed by what was happening in Punjab; they looked to the Governor General of India-Mountbatten- ‘like a pair of chastened schoolboys’.  The migration was turning into a worst nightmare.  And the influx of refugees and violence in Delhi were threatening to bring down the capital itself.  

The conversation between Nehru, Mountbatten and Patel found interesting is reproduced from the Freedom at Midnight:

“We don’t know how to hold it,” Nehru admitted.

“You have to grip it,” Mountbatten told him.

“How can we grip it?" Nehru relied. “We have no experience. We’ve spent the best years of our lives in your British jails. Our experience is in the art of agitation, not administration. We can barely manage to run a well-organized government in normal circumstances. We’re just not up to facing an absolute collapse of law and order.”

Nehru then made an almost unbelievable request. That he, the proud Indian who’d devoted his life to the independence struggle, could even articulate it was a measure of both his own greatness and the gravity of the situation.  He had long admired Mountbatten’s capacity for organization and swift decision.  India, he felt, desperately needed those skills now and Nehru was too great a man to let his pride stand in the way of her having them.

“While you were exercising the highest command in war we were in a British prison," he said.  "You are a professional, high-level administrator. You’ve commanded millions of men. You have the experience and knowledge colonialism has denied us. You English can’t just turn this country over to us after being here all our lives and simply walk away. We’re in an emergency and we need help.  Will you run the country?”

“Yes" seconded Patel, the tough realist at Nehru’s side, “he’s right. You’ve got to take over.”

Mountbatten was aghast. “My God,” he said, “I’ve just got through giving you the country and here you two are asking me to take it back!”

“You must understand,” Nehru said. “You’ve got to take it. We’ll pledge ourselves to do whatever you say.”

“But this is terrible,” Mountbatten said. ”If anyone ever finds out you’ve turned the country back to my hands, you’ll be finished politically. The Indians keep the British Viceroy and then put him back in charge? Out of the question.”

“Well,” said Nehru, "we’ll have to find a way to disguise it, but if you don’t do it, we can’t manage.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll do it, and I can pull the thing together because I do know how to do it. But we must agree that nobody finds out about this. Nobody must know you’ve made this request. You two will ask me to set up an Emergency Committee of the Cabinet and I will agree. Will you do that?>”

“Yes,” replied Nehru and Patel.

“The Emergency Committee,” Mountbatten continued, “must consist of the people I nominate.”

“Oh,” protested Nehru, “you can have the whole cabinet."

“Nonsense," said Mountbatten, “that would be a disaster. I want the key people, the people who really do things, the Director of Civil Aviation, the Director for Railways, and the Head of the Indian Medical Services. My wife will take on the volunteer organizations and the Red Cross. The Committee’s secretary will be General Erskine-Crum, my conference secretary. The minutes will be typed in relay by British typists so they’ll be ready when the meeting’s over. You invite me to do all this?”

“Yes,” replied Nehru and Patel “we invite you.”

“At the meetings,” Mountbatten continued. “The Prime Minister will sit on my right and the Deputy Prime Minister on my left. I’ll always go through the motions of consulting you, but whatever I say you’re not to argue with me. We haven’t got time…That’s all I want. I don’t want you to say anything else.”

“Well, can’t we,” Patel began to protest.

“Not if it’s going to delay things,” Mountbatten said.

“Do you want me to run the country or not?”

"Ah, all right,” growled the old politician, “you run the country.”

In the next fifteen minutes the three men put together the list of the members of their Emergency Committee.

“Gentlemen,” Mountbatten said," we will hold our first meeting at five o’clock this afternoon.”

History teaches us how great countries were destroyed by demagogues who ruled them. In contrast, we see Nehru and Patel, whom the responsibility of running the independent India was thrust upon; acknowledging the inexperience of governance in the face of a great human tragedy unfolding before them, seeking help to save their country from destruction, due to communal frenzy and mob fury. They were great men who had tryst with destiny.

As the Head of the Emergency Committee, Mountbatten was the Supreme Commander again, energetically filling the role he knew best. After three decades of struggle, after years of strikes, mass movements, after all the bonfires of British clothes, above all, after barely three weeks of independence, India was once again for one last moment being run by an Englishman.  At the critical juncture, Mountbatten had played a crucial role, after the partition that witnessed the greatest migration in history. For the millions of victims of partition, the long and painful months of resettlement and reintegration still loomed ahead. They had paid the price for freedom, and that price would leave its bitter imprint for years to come.