Chapter 1: How did Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten's relationship influence the Partition of India?
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Our Empire Club miniseries reaches its dramatic finale this week in episode four of the scandal that shaped partition. The first prime minister of India and the wife of the last viceroy have fallen in love as the horrors of partition play out around them. To get a flavour of that episode, here's a clip from our discussion of Nehru's love letters to Edwina Mountbatten.
just one little extract of the letters you know so when when she leaves after a trip to Shimla where Nero is at I hated seeing you drive away this morning you've left me with a strange sense of peace and happiness perhaps I brought you the same life is a dreary business and when a bright patch comes it rather takes one's breath away I mean my god if someone wrote that to you that is a letter a very intimate letter intimate and loving I mean it's a loving it is and
Chapter 2: What intimate details are revealed in Nehru's love letters to Edwina?
Quite exposing as well. I mean, quite extraordinary. So they were writing these letters to each other. Most of them we can't look at.
Most of them... So that's because... Is it Pamela is still alive or it is... The Mountbatten's daughter. Yes, the Mountbatten's daughter. And she has... Actually, you can understand. It's her mum, for goodness sake. I think it must be enormously difficult for people close to the situation.
And really, why should we be poking our noses into their family's business, apart from the fact their family were very politically important. At a time of enormous consequence. Right, so that's why we're poking the nose. But I understand how they must feel personally about it. Of course, it's perfectly reasonable for them not to feel open.
Chapter 3: What was the significance of Mountbatten's Plan Balkan for India?
But no, it isn't just down to that. It's actually the family has... an agreement and it gets quite complicated with letters. So, you know, for instance, the recipient owns the physical paper that the letters are written on, but the writer of the letter owns the copyright of the words in a letter. Right.
So, what happened in this case is that quite a while ago, the Mountbatten and Nerugandi families made an agreement that the letters would not be released without the agreement of both families. So, that's not going to happen.
It's not going to happen. It serves nothing and nobody. So let's talk about how that obvious personal connection has an impact on politics and it does and it clearly does from an early point.
Chapter 4: How did Nehru react to Mountbatten's proposed plan for India's future?
I mean we know that quite certainly what I saw in my research is that their relationship became you know quite intimate quite quickly and by that I just want to be really clear that I have absolutely no idea what happened or didn't sexually in that relationship.
In a way, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
The intimacy is the thing. And you can see it from the letter you quoted. This is a very, very intimate friendship. It's a very close friendship and a romantic relationship.
So I want to know, because Plan Balkan, you know where I'm going with this. Let's talk about Plan Balkan and how this sort of romance drama in the background may be feeding into matters of utmost importance to millions and millions of people.
And it certainly is.
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Chapter 5: What alternative plan did Nehru and Menon develop in response to Plan Balkan?
Well, Mountbatten's first plan really for what to do in India was this idea, which is known as Plan Balkan, which for anyone who knows and loves the Balkans as I do, doesn't sound like a good plan already from the title of it.
The idea really was that the power would be transferred not to a central government, but to individual provinces so that they could each then choose their own future of what they were gonna do, India, Pakistan, something else, whatever. And basically Mountbatten showed this plan at Shimla to Nehru, which he first of all- But not to anyone else. First of all, probably shouldn't have done that.
No, right. But they were all there together, staying up in Shimla in the Himalayas in Viceroy's house up there, actually possibly I think they were in, there's a separate little house out at Machoe Bridge just outside Shimla, it's incredibly beautiful. And they were staying there together. And so he thought, look, let's just see what happens and show him this.
OK, not really regulation, but, you know, this is what was happening. And Nehru was absolutely horrified.
Chapter 6: How did Edwina Mountbatten play a role in persuading Nehru during this critical time?
He saw this plan. He said, look, you're just going to balkanize. It's going to split up India.
It's called balkanization for a reason. I mean, it's not going to be good. It's not in the positive column.
And these states are not going to necessarily cooperate. It's going to fragment it hopelessly. Like this is an absolute disaster. Please, please don't.
Chapter 7: What are the lasting implications of the Mountbatten-Nehru relationship on modern India?
So he was clearly unhappy. And I'm sort of, again, this is, you know, supposition based on rumours at the time, so we don't know, that Mountbatten would have been quite shocked that he had such a visceral reaction to what he thought was a really good idea. Exactly. Just like, this is a really good plan.
Why would you not want this? Yeah, this is a bit of a problem. What are we going to do? And actually, but then he realised that this was going to be a real problem if Mountbatten flew back to London and said, hey, this is the plan. And then the Indian leaders will say, we're not doing that. Yeah. Then we're sort of, you know, worse than back at square one.
So Mountbatten actually asked VP Menon, an Indian civil servant, to draw up an alternative to the plan that maybe they could do. And so Menon and Nehru got together in Shimla and came up in three hours with an alternative plan.
So it does seem hasty, but there is precedence because some countries did have dominion status and it's mostly the white countries of the Commonwealth, as we know it now, have dominion status, which is a certain autonomy, but loosely connected, at least in name alone.
Right. I mean, it's not necessarily a bad position to be in. But crucially, Nehru and, you know, many other people in Congress had for years really pushed the idea of like, no, we won't accept any of that. We want full independence. That's the only thing that's accepted. Two words. Very simple. Get out. That's it. Exactly. Full independence. This doesn't feel like full independence.
So it's a really big deal. This is really the only way that they can kind of get this plan to work is by having this period of dominion status. And so it's a really difficult thing. And VP Menon tells us that what happened here is that it was Edwina who persuaded Nehru.
Really hope you enjoyed that clip from our members' miniseries on the scandal that shaped Partition. To access the full series, just head to empirepoduk.com. That's empirepoduk.com. And you can become a friend of the show today. Thank you.
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