Attlee’s experience with the Simon Commission1 stimulated his interest in Indian independence. In 1942 and 1943 Leo Amery, Secretary of State for India, proposed to Churchill that, on Lord Linlithgow’s retirement, Attlee should succeed him as Viceroy. ‘He knows the India problem and has no sentimental illusions as to any dramatic short cut to its solution’, Amery wrote. ‘He also has a good shrewd understanding of military matters.’ The appointment would have political benefits as ‘there are not many of the Labour Party suitable for Empire posts. This would meet Labour criticism on that score.’2

In the event, Churchill was guided by military considerations. He achieved a neat solution to the Middle East command, replacing Auchinleck with Alexander and sending ‘the Auk’ back to India to succeed Wavell as Commander-in-Chief. Wavell, already on the spot, was appointed Viceroy. By the time Labour came to power he had been immersed in Indian politics for two years and was sceptical about the ability and intentions of the government. ‘I am afraid there will be a lot of foolish, inexperienced and rather wild legislators amongst the 400 odd of Labour’, he reflected.3 Wavell also doubted his own suitability for his office and yearned to retire.4 He feared that Lord Pethick Lawrence, the new Secretary of State, ‘may have fixed and old-fashioned ideas derived mainly from Congress contacts’,5 but, despite his fears, he was impressed that ‘the present government certainly moves quicker than its predecessor’6 when he was summoned to London on 22 August.7

Since his tour of India in 1927–28 Attlee had not substantially changed his attitude towards the subcontinent. The greatest problem, he believed, would be to find an interim solution during transition from the Raj to independent government. If one could be implemented, then reason would prevail and a peaceful transition could be achieved.

By the time the Labour government came to power, however, the situation in India had altered. Three round-table conferences in London between 1930 and 1932 achieved nothing, but led to the 1935 Government of India Act, whose central thrust was the Federation of India. As the Act promised, elections were held in 1937, and the Congress Party emerged with clear majorities in six provinces while the Muslim League failed to win a single province. Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru, the Congress leader, rejected a coalition with the League, declaring that the only parties that mattered in India were Congress and the British Raj. This rebuff set Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the League president, on the path towards demanding a separate Muslim state that he called ‘Pakistan’, the land of the pure.

Early in the war Jinnah won favour with the British government as a supporter of the Allied effort. Congress, by contrast, opposed the war and saw its leaders imprisoned by the British for their obduracy. Once Singapore fell in February 1942, however, the prospect of Japanese forces invading while the dominant Indian party was acting against British interests raised alarming possibilities. Cripps was sent to meet with all parties in India and, against the promise of dominion status after the war, obtain support from Congress as well as the League. When his mission failed, Congress launched a ‘Quit India’ campaign; the Viceroy responded by incarcerating Congress leaders for the balance of the war.

Between 1942 and 1945, with ‘Congress Fascists’ out of circulation, Jinnah’s position was strengthened and the League grew in Muslim communities. Churchill rejoiced to see the socialists of Congress losing ground but he and the British Cabinet failed to see that the widening gulf between Congress and the League created insurmountable problems. Against this background, fearful that the new government planned to resurrect the Cripps offer,8 Wavell arrived in London on 26 August.

The two weeks that the Viceroy spent in London reinforced his view that the Cabinet had little grasp of reality. He returned to Delhi with instructions to implement the Cripps proposals and to broadcast the government’s intention to create a Constitution Making Body and hold elections without delay.9 Despite his scepticism that ‘words, however skilfully chosen, will not solve fundamental differences’,10 Wavell characteristically obeyed orders and made the broadcast on 19 September.

His principal concern was that the government failed to appreciate the growing mood of anti-Europeanism and that the chasm between Congress and the Muslim League had widened, differences being expressed as much in religious as in political language. Fusion between freedom for a united, Congress-dominated India and Hinduism on the one hand and between Islam and the vague, undefined notion of ‘Pakistan’ on the other had created an atmosphere in which the status quo was universally resented. The Governor of the Central Provinces wrote to Wavell in October saying that he could not ‘recollect any period in which there have been such venomous and unbridled attacks against government and government officers.’11

On 5 November the CIGS,12 Viscount Alanbrooke, arrived in Delhi for talks with Wavell. He found him ‘depressed about the state of India and expecting serious trouble within the next six months’. ‘As we sat on the terrace outside the Viceroy’s house, surrounded by Viceregal pomp,’ he wrote, ‘one felt that the British days in India were numbered.’13 Wavell showed Alanbrooke the note he proposed to send to London, warning of a grave situation in which Congress leaders fomented violence, and stressing the need for troops to maintain order. Alanbrooke agreed that it should be sent but ‘had no idea where the troops would come from if we wanted them’.14

Pethick-Lawrence circulated Wavell’s report to the Cabinet15 and, when the India and Burma Committee met five days later, it was agreed that a Cabinet delegation should be sent to India.16 Pethick-Lawrence eventually replied to Wavell on 21 November; in the following days riots broke out in Calcutta and Bombay before the government announced the plan to send a delegation.

The lack of urgency in the light of the apocalyptic picture painted by Wavell is remarkable. On 26 November, twenty days since Wavell’s message had been received, Norman Brook, the Cabinet Secretary, informed Attlee that the Chiefs of Staff were awaiting a requested appreciation of British forces from Auchinleck.17 At a Cabinet meeting on 27 November it was decided only that the India and Burma Committee should prepare a revised draft statement for Pethick-Lawrence. Bevan urged that this statement should focus less on the need to restore law and order than on the government’s intention to take steps to improve conditions in India. This was recorded but, apparently, not discussed.18

Despite the immediacy with which Attlee and his colleagues had addressed India in August, by the end of the year no new initiative beyond a visit by a Cabinet committee had been proposed. Wavell viewed the future despondently, noting on New Year’s Day, ‘I am not much looking forward to 1946 and shall be surprised and pleased if we get through without serious trouble.’19

On 27 December Wavell sent Pethick-Lawrence a ‘political appreciation for the Cabinet’.20 This was a detailed document that described his plan to institute a new central government, emphasising the need to maintain order. As a document presented by the C-in-C of an occupying power, it was comprehensive, reflecting considerable thought and preparation. At no stage did it refer to an independent India.

The Viceroy’s plan was superseded by the formation of the Cabinet Mission to visit India at the end of March. Wavell had recommended that if Muslims insisted on self-determination in primarily Muslim areas, this should be conceded, but that there should be no compulsion of non-Muslim areas, such as Punjab and Bengal, to join Pakistan against their will. The committee agreed that if Jinnah and Congress could not work out a solution, then the Viceroy should dictate one. Somewhat optimistically, they felt that economic and defence difficulties might bring Congress and the Muslim League together to agree some form of federal solution.21

Attlee was conscious that he needed to act and be seen to be acting. Wavell’s gloomy forecasts, however, were rapidly realised. On 18 February a naval mutiny broke out in Bombay. Industrial disputes erupted everywhere; a national railway strike in the summer was barely avoided. Police mutinies in Bihar and Delhi, protests against the suppression of the naval mutiny – all combined in unprecedented fashion to harry overworked officials.

Before any meaningful discussions could take place an election was needed, and between December 1945 and March 1946 staggered elections took place across the country. Congress claimed to represent all Indians, whatever their religion; the League claimed to represent all Indian Muslims; neither brooked any dispute. Initially both leading parties ran on the battle cry of economic hardship but soon they became divided by the issue of ‘Pakistan’. The claims of each party outdid the other as they strove to demonstrate to the British their right to govern. Religion was increasingly politicised; all parties competed to win the Muslim vote. While Congress emerged as the leading party, the League, winning 446 of the 495 Muslim seats, garnered support with widely different roots in different regions. The unifying element was the undefined but hugely emotive concept of an Islamic state. After the elections Sir Penderell Moon commented, ‘It is now abundantly clear that the Pakistan issue has got to be faced fairly and squarely. There is no longer the slightest chance of dodging it.’22 Moon’s forecast was shrewd. Muslim separatism and new nationalism were fuelled by success in the elections. Jinnah became a popular hero, hailed as a saviour by his supporters. ‘Pakistan’ became more than a notional country; it became identified with the essence of being a member of the Muslim League. Even Jinnah was unclear exactly what ‘Pakistan’ meant in practical terms; the ratcheting of emotion was designed to extract the best possible terms from Britain in the transfer of power. Many Muslims envisaged a simple division between North and South, with a Pakistan that stretched from Afghanistan to East Bengal. Naturally, they assumed, the highly symbolic new capital, Delhi, would fall into Pakistan.23

The elections gave unprecedented power to local governments of both parties. With access to political power came a radical shift in behaviour. Organisations were formed – sports clubs and the like – which also served as defence groups. Football teams were co-opted to patrol the streets after matches. Ad hoc groups were turned into private militias. Religious and moral tenets were at the centre of many such politically charged groups, moving into the void allowed by the weakness of the Raj.24 Gangs of volunteers became quasi-police groups, performing tasks that the British Raj, reluctant to spend more money on India, no longer performed. The lackeys of imperialism were replaced by volunteer groups, all with political beliefs at their centre. Gandhi’s non-violence was almost universally rejected. Politicians incited loyalist groups to defend themselves against – in other words, to attack – rival forces. Congress declared, ‘Pakistan is not in the hands of the British government. If Pakistan is to be achieved, Hindus and Muslims will have to fight. There will be civil war.’25

Against this background of anti-European feeling and sudden polarisation along religious lines, Pethick-Lawrence, Cripps and A. V. Alexander arrived in India on 25 March with a brief to establish an interim government and to facilitate an early and smooth transfer of power to a democratically elected government. HMG might speak easily of granting independence to India but by the time the Cabinet Mission arrived in India this was meaningless. To whom would Britain grant what and over what area? A mission of three key ministers so soon after Labour’s coming to power demonstrated the importance that Attlee placed on the Indian question, but changes had taken place with such bewildering speed that the ‘Three Magi’ (as Wavell referred to them26) were blind to the nuances of India in 1946.

Once the Cabinet had resolved to send a Cabinet Mission27 they invested all confidence in that decision, further marginalising Wavell. When the Viceroy asked Pethick-Lawrence whether the delegation members approved of his ‘breakdown’ plan, the Secretary of State dodged the question, almost as if Wavell had no right to ask.28 When Wavell, having received a copy of the terms of reference of the Mission, was given no indication of their attitude to Pakistan, his frustration grew.29 This was reinforced by a cable in which Wavell spent an entire page pleading that he be allowed to discuss the Cabinet Mission with Sir John Thorne, the Home Member.30 This was a relatively trifling matter; the larger issue was that Cabinet allowed the Viceroy no freedom of action. Wavell again stressed his need to know the Cabinet’s inclinations in order to govern effectively, and with foresight asking to be informed how the Cabinet regarded Pakistan and the partition of Kashmir and Punjab.31 In theory, the Cabinet Mission was led by Pethick-Lawrence. In fact, Attlee and Cripps determined British policy in India, and Cripps took control of negotiations. Wavell saw Cripps as ‘much the ablest of the party’. Noting that he was ambitious and determined not to fail a second time, he wrote that, according to Linlithgow, ‘Cripps was not quite straight under pressure, and he was right’.32

Attlee deplored the halting nature of negotiations and, once Pethick-Lawrence was safely away from the India Office, took firmer personal control, making the India and Burma Committee the sole mouthpiece for communication. He also enhanced the committee by adding the Lord President, the Foreign Secretary, the Dominions Secretary and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for India, enabling swifter action without the need to refer to the Cabinet at every stage.33

Delay now gave way to decision, vacillation to firmer control. In the first half of April 1946 we see the process by which the idea of partition was accepted. A cable from the Mission in Delhi on 30 March spoke of ‘an interim government or governments;’34 at a Cabinet Meeting on 11 April Attlee brushed aside the objection that partition would leave Pakistan weak as not Britain’s problem.35 He made clear his desiderata. A united India (Scheme A) was the primary goal but the Mission was authorised to discuss the future on the basis of two states (Scheme B), but, in that event, every effort should be made to secure a central defence to include Hindustan, Pakistan, the Indian States, Burma and Ceylon.36 The Cabinet Mission met with all political parties and invited suggestions for framing a constitution. When this was greeted with no response, Cripps put together a draft outline and sent it to all groups. The draft had four basic principles. First, a central government would deal with foreign affairs, defence and communications. Second, provinces would be divided into two groups, one of predominantly Muslim, the other of predominantly Hindu provinces to handle matters that could be sensibly dealt with on a collective basis. Third, individual provincial governments would continue to handle all other matters, while preserving the sovereign status of provinces within a federal structure. Fourth, the ‘princely’ states, bound by separate treaties to Britain, would eventually take their place within the federal structure on terms to be agreed.

Congress immediately objected to the grouping of provinces on a religious or communal basis, claiming that this would weaken the central government. In truth, they objected to any proposal that had a suggestion of a separate group of entities superior to a single province, for that smacked of ‘Pakistan’. Congress and the League each sent four members to discuss the proposals at Simla37 but no agreement was reached.

By the end of the month the Mission began to grasp the difficulties that besieged Wavell. They cabled London that they had ‘been working on the draft of a statement … in the event of failure to reach agreement’.38 A 500-word statement was drafted and agreed in Cabinet39 before Gandhi raised questions of detail and Jinnah requested time to resolve problems among League members.40 With added demands from Congress that British troops be withdrawn immediately and that the proposed Constituent Assembly be sovereign, prospects of an agreement evaporated. The Delegation had been naïvely optimistic. Congress had insisted from the start that independence be immediately effective and that all Europeans be excluded from the governance of India. This naïveté became clear with the publication of letters between all parties in the discussions.41

The Cabinet Mission and the Viceroy fashioned a constitution for independent India and announced it on 16 May.42 Designed to appeal to all groups, it succeeded in satisfying none. Independent Pakistan consisting of six provinces, as demanded by Jinnah, was rejected. A smaller Pakistan, containing only Muslim areas and entailing the division of Bengal and Punjab, was also considered impractical. The original three-tiered government was proposed with the proviso that any province could request revision of its status after ten years. To settle the constitution a Constituent Assembly would be elected by members of provincial legislatures, grouped into three combinations: the five Hindu-majority provinces; Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province, Sind, Bengal and Assam. Each province would have the right to opt out only after the new arrangement was introduced.

While Jinnah was not offered an independent Pakistan, there was provision for a group of provinces that ensured protection of Muslim interests – an arrangement that might lead to partition. Congress set up a working party to study the proposals, which Gandhi had applauded, but could not agree to parity between the League and Congress. Additionally, the Sikhs, critically important to a peaceful settlement of Punjab, were resentful that their interests were ignored.

Attlee’s seizing of the reins had been only partial. Wavell had been right to be pessimistic. The Cabinet had unrealistic hopes; once these were dashed, Attlee was no closer to agreement than he had been six months before, as became clear from cables received from both Wavell and the Mission on 3 June. Wavell offered an excellent tour d’horizon of India from a military perspective43 but no solution to fundamental problems. The delegation discussed the military plan for withdrawal should Congress resort to direct action – to hold the ports and strong points, then withdraw all Europeans who wished to leave. For the first time came the notion of a deadline and talk of using the intervening period to arrange phased withdrawal. It was a message from a mission that knew it had failed and was seeking to safeguard European lives and its reputation for impartiality.44

Attlee, under increasing pressure to show evidence of progress, proposed a meeting with Tory and Liberal leaders in an attempt to postpone a full debate until the interim government was settled. In the meantime he instructed Wavell to reopen negotiations with Congress and the League and to emphasise that the government did not regard the issue of the League’s nominating all Muslims to be a valid objection.45 Wavell agreed to do so but stated firmly, ‘I wish it, however, to be clearly understood that this will be done contrary to my advice and wishes’46 – the clearest indication yet of growing disagreement between Attlee and the Viceroy.

For almost a year Wavell had watched the situation deteriorate. He wrote to the King comparing Indian politics with ‘one of my childhood puzzles – a little glass-covered box with three or four different coloured marbles which one had to manipulate into their respective pens … Just as the last one seemed on the point of moving in … all the others invariably ran out.’47 Now, vindicated over the Cabinet Mission’s tactics, he was in the ascendant. Attlee might at this point have recognised the impossibility of continuing to work with a Viceroy whom he considered ‘defeatist’.48 Instead, he issued instructions which Wavell openly challenged, and accepted Pethick-Lawrence’s suggestion that if the Muslim League boycotted the Constituent Assembly, Wavell should proceed without them. This would, he admitted, create problems as the Hindu majority would totally dominate the government.49 A frustrated Attlee wrote to Lord Simon on 21 April that the Cabinet Mission was experiencing the same problems as the Commission had experienced eighteen years before.50 Simon, while well disposed to his former colleague, was outraged by the plan to govern with only Congress participation. He compared it to a football match where only one side turned up. Could that, he asked in a letter to Eden, be properly termed a match?51

Jinnah was adamant that only the Muslim League should appoint Muslims to the interim government, a demand unacceptable to Congress, whose president Maulana Azad was a Muslim. Wavell announced the abandonment of negotiations and his intention to nominate fourteen people – six Hindu members, five Muslims, one Sikh, one Parsee and one Indian Christian – to serve in an interim government. Clutching at straws to maintain the appearance of progress, the Mission seized on the ambiguous phrase ‘accept your proposals’ in a letter from Azad to Wavell, treated this as acceptance and announced that ‘constitution-making can now proceed with the consent of the two major parties’.52 No interim government could be formed, but the Viceroy would address that issue; the Mission could return to London having ostensibly achieved its purpose. Jinnah quickly torpedoed this by having the League working party accept the proposals for an interim government. Now, he argued, since Congress had rejected these, the British were committed to work exclusively with the League, who had accepted the 16 May proposals. The Mission members had been dishonest, he maintained, in saying that both sides had accepted them. The Cabinet Mission departed, having achieved nothing.

Attlee was intolerant of discussions that covered and recovered the same ground with no decisions. However open-minded he may have been until this point, the outcome of the Cabinet Mission marked a turning point in his attitude. Jinnah’s wrecking of any semblance of accord and the spectacle of three British Cabinet ministers being treated with disdain undoubtedly influenced his perception of the Muslim League. When the League met in Bombay at the end of June and voted to embrace a policy of ‘direct action’, in Jinnah’s words, bidding ‘goodbye to constitutional methods’, it is not difficult to imagine Attlee’s reaction.53

He accepted that civil war was likely, maintaining that it was the responsibility of the Indian leaders to avoid it. If it was unavoidable, Britain should extricate herself sooner rather than later; the sequel would be the same whenever that came to pass. Once Jinnah announced his departure from constitutional methods, this was the moral Schwerpunkt that altered the rules fundamentally. The issue of the ‘ingratitude’ of the Indian people, a theme stressed frequently in the British press, was not motive with Attlee. Simply, he felt that the Indian leaders had brought this deadlocked situation on their people and they, not Great Britain, must resolve the issues.54 Once the League had rejected the proposals, Congress accepted Wavell’s invitation to form an interim government.55 When, on 16 August the League instituted ‘Direct Action Day’ resulting in rioting that left 5,000 dead and 15,000 injured in Calcutta,56 Hindus retaliated against Muslim aggression and massacred Muslims in Bihar. Civil war, Gandhi proclaimed, was imminent. Wavell cabled the India Office that he saw no hope of avoiding more serious rioting unless there was ‘some settlement at centre’ and he could change Jinnah’s attitude.57

Three weeks later Jinnah issued a direct challenge to Attlee. ‘The wound is too deep’, he said, and the negotiations had caused so much rancour that discussions were pointless. Declaring that he was prepared to travel to London and participate in a new series of conferences, he accused Britain of supporting the existing government with bayonets. If the British wished to arrest him, he was ready to go to prison.58

Still Wavell strove to include the League in the Constituent Assembly in the teeth of London’s objections.59 Jinnah agreed that five members should join the government. Initial delight was soon dissipated when it became clear that League members had accepted the invitation not to collaborate with Congress but to impede them.60

Attlee invited leaders of Congress and the League, as well as Baldev Singh, the Sikh representative, to London for talks.61 Congress leaders promptly refused the invitation as ‘a brief visit to England cannot bear fruit’; Jinnah agreed to think about it; Baldev Singh, the Sikh representative, has said that since there would not be representatives of both Congress and the League, there was no point in his going.62 Attlee intervened and twice requested Nehru to attend talks.63 Jinnah promptly cabled Attlee to complain that the Prime Minister had created a new situation by corresponding with Nehru and that, therefore, the League members would not join any discussions. After further intervention from Attlee, however, he agreed to attend.64

The area of disagreement between the two main parties seemed relatively small – whether voting in the Sections should be by provinces or by majority of those present – but the gulf between the parties was greater. Each accused the other of bad faith; Gandhi urged Assam and the Sikhs to withdraw from the Assembly; Jinnah refused to rescind the Bombay resolution.65 If Congress members withdrew from the Assembly, Britain might be forced to maintain order throughout Hindu regions; if the League members refused to work with Congress, there might be civil war. In either case it would be difficult for Britain to withdraw with any claim to have settled matters. In this unpromising atmosphere the London talks opened on 6 December.

On behalf of the government Attlee made a grandiloquent opening statement. Britain’s resolution to allow India to determine its constitution had attracted the support of the world, he said. Now the world was surprised that objections from Indians were preventing agreement. He maintained that the statement of 16 May had not been substantially altered and denied that HMG was applying pressure. They were merely trying to gain agreement on the 16 May principles so that the Constituent Assembly could move forward.66

After four days of meetings Attlee commented to Cabinet that there was no will among the parties to reach agreement.67 Nehru seemed determined to extend Congress’ power over the whole country and that would be unacceptable to the League. The time for imposing order from without had passed as British forces in India were no longer adequate for the task. Withdrawal might become necessary but to withdraw in haste would be regarded as scuttle. Cabinet agreed in principle, but offered no real proposals to break the deadlock. The paucity of ideas was demonstrated at a Cabinet meeting at which Wavell’s breakdown plan was reconsidered. Two and a half months had passed since Wavell produced the plan; the government was no further forward. Once again the same arguments were batted to and fro; once again the meeting was inconclusive.68

For a further twelve days before his return to Delhi Wavell urged a phased withdrawal on the India and Burma Committee.69 By 20 December, when somewhat grudgingly the committee seemed to accept his advice, he pressed his point with Attlee, asking for confirmation of four points – that Britain would quit India by 31 March 1948, that the government accepted his breakdown plan, that legislation would speedily be placed before Parliament and that the Secretary of State’s services would be wound up.70 Attlee responded from Chequers on the following day, saying that the committee’s recommendation to be placed before Cabinet ‘covers the broad decisions that [Wavell] asked for’. By any standards, it was a brusque reply.71

Understandably so, for Attlee was now thoroughly frustrated by the intransigence of the Indian leaders, by Wavell’s ‘defeatist’ plans for a military withdrawal and by his Cabinet’s inability to propose any alternative. On 18 December in a meeting with Admiral Viscount Mountbatten, and in the strictest confidence, Attlee mooted the idea that he succeed Wavell as Viceroy. According to Mountbatten’s later account, he was horrified, knowing how complex and intractable the situation had become. Where the Cabinet Mission and Wavell had failed, he asked, what hope remained of anyone else satisfying the Indian leaders? The only hope was to present the Indians with a definite time limit.72

Mountbatten’s rise during the war had been remarkable, if controversial. Field Marshal Brooke regarded him with caution; aware of his ability, he confided to his diary when Mountbatten was appointed Supreme Commander, South-east Asia, that ‘he lacked balance for such a job’.73 Later, commenting on the appointment, Brooke noted that what he lacked in experience he made up in self-confidence. He had boundless energy and drive, but ‘would require a steadying influence in the nature of a very carefully selected Chief of Staff’.74 After initial doubts, Attlee believed that Mountbatten’s disdain for conventional methods might be of value in India. The young admiral already had a friendly, though unconventional, acquaintance with Nehru, dating from January 1946 when Nehru visited Singapore. The Civil Governor of Burma ‘emphatically refused’ to invite Nehru, who had recently been released from prison, whereupon Mountbatten invited him to Singapore. He ‘ordered military transport to be provided into the city to enable the Indian soldiers to see their political leader’. He lent Nehru one of his own cars and invited him to call at Government House on arrival.75

This iconoclastic approach appealed to Attlee, who later recorded that ‘I had what I now think was an inspiration. I thought of Mountbatten.’76 At their meeting he agreed to grant the new Viceroy unprecedented authority to act independently of the Secretary of State – as the absence of such power had crippled Wavell’s authority – and, subject to certain conditions, Mountbatten, not without considerable qualms, inclined to accept the offer. His acceptance, he emphasised, was conditional on Attlee’s linking the announcement of the new Viceroy with a definite date for transfer of power. Otherwise, he would not be able to do the job.77 Ismay, whom Mountbatten appointed his Chief of Staff, accurately commented that Attlee ‘had taken a very great risk’ in imposing a time limit before there was a successor-authority to take over.78

While Attlee waited for Mountbatten’s formal acceptance of the post he allowed his frustration to show in an exchange with Bevin, who deplored the negativism that had pervaded a Cabinet meeting. ‘I cannot help feeling that the defeatist attitude adopted both by the Cabinet and Field Marshal Wavell is just completely letting us down’, he wrote. Cripps was too pro-Congress; Alexander was too pro-Muslim. After listening to the discussion he was despondent. The government should hand over India ‘as a going concern’ and place responsibility on the shoulders of the Indian leaders.79

In a response quite out of character – for he valued Bevin’s counsel above all others – Attlee allowed his frustration to show. ‘We are seeking to fulfil the pledges of this country with dignity and avoid an ignominious scuttle. But a scuttle it will be if things are allowed to drift’, he wrote. Somewhat acidly he ended the letter saying, ‘If you disagree with what is proposed you must offer a practical alternative. I fail to find one in your letter.’80 His irritation is understandable. Bevin had identified the flaw in the government’s attitude but, in common with everyone else who had addressed the problem, saw no solution. Clearly, Attlee had not yet informed Bevin of his talks with Mountbatten and, while he waited for Mountbatten’s acceptance, he resented the impotence of his own position.

He guarded that secret for a further frustrating month, during which Mountbatten assembled his staff, and the unfortunate Wavell was kept in the dark.81 On 8 January 1947 Attlee wrote to Wavell, informing him bluntly that the Cabinet had rejected the breakdown plan.82 Wavell, in fact, had already learned this and commented that ‘I thought they well might run out after I left, they seem quite unable to face an awkward decision’.83 On receipt of official notification from Attlee, he wrote sourly that Attlee’s letter was ‘cold, ungracious and indefinite, the letter of a small man’. He could see no point in agreeing to go to London for discussions, surmising that the invitation was intended to force his resignation.84

Resignation was by then redundant. On 31 January, after consulting Cripps, Attlee wrote to Wavell, pointing out that his appointment as Viceroy was a wartime appointment for three years, which had now expired; since there was a policy difference between them, it was time for Wavell to resign. He concluded by saying that he was recommending him for an earldom which he hoped he would accept.85 Wavell devoted two lines in his diary to acknowledging this, commenting that it was ‘not very courteously done’.86

After an acid response87 and having learned that Mountbatten was to succeed him, Wavell requested Attlee to delay the announcement until after his daughter’s wedding on 20 February, at which he was expecting 800 guests.88 Attlee readily agreed.89 Wavell then showed great magnanimity, offering to assist Mountbatten in any way possible, a gesture that Attlee acknowledged.90

It is hard not to sympathise with Wavell, a devotedly loyal Army officer placed in a highly inflammable political situation and held in ‘abject and humiliating thralldom’ by the Cabinet.91. A Wykehamist, erudite lover of poetry, greatly more ‘civilised’ than most of his peers, he remained a soldier, appointed to the Viceroyalty as a wartime solution to a military problem. Yet, while politicians manoeuvred to acquit themselves with credit, Wavell remained constant, if unimaginative. His assessments of Pethick-Lawrence and Cripps were justified by later events; his contempt for Attlee’s handling of his relief, dismissing him with a month’s notice, rather than the customary six months, was not unjustified.

Attlee emerges without credit from his relations with the Viceroy. His brusque manner was typical, but his ungenerous treatment of Wavell was uncharacteristic. Under the circumstances, his frustration is understandable; at every turn initiatives were thwarted. Once the Cabinet Mission failed, he might profitably have taken stock and decided in June 1946, rather than six months later, that a different Viceroy was needed. He did not, and that hesitation led to drift until the appearance of Mountbatten, deus ex machina with a radical solution.

It is also questionable whether he made a wise choice of Pethick-Lawrence as Secretary of State. Aged seventy-three when Labour came to power, he was neither flexible nor dynamic. As relations between Secretary of State and Viceroy deteriorated, we see Pethick-Lawrence taking care to prove Wavell wrong more often than making constructive suggestions.

As early as April 1946 Attlee had decided that India was as divided as it had been in 1928; that civil war had, if anything, become more likely. India posed a problem that Attlee’s style of management failed to solve when the consensus of Cabinet was to shuffle responsibility and do nothing. Ultimately, he provided the decisive solution but his lack of decisiveness before December 1946 – the legacy of his belief in collective responsibility – contributed to the drift.

Establishing British authority to suppress chaos was politically unacceptable. Any such move would suggest an intention to prolong the Raj; harmony was unreachable. Attlee decided to announce the British intention to withdraw not later than June 1948, to which Cabinet agreed on 13 February 1947.92 He made it clear that the absence of agreement between parties would not delay the handover. His Majesty’s government would decide to which authority it would transfer power. This tacitly accepted the inevitability of partition, now an open secret throughout India. Responsibility for this was not attributable to one or the other party – although Gandhi’s and Nehru’s occasional fits of arrogance contributed – but to fundamentally different goals. Congress wanted a strong united country; the League wanted a divisible one. Jinnah had established his leadership of Muslims and Jinnah wanted Pakistan. Congress realised that the price he would require for unity would be too high. Better, Nehru finally accepted, to suffer the loss of certain peripheral territory.

After Mountbatten’s appointment was announced93 events moved at a very different pace. Wavell, considered the appointment ‘unexpected but a clever one from their point of view’,94 noting that ‘Dickie’s personality may perhaps accomplish what I have failed to do.’ Attlee spoke to the King, estimating the chance of success at six to four, somewhat optimistically as Sir George Abell set them at ten to one against, and, ‘rather unexpectedly’, the King approved.95

On 5 March Cripps opened the debate on India (Government Policy) in the House of Commons. Speaking for over an hour, he traced recent events – the 1935 Act, his 1942 mission, the Cabinet Mission of the previous year – before emphasising the need for decisive action and a time limit if the initiative were to be retained and any progress made.

Cripps acknowledged that this involved ‘a tremendous experiment in the methods of peaceful progress’, but stressed that ‘we must not fail ourselves or India through lack of decision at a critical moment. In giving up our control in India, we want to do our utmost to co-operate with the Indians of all parties and communities through these final stages of the realisation of their freedom.’96

Sir John Anderson led for the Opposition, arguing against a fixed date, maintaining that the government had erred in handing over power to representative Indians without certainty of a constitutional settlement. In allowing British military control of India to be diminished to the point that it could no longer keep order, the government had exacerbated the present crisis.97 The debate ranged to and fro for a further five hours. The differences between government and Opposition were plainly stated, but the debate was little more than a curtain raiser for the following day’s passage of arms.

This was opened, unsurprisingly, by Churchill who claimed that the government had departed from the principles of the Cripps mission of 1942 and compounded its errors by recent actions. It would be impossible in fourteen months to bridge the gap between Hindu and Muslim that had existed for a thousand years. It would merely provide time for each side to prepare for civil war. Studded with gems of Churchillian oratory, it reflected nonetheless an archaic view of India, a feature that Attlee seized on. When Churchill spoke of ‘these people, in many cases, of the same race, charming people, lightly clad, crowded together in all the streets and bazaars and so forth,’ the picture he drew was more akin to Ali Baba than to India of 1947. India, he concluded, ‘is to be subjected not merely to partition, but to … haphazard fragmentation. A time limit is imposed – a kind of guillotine – which will certainly prevent the full, fair and reasonable discussion of the great complicated issues that are involved.’98

After several skirmishes, it was left to Attlee to sum up. The House had been sitting for five and a half hours when he rose to speak and Members were treated to a classic Attleean treatment of the subject. First, however, he needed to point out that Churchill was out of date even with thinking within his own party. He referred to ‘the great work’ that had been done in India and closed on a high note, wishing Mountbatten ‘God speed’ and success in his ‘great mission’.99

Over two days the House had watched a characteristic drama play out. Act One had opened with the cerebral, carefully accurate presentation from Cripps. Lesser but important players had batted the question to and fro, a diminuendo closing the first set of skirmishes. Act Two had been introduced by the massive figure of Churchill, as it emerged, a tragically outdated character whose central premise could not be anything but cannon fodder for his principal opponent. Then, in a brisk and businesslike finale lasting a mere thirty minutes, Attlee brought the dialogue to a polished closure. The vote, a foregone conclusion, saw the government defeat the Conservative amendment by 337 to 185. The new Viceroy was set to depart for Delhi to bring to an end in fourteen months the era of the British Raj.

On 22 March, Mountbatten arrived in Delhi. His instructions from Attlee were simple and direct – ‘to obtain a unitary government for British India and the Indian States, if possible within the British Commonwealth’. Mountbatten’s biographer succinctly summarised that directive as ‘Keep India united if you can; if not, try to save something from the wreck. Whatever happens, get Britain out.’100 Less sensitive to grassroots problems than Wavell, who had spent his childhood in India, he adopted a pragmatic approach and, if partition was in the air, he was easier to persuade than his predecessor.

From the outset Mountbatten inclined to the Congress position. He had already established a friendship with Nehru and, as he admits, ‘[as he had] been educated at Harrow and Trinity, and … lived so many of his formative years in England, I found communication with him particularly easy and pleasant’.101 He had great respect for Liaquat Ali Khan, Jinnah’s deputy in the Muslim League and Nehru’s deputy in the fragile interim government. ‘He was a very different personality from Jinnah’, Mountbatten recalled, ‘tough but far less abrasive, a highly competent loyal follower, but not a leader. He was man with whom it was possible for Nehru to achieve more effective intellectual rapport than with Jinnah.’102

The new Viceroy’s aim was to reach a swift conclusion, precisely what Jinnah was determined to resist. Very soon, therefore, Jinnah was perceived as ‘remote’ and as the principal obstacle to be overcome. Mountbatten strove to find the means to obtain any measure of agreement from him. He soon realised that this would come through partition alone, even with its potentially catastrophic consequences in divided provinces, as he recalled,

Mountbatten swiftly concluded that, in the tinder-box climate, it would be folly to wait until June 1948; a solution must be found as soon as possible. By the end of March he was proposing partition into Hindustan, Pakistan and the Princely States.104 On 11 April he told his staff to make it clear that he had been impartial from the outset and that, if it became clear that a united India would result in civil war, only then would he accept partition as an option.105

On 17 April Mountbatten told Lord Listowel, who had succeeded Pethick-Lawrence as Secretary of State, that a decision must be made quickly to avoid civil war, that he had a plan and that Ismay would return to London with it. By 1 May he had decided that partition was inevitable and he prescribed a comprehensive procedure for achieving it. He admitted that the problems were ‘complex and considerable’ but that he would pursue that policy.106

When Ismay and Abell attended the India and Burma Committee meeting on 5 May, Ismay reported that Mountbatten had encountered unexpected bitterness and opposition and had determined that the chances of co-operation between Congress and the League were ‘negligible’. He was determined that responsibility for partition should be seen as entirely the responsibility of Indian leaders. He would hold a meeting on 20 May and inform the leaders that the results of the meeting would be announced immediately.107 The need for speed was stressed in the draft announcement of the proposed transfer of power.108

There followed a month of breathtaking activity as both Congress and the League jockeyed for position before 20 May. Mountbatten reported that he had received a letter from Gandhi, effectively saying that the business of partition was not the responsibility of the British. Britain’s job was to maintain order, transfer power and quit. As to the States, he argued that paramountcy automatically devolved to the Indian government. 109 Gandhi had now realised that Mountbatten and, therefore, the British Cabinet, saw partition as the only viable course and he attempted to ensure Congress domination of the putative government without interference from London. Mountbatten’s tactic had worked.

On the following day Mountbatten revealed his hand, arguing that, for the best chance of success, the transfer of power should take place during 1947.110 His arguments were somewhat specious but high on the list was enhancement of British prestige, which he knew would appeal to London. It is improbable that he reached this conclusion over the twenty-four hours since his previous cable. He simply timed his telegrams to stimulate a progression of thought from 10 to 11 May along lines that he had already formulated. His dexterity was confirmed when Nehru wrote to him on 12 May, commenting that ‘HMG seems to function in an ivory tower of their own isolated from realities in India. They proceed apparently on certain assumptions which have little relevance and ignore the basic factors of the situation.’111 This was an inspired ploy by Mountbatten, creating the impression that he and Nehru were working together with only bureaucratic red tape being contributed by Whitehall. Perhaps sensing this, Leslie Rowan, Attlee’s Principal Private Secretary, suggested to Attlee that he go to India to negotiate the details of the transfer. If he pulled it off, Rowan argued, it would be a ‘master stroke’.112 Attlee, unsurprisingly, did not take the bait.

Just ten days after Ismay had presented Mountbatten’s plan to the committee Attlee reported in Cabinet that, after meetings with Indian leaders, the plan had been altered. Mountbatten would present new proposals to the Cabinet in person.113 Four days later the Viceroy gave the committee his opinion that unless Pakistan were created there would be civil war. Nehru objected to the ‘Balkanisation’ of India, confident that Pakistan would ultimately revert. Both Pakistan and India could, Mountbatten believed, remain part of the Commonwealth only if independence were granted ‘well before the end of 1947’.114

At first the new proposal was ill received by the Cabinet, who had rushed to approve the original plan. Now they were being asked to approve a new proposal almost instantly. In truth, however, they could not reject a plan agreed to by Congress, the Muslim League and the Viceroy. Attlee praised the remarkable skill and initiative which the Viceroy had shown in the conduct of these difficult negotiations, urging that he ‘be given a large measure of discretion to amend the details of the plan, without prior consultation with His Majesty’s government.’115 It remained only to obtain the approval of the Opposition, which the proposal that both countries become members of the Commonwealth facilitated.

On 31 May Mountbatten and Ismay returned to Delhi and on 2 June the Viceroy presented the government’s statement of ‘Immediate Transfer of Power’, to which Mountbatten required leaders to respond before midnight. On 3 June all parties accepted the revised plan. Attlee announced this in the Commons, expressing ‘the gratitude and appreciation of His Majesty’s government for the great services which the Viceroy has rendered’.116 It is revealing that in none of the statements was the word ‘Pakistan’ mentioned. Attlee was deliberately imprecise.

On the following day Mountbatten held a press conference at which he sparkled. Indians had wanted independence and made partition inevitable. ‘I am quite sincere when I say that you have got to make up your own minds.’117 Most remarkable was the statement that he planned for the transfer of power on about 15 August, a date that he claimed had been agreed with Indian leaders. No record of such agreement exists. Nehru reacted with incredulity. Rowan noted that it would be very hard to get legislation through in so short a time. ‘Accept Viceroy’s proposal,’ Attlee minuted in his own hand in response.118

The announcement was greeted hysterically among Muslims. For Jinnah, however, partition of Bengal and Punjab posed problems. Who would live where? Should Muslims left in India migrate? Above all, the idea of India, a continent more than a country, was disintegrating. The proposed division of the Army also came as a shock.119 Moreover, it weakened the Army at the time it was most needed. Sikhs realised with horror that their land would be divided; they lobbied for pushing the border west. Asked if he foresaw transfers of population, Mountbatten disowned responsibility, saying that this was a matter for local rather than central government.120 A callous acceptance of the cost of withdrawal was thus laid at India’s door. A slow trickle of refugees began while the plan was being discussed, as people realised that their religion not political beliefs would turn them into minorities within the new state. The wealthy moved their capital out of Pakistan before partition. Concern that communities should be protected from outsiders spawned armed camps.

Attlee said ‘he was hopeful that there would be no bloodshed but feared that there would be’.121 Effectively, British politicians, to the horror of those who had devoted their lives to India, had decided that their responsibility to South Asians had ended.

Having settled the issues between Congress and the League to his satisfaction, Mountbatten turned to the princely states. He was determined to persuade them to affiliate with either India or Pakistan, applying salesmanship and outright pressure until he succeeded. Hyderabad and Kashmir, however, continued to elude him; their princes felt betrayed by the Viceroy’s pressure. This feeling was shared by Sir Walter Monckton, adviser to the Nizam of Hyderabad, who wrote to Leo Amery, ‘It is horrible that we should have encouraged the Rulers to believe in our promises up to such a short time ago and should then leave them without the resources to stand comfortably on their own feet.’122 Mountbatten granted an extension of two months for their accession and so was able to declare independence without having resolved their status.

As Independence Day approached Mountbatten drove himself as crisis after crisis arose. Some issues he dealt with; others he sidestepped. In the case of the boundaries it was clear that both sides would be unhappy; Mountbatten hoped that the distress of the other side would reassure each leader that his side had not been badly treated. Playing safe, he postponed announcement of Sir Cyril Radcliffe’s boundary awards until 17 August. Discord over boundaries would not be allowed to mar the optimistic fanfare of Independence Day.

From all quarters, Indian and British, came tributes to Mountbatten’s dexterity in brokering the agreement. Attlee cabled him, ‘Your short tenure of Viceroyalty has been one of the most memorable in a long list.’123 One of Attlee’s goals was achieved when American columnist Walter Lippmann wrote in earnest praise of the achievement. ‘Perhaps Britain’s finest hour is not in the past. Attlee and Mountbatten have done a service to all mankind by showing what statesmen can do not with force and money but with lucidity, resolution and sincerity.’124

In the massacres that followed Independence many died – how many is not known, but figures between 250,000 and a million were widely accepted. At a speech at India House in November 1947 Mountbatten suggested that ‘only’ 100,000 had been killed, a statement whose callousness shocked Ismay.125 At his first meeting with Attlee it had been common ground that in achieving self-government India would suffer ‘further grave communal disorders’.126 The extent of disorder, combined with the massive movements of population, came as a shock, not only to Mountbatten but also to Nehru and Congress leaders.

Wavell and Mountbatten shared the view that immediate action was necessary if civil war was to be prevented. Penderel Moon believes that the damage would have been worse had there been less decisive action by Attlee and Mountbatten. ‘The vigour and speed with which Lord Mountbatten acted had at least the merit of confining it to the Punjab.’127 ‘All things considered’, it was a mercy, he wrote, that Mountbatten did not foresee more clearly the magnitude of the calamity that threatened the Punjab. He might have faltered, desperate to avoid it while the whole country drifted into civil war. By driving at top speed he divided the country and the armed forces before strife spread beyond the Punjab.128

Attlee continued to maintain that rapid disengagement reduced the ensuing slaughter. In his later interview with Francis Williams he bordered on cynicism when he spoke of the massacres. They’d been brewing for some time, he said. ‘They started with one lot killing the other in Bengal.’ Then they spread until the Sikhs, a ‘very undependable and a rough people’, were involved.129

That Attlee was determined to bring the Raj to an end is beyond doubt. Equally certain is that, at the outset, he wanted to transfer power to a monument of British achievement – to a united India. It was the very lack of unity that had allowed Britain to divide and rule the country, yet the notion of Mother India had gained such credence under Gandhi’s influence130 that partition was at first unthinkable. Moreover, the affinity between Labour and Congress set the course of government policy and demonised Jinnah for his determination to create a separate Muslim state. Mountbatten had no difficulty in expressing his affinity for Nehru, a Harrow and Trinity man.131 Neither Attlee nor Mountbatten was open-handed in dealing with the two Indian parties. Mountbatten arrived in Delhi, disposed to partition but careful not to give the impression that he had reached a decision.132 As to partiality, Nehru became a ‘family friend’; whether or not his relations with Lady Mountbatten were intimate, they were certainly closer than Foreign Office guidelines for officials overseas.

As to the communal violence that followed hasty partition, the Maharaja of Bhopal told Mountbatten that the June 1948 deadline was ‘quite impossible and if enforced must involve bloodshed and chaos’.133 A week later, Gandhi added that the British system of Divide and Rule had created a situation where either the British remained to enforce law and order or there would be a bloodbath.134 Sir Evan Jenkins, Governor of Punjab, referred to the proposed division of Punjab as Operation Solomon,135 the very name of the operation connoting unnatural division and violence.

Beyond the facts, everything is contrafactual speculation. Could Wavell’s Breakdown Plan have saved lives? Could the massacres have been avoided if Attlee had appointed Mountbatten earlier – in October 1946, when Wavell’s term ended? Mountbatten himself thought that if he had taken on the task eighteen months earlier his job would have been greatly easier. Christopher Mayhew recorded that Bevin, on first meeting Wavell in August 1945, had ‘gone straight off to the PM and demanded his removal. The man was a hopeless defeatist, he said.’136 Should not Attlee have replaced Wavell then? Mountbatten has admirers and his fair share of detractors but, setting aside his colossal vanity and ruthless ambition, the fact remains that he achieved what Attlee asked of him. What, then, were Attlee’s objectives?

The most obvious clue is to be found in the announcement of 20 February 1947 in which the handing over of power is treated as the culmination of British policy. That Britain had the chance to make a virtue of necessity and present its actions as other than a ‘scuttle’ is remarkable. That India’s independence was declared before the national boundary lines were known, before the accession of Kashmir and Hyderabad had been decided, is evidence of haste rather than orderly transfer. In those circumstances it is easy to see why India’s – and, if possible, Pakistan’s – membership of the Commonwealth was symbolically so important. Attlee was able to present a national humiliation as a triumph of statesmanship.

After a slow start Attlee took control of a problem that was fast becoming intractable. To find a solution he was compelled to grant unprecedented power to a man whose vanity alone would ensure some kind of solution. Whatever his faults, Mountbatten was uniquely equipped to bring the Raj to an end in a manner that reflected best on him – and, therefore, on Britain. Possessed of great charm, massive ambition, royal blood to impress the princes, and a competent press attaché, he was able to achieve what was widely considered impossible.

As to the massacres, violence was inevitable; quantifying it in different scenarios is impossible. Penderel Moon believes that by localising the slaughter hasty withdrawal contained the bloodshed. Attlee’s and Mountbatten’s critics maintain that haste – a ‘scuttle’ – widened the slaughter unnecessarily. Both opinions are speculative.

In the two years between the 1945 election and Independence Day Attlee became fatalistic about India’s future. In a speech in September 1945, in the first flush of optimism, he spoke of solving the country’s problems with a little co-operation from all sides. Speaking of India’s contribution to the Allied war effort, he appealed to reason.

With his eyes on India post-independence he gravely underestimated the problems of transition. By early 1947, when he took firm control, replaced Pethick-Lawrence,138 and appointed Mountbatten, Britain had lost the initiative. It needed the Mountbatten treatment to portray rapid disengagement as a settlement, and assiduous public relations work restored Britain’s prestige. The other side of that coin, however, is that Attlee’s originally uncertain leadership contributed to the drift.

ENDNOTES

1 See Chapter 4.

2 Amery to PM, 13 November 1942 and 16 April 1943. TNA: PREM 5/532.

3 Moon, The Viceroy’s Journal. Entry for 26 July 1945, p. 159.

4 Ibid., Entry for 31 July 1945, p. 159.

5 Ibid., Entry for 6 August 1945, p. 161.

6 Ibid., Entry for 22 August 1945, p. 164.

7 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 1, CM(45) 24th, folio 61 for the Cabinet decision to invite Wavell to London.

8 The Viceroy’s Journal. Entry for 22 August 1945, p. 164.

9 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 1. CP (45) 155, folio 53.

10 The Viceroy’s Journal, Entry for 11 September 1945, p. 171.

11 Transfer of Power, VI, p. 393, 25 October 1945.

12 Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the head of the British professional Army. Previously Sir Alan Brooke.

13 Bryant, Triumph in the West, p. 382.

14 The Viceroy’s Journal. Entry for 5 November 1945, p. 181,

15 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 1. CP (45) 281, folio 44, 14 November 1945.

16 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 1. I. B. (45) 7th Meeting, folio 41.

17 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 1. Brook to Attlee, folio 12.

18 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 1. C. M. (45) 56th Meeting, Conclusions Minute 3, folio 5.

19 The Viceroy’s Journal, January 1946, p. 202.

20 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 2. I. B. (46) 4, folios 185–195.

21 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 2. I. B. (46) 1st Meeting, folio 176.

22 Transfer of Power, VI, p. 771.

23 Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition, pp. 44–45.

24 Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition, pp. 47–52.

25 The Times of India, 15 January 1946

26 Adrian Fort, Archibald Wavell: The Life and Times of an Imperial Servant, p. 391.

27 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 2. C. M. (46) 14th, Conclusions Minute 3, folio 126.

28 Exchange of telegrams Wavell and Pethick-Lawrence. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 2, folios 114 and 116.

29 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 2. Cable Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 3 March 1946, folio 72.

30 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 2. Cable Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 6 March 1946, folio 56. (Mountbatten, of course, recognised this and insisted on greater autonomy.)

31 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 2. Cable Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 10 March 1946, folios 45–46.

32 The Viceroy’s Journal, Entry for 30 June1946, p. 310.

33 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 3. C. M. (46) 28th Conclusions, folio 261.

34 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 3, folio 255.

35 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 3. C. M. (46) 33rd Conclusions, folio 244.

36 I. B. Committee to Cabinet Mission, 13 April 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, folio 228.

37 The summer capital of the Raj and site of the Viceregal Lodge.

38 Mission to I. B. Committee, 30 April 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 3, folios 211–215.

39 Cabinet 14 May 1946, TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 3. C. M. (46) 46th, folios 106–110.

40 Mission to I. B. Committee, 18 May 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 3, folios 65–66.

41 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 3, folios 26–49.

42 The Viceroy’s Journal, Entry for 16 May, pp. 270–272. (The text of the statement is in Appendix II.)

43 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 4, folios 158–163.

44 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 4, folios 144–152.

45 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 4. C. M. (46) 69th, folio 151.

46 Viceroy to India Office, 18 July 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 4, folio 136.

47 Transfer of Power, VIII, p. 770.

48 He also felt that Wavell was too ‘silent’. The Indians, said Attlee, ‘are very loquacious. Silent people can’t make much of a relationship with them.’ Williams, Nothing So Strange, p. 251.

49 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 4, folios 67–69, 31 July 1946.

50 Bodleian: MS. Dep. Simon 96/206.

51 Bodleian: MS. Dep. Simon 97/15.

52 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 4, folio 15, 26 June 1946.

53 Cripps had produced a lucid, if one-sided, summary of the Mission’s activities, squarely blaming Jinnah for the deadlock. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 5, folios 173–192, 5 July 1946.

54 Attlee’s resolve to make Indian politicians take responsibility is illustrated by his comments in Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 208.

55 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 5, folio 46.

56 A British official described the riots as a cross between the worst of London air raids and the Great Plague. Suranjan Das, Communal Riots in Bengal, 1905–1947, p. 171, cited at Khan, The Great Partition, p. 63.

57 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 5, folio 31.

58 Daily Mail, 9 September 1946.

59 Wavell to India Office, 23 October 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 7, folios 270–275. In this cable Wavell stated that if HMG persisted in urging a one-party interim government dominated by Congress, he would have to reconsider his position. This was his first threat to resign.

60 Wavell to India Office, 11 November 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 7, folio 265.

61 25 November 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 7. C. M. (46) 100th, folios 165–166.

62 Wavell to India Office, 26 November 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 7, folios 162–164.

63 Attlee to Nehru, 28 November 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 7, folio 158.

64 Jinnah to Attlee, 30 November 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 7, folio 148.

65 He commented that Nehru’s assurance that the door was open meant that the door was open for Muslim surrender. The Times, 19 August 1946.

66 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 7. I. C. L. (46) 12, folio 55.

67 Cabinet, 10 December 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 7. C. M. (46) 104th, folio 47.

68 11 December 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 7. I. B. (46) 8th Meeting, folios 23–28.

69 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 8, folios 204–207, 202–203,.

70 Wavell to CRA, 20 December 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 8, folio 169.

71 CRA to Wavell, 21 December 1946. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 8, folio 166.

72 Reflections on the Transfer of Power and Jawaharlal Nehru, Admiral of the Fleet Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Trinity College, Cambridge – 14 November 1968, para 7.

73 The Diaries of Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, Entry for 15 August 1943. War Diaries, p. 441.

74 Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, p. 567; War Diaries, Entry for 6 August 1943, p. 437.

75 Reflections on the Transfer of Power and Jawaharlal Nehru, Admiral of the Fleet The Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Trinity College, Cambridge – 14th November 1968, para 4.

76 Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 209. Mountbatten had been on the shortlist of candidates to replace Lord Linlithgow in 1943.

77 This condition was specified by Mountbatten in a letter to CRA on 17 February 1947. TNA: PREM 8/563, folios 3–5. The question of who first thought of imposing a time limit has been endlessly discussed but is relatively unimportant.

78 The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay, p. 413.

79 Bevin to CRA, 1 January 1947. TNA: PREM 8/564, folios 10–15.

80 CRA, to Bevin 2 January 1947. TNA: PREM 8/564, folios 2–5.

81 For the aura of secrecy surrounding preparations see The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay, pp. 409–411.

82 CRA to Viceroy, TNA: PREM 8/554, folios 54–6.

83 The Viceroy’s Journal, Entry for 8 January 1947, p. 408.

84 The Viceroy’s Journal, Entry for 12 January 1947, p. 410.

85 CRA to Viceroy, 31 January 1947. TNA: PREM 8/554, folios 39–41.

86 The Viceroy’s Journal. Entry for 4 February 1947, p. 417.

87 Viceroy to CRA, 5 February 1947. TNA: PREM 8/554, folios 37–8.

88 Viceroy to CRA, 14 February 1947. TNA: PREM 8/554, T34/47, folio 28.

89 CRA to Viceroy, 14 February 1947. TNA: PREM 8/554, T35/47, folio 25.

90 CRA to Viceroy, 21 February 1947. TNA: PREM 8/554, T59/47, folio 19.

91 Lord Listowel, Nehru Memorial Lecture, 24 June 1980. Listowel continued, ‘… it was not until Mountbatten went out as Viceroy that the tight rein of ministers was loosened.’

92 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 9. CM (47) 21st Conclusions, folios 114–115.

93 By Attlee (Hansard, HC Deb, 20 February 1947, cols 1395–98) and, in the House of Lords by Pethick-Lawrence, Hansard, Lords, 20 February 1947, cols. 835–839.

94 The Viceroy’s Journal, 13 February 1947, p. 419.

95 Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 210.

96 Hansard, HC Deb, 5 March 1947, cols 494–512.

97 Hansard, HC Deb, 5 March 1947, cols 512–525.

98 Hansard, HC Deb, 6 March 1947, cols 663–678.

99 Hansard, HC Deb, 6 March 1947, cols 763–772.

100 Ziegler, Mountbatten p. 359.

101 Reflections on the Transfer of Power and Jawaharlal Nehru, Admiral of the Fleet The Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Trinity College, Cambridge – 14th November 1968, para 41.

102 Ibid, para 28.

103 Ibid, para 54.

104 Transfer of Power, X, p. 49.

105 Transfer of Power, X, p. 192.

106 Viceroy to India Office, 1 May 1947. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10, Cable 954–S, folio 342.

107 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10. I. B. (47) 31st Meeting, folio 321.

108 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10, folio 311, 6 May 1947.

109 Viceroy to India Office, 10 May 1947. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10, folios 260–261.

110 Viceroy to India Office, 11 May 1947. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10, cable 57–SC, folio 249.

111 Viceroy to India Office, 12 May 1947. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10, cable 57–SC, folio 249.

112 Rowan to PM, 15 May 1947. TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10, folios 247–248.

113 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10. CM (47) 47th meeting, folio 239.

114 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10. IB (47) 25th meeting, folio 210.

115 TNA: PREM 8/541, Part 10. CM (47) 50th, folios 114–118. CAB 128/10.

116 Hansard, HC Deb, 3 June 1947, vol. 438, column 35.

117 Transfer of Power, X, pp. 115–122.

118 Harris, Attlee, pp. 383–384.

119 In March 1947 Auchinleck had estimated that it would take between five and ten years to divide the Army into two forces. This now had to be achieved in a few months at the very time that an impartial military force was needed in several cities and at the boundary line.

120 The Times of India, 5 June 1947.

121 From a private conversation cited by Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition, pp. 102–103.

122 Monckton Papers, Box 41, 186. Cited by Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 415.

123 Broadlands Archive, S147, cited by Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 427.

124 Washington Post, 7 June 1947.

125 Ismay Papers, III/8/22b, cited by Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 437.

126 Transfer of Power, IX, p. 741.

127 Moon, Divide and Quit, p. 277.

128 Ibid. p. 283.

129 Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers, p. 211.

130 Perry Anderson, ‘Gandhi Centre Stage’, London Review of Books, 5 July 2012.

131 Reflections on the Transfer of Power and Jawaharlal Nehru, Admiral of the Fleet The Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Trinity College, Cambridge – 14th November 1968, para 41.

132 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, Entries for 16 April and 25 April 1947, pp. 65 and 71.

133 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, Entry for 25 March 1947, p. 44.

134 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, Entry for 1 April 1947, p. 52.

135 Campbell-Johnson, Mission with Mountbatten, Entry for 16 April 1947, p. 65.

136 Mayhew, Time to Explain, p. 103.

137 Bodleian: MS. Attlee. Dep. 22, 19 September 1945.

138 Pethick-Lawrence wrote to Attlee on 2 April 1947, saying that he was ‘more than ever convinced that the increasingly heavy responsibilities falling upon the holder of my office and in particular the framing and piloting through Parliament of the legislation necessary to effect the transfer of power in India and Burma require to be undertaken by a younger man, and the sooner he is in the saddle the better.’ Pethick-Lawrence was 75 at this point. On 17 April he was succeeded by Lord Listowel, aged 40. Bodleian: MS. Attlee. Dep. 51.