hat Wolpert would discover some 55 years after the Partition of India -- and the concomitant fleeing of more than 10 million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs from one side to another -- was so horrifying that the 79-year-old historian might have had a hard time believing it.
Mountbatten was not only totally inept at dealing with fractious Indian political parties, Wolpert writes, he hastened the process of Independence. The British government wanted to leave India by 1948 but Mountbatten cut the time by half to mid-August 1947 because he was impatient to get back to England and build his naval career.
Much of it had to do with vindicating his father's reputation.
First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy Prince Louis of Battenberg was forced to resign from the fleet during World War I because of his German origin. The family changed the last name to Mountbatten to avoid further vilification. His then 14-year-old son resolved to join the navy and remain in it until he became First Sea Lord.
"So Mountbatten resolved to make fast work of his India job," Wolpert says. "The British cabinet gave him a longer time, but he never had any intention of using it."
Cloak and dagger
Worse, Mountbatten kept the Partition maps of Punjab and Bengal -- with the Muslim areas of the two provinces going to the newly created Pakistan -- secret, until it was opportune for him to make the announcement.
'Mountbatten had resolved to wait until India's Independence Day festivities were all over,' Wolpert writes, 'the flashbulb photos all shot and transmitted worldwide, Dickie's medal-strewn white uniform viewed with admiration by millions, from Buckingham and Windsor palaces to the White House. What a glorious charade of British imperial largesse and power 'peacefully' transferred.'
Image: At the conference in New Delhi where Lord Louis Mountbatten disclosed Britain's Partition plan for India. (Left to right) Jawaharlal Nehru, Mountbatten's adviser Lord Ismay, Mountbatten and Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images
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