Sunday 18 April 2010


Did the Nehru-Edwina affair change the course of India’s history?
by Raj K. Mitra on October 12, 2009

That Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, and Lady Edwina Mountbatten, wife of India’s last Viceroy, were in love was never really a secret. But, did they ever hold each other’s hands? Did they ever kiss each other? Did they ever tumble on each other in bed? We don’t know for sure, and probably we will never know whether the ‘emotional’ or ‘platonic’ relation ever become ‘sexual’, because both preferred to keep it private.

I belong to the school of thought that believes public figures should be allowed their privacy. But, if that private life has a bearing on public affairs, it should be rigorously scrutinised. Thus the question—was Nehru ever influenced in his policies by Edwina?—assumes monumental significance in the history of independent India, particularly in the context of the Kashmir issue. Edwina was, after all, the wife of Lord Mountbatten, the man, Jinnah or no Jinnah, who had been largely held responsible for the partition and for keeping the Kashmir issue alive for more than six decades.

Nehru wrote letters to Edwina every day, after she left India, until her death. In his letters, Nehru often sought Edwina’s advice on matters of governance and strategy, according to British author Janet Morgan who was given access to the correspondence by the Mountbatten family. Morgan was given a small box weighing more than five pounds. The box contained all the letters Nehru wrote to Edwina between 1948 and 1960. A few of them even had a rose pressed between the pages.

According to Morgan, in one of those letters, Pandit Nehru apparently wrote about the embarrassment VK Krishna Menon, India’s first high commissioner to the Court of St. James, had become. In another letter, Nehru apprised Lady Mountbatten about how difficult it had become to deal with colleagues in the Congress party. Edwina’s reply could not be known as the Nehru-Gandhi family preferred to keep those letters under wraps.

Such letters bear testimony to the fact that Edwina often had a piece of advice for Nehru on political matters. When Edwina died, Nehru’s letters were found scattered on her bed. Nehru had sent a wreath of marigolds to be dropped in the English Channel.

Pamela Mountbatten, daughter of Lord Mountbatten and Edwina, in an interview to Karan Thapar on Devil’s Advocate, said that the Edwina-Nehru relationship was also of use to her father. And that Lord Mountbatten often appealed to Panditji given the influence Edwina had; this was particularly useful while handling tricky situations like Kashmir.

“He (Lord Mountbatten) did use her (Edwina Mountbatten) in such ways. But he certainly wasn’t going to throw her, he didn’t say to her ‘go and become the Prime Minister’s (Nehru) lover, because I need you to intercede.’ It was a by-product of this deep affection.”

When asked to comment on many people’s belief in India that the decision Nehru took to refer the Kashmir issue to the UN was taken under her father’s advice. Could that have been an area where Edwina’s influence had been particularly useful?

“I think it could have been. Because Panditji, being a Kashmiri, of course, inevitably the emotional side comes in from one’s own country, doesn’t it? And my father just in dry conversation might not have been able to get his viewpoint over, but with my mother translating it for Panditji and making, you know, appealing to his heart more than his mind that he should really behave like this. I think probably that did happen.”

Pamela added, “But what was the important outcome of it all, was really for the good of India. And I think Ms. Gandhi, when she became Prime Minister; she was a very clever politician, an amazing woman. But Panditji was a real statesman, it never occurred to him to make anything out of his position; he never made money out of it. He was the real idealist, for the good of India, always.”

Although it is quite hard to believe that Nehru had abandoned principle and patriotism in deference to Edwina’s charms, there is little doubt that he did commit a series of historic blunders. But, unfortunately, historians like Ramachandra Guha have been unnecessarily kind to Nehru while scripting India’s post-independence history. In fact, Nehru’s one of the biggest blunders was to retain Lord Mountbatten as the Governor General of independent India. Probably, he could not trust any Congress leader for that role, and preferred to rely on a person he ‘admired’ a lot.

In October 1947, infiltrators from North-West Frontier Province entered Kashmir, killed, looted and raped, and marched ahead. By October 26, the infiltrators had reached the outskirts of Srinagar and Kashmir’s ruler Hari Singh had no other choice but to sign the instrument of accession, albeit reluctantly, though he remained sceptical about his future in Kashmir under Nehru’s rule.

The next month Lord Mountbatten put himself in a strange situation, where he as the titular head of India decided to go to Karachi to negotiate a solution to the Kashmir issue with Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan under the instructions of his ‘employer’ based in London. For strategic reasons, Britain was inclined towards Pakistan and Mountbatten was reportedly given the responsibility to ensure that India do not take any steps to flush out the infiltrators from Jammu & Kashmir. By the end of 1947, Mountbatten had convinced Nehru to refer the Kashmir issue to the UN. He made Nehru believe that it was the ‘only solution’.

On 20 December 1947, Nehru reluctantly accepted the idea, amid strong opposition from a large section of the Congress leadership, including Sardar Patel. Mountbatten succeeded in implementing the designs of the then British Prime Minister Clement Attlee. On one hand, he continued to highlight the dangers of military escalation to Nehru, on the other, he smuggled confidential information to Attlee. It was during those days when Edwina probably managed to make it “appealing to his heart more than his mind”. The events that followed are well known. India’s case was buried in the bureaucratic corridors of the UN; the infiltrators were allowed to remain on the Indian soil, what later came to be known as Pak Occupied Kashmir (PoK).

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