This is the text of Professor Morris-Jones's Kingsley Martin Memorial Lecture delivered in Cambridge on 4 March 1981.

Much of the material in this paper has benefited greatly from extended discussions with Professor Robin Moore of Flinders University during his stay as Chapman Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London. His writings on this period, seminar papers and articles awaiting publication were most valuable and are referred to in the footnotes. The staff at the India Office Records were as usual unfailingly helpful and I must express special thanks to Mr David Blake who responded patiently to a host of puzzled enquiries by sharing with me his intimate knowledge of the relevant files. If, despite such assistance, errors remain, the responsibility is mine, as it is for all the personal accounts and judgements.

¹ At his Press Conference on 29 March 1942, Cripps said: ‘The Indian States are governed by treaties. The treaties, so far as I know, with Britain, will continue to exist unless somebody wants to alter them…. The Indian States, if they do not join in this Union, will remain in exactly the same situation as they are today’. However, at the same time he made another statement: ‘There will be no maintenance of Imperial troops in the country unless it is at the request of and by agreement with one of the new Indian Unions’. (Mansergh, Nicholas (ed.), The Transfer of Power 1942–7, I, 541.Google Scholar) It would seem to have been inconsistent to imply continuing Crown protection while removing the necessary means to make it effective.

² The studied ambiguity of the Cabinet Mission Memorandum on States' Treaties and Paramountcy of 12 May 1946 was in two respects understandable. First, it was (as the Mission explained in a note issued on 22 May 1946 at the time when the Memorandum was first published) drawn up before their discussions with the political leaders; it indeed simply ‘represented the substance of what they communicated to the representatives of the States at their first interviews’. However, in their own plan set out in the statement of 16 May 1946 ambiguity persisted: ‘The precise form which [the States’] cooperation [in the new development of India] will take must be a matter for negotiation and it by no means follows that it will be identical for all States’. Second, it must be remembered that the Mission plan envisaged no time limit and further provided that during the constitution-making period the Viceroy would remain and be in a position to oversee the negotiations which would either incorporate the States in the new Union of India or lead to ‘particular political arrangements’. In my view it was less excusable to be content with such ambiguity in February 1947 when the reassuring ‘interim period’ was made precise and limited, still less in June 1947 when the ‘interim’ became a mere ten weeks and when constitution-making was clearly shifted (with the aid of Dominion status and simple amendment of the 1935 Act) to the post-independence period. See The Transfer of Power 1942–7, VII, 522 (12 May) and VII, 582 (16 May)Google Scholar; also Menon, V. P., The Story of the Integration of the Indian States (1956), pp. 60–9.Google Scholar

³ Cmd. 7047, Transfer, IX, 773.

⁴ Cmd. 7136, Transfer, forthcoming. The mechanisms set in motion by this plan were clearly understood on all sides as leading to the partition of British India and the emergence of two new Dominions. The plan's preparation called for such concentrated attention that its implications for princely India were inadequately examined—except, of course, by the Political Department.

⁵ I take these passages from my private copy, but Professor Robin Moore has found my note as well as Monckton's in the Mountbatten Archive. See Moore, R. J., ‘India in 1947: The limits of unity’, in Dalton, D. G. and Wilson, A. J. (eds), South Asia: The Future of National Integration (forthcoming) where it is cited as file 70, the file number being that assigned temporarily to the xerox copies held by India Office Records. See note 6.Google Scholar

⁶ I should add that I am relying almost entirely on the India Office Records; it was uncanny mistiming on my part which led to my requesting at the end of 1981 access to the Mountbatten archive just about one week after it was firmly closed to all but the newly-appointed official biographer.

⁷ Minutes of the Residents' Conference, 16–17 December 1946, India Office Records, file R/1/29/3193. Unless otherwise stated all file references are to the IOR files.

⁸ Menon, , Integration of the Indian States, p. 79.Google Scholar

⁹ This was stated in a memo by Corfield headed ‘Paramountcy and the Interim Period’ originally prepared in December 1946 but located in the late April 1947 papers in R/3/1/136. In no context was the delicacy of the problem of combining some maintenance of paramountcy up to the transfer of power with some ‘retraction’ of paramountcy to enable the States to stand on their own feet more clearly illustrated than in the vexed question of the ‘removal of restrictions on the Nizam of Hyderabad’ (the title of the interesting file, R/1/29/3176.) The Nizam had been obliged to appoint a British officer to the key post of Revenue and Police Member of his Executive Council. That officer was now due to retire. In a note of early February, Creagh Coen held that the removal of this restriction would be inconsistent with the decision to keep restrictions ‘unless internal constitutional developments [in Hyderabad], involving a real devolution of power, justified such relaxation’. Corfield overruled him and was supported by Wavell who wrote: ‘We cannot influence events or maintain restrictions in Hyderabad much longer. I do not see anything much to be gained by delay’. Accordingly on 5 March 1947 Corfield visited the Nizam to convey the decision. However, in doing so he also added that it would help ‘confidence on all sides’ if the Nizam would consult closely with the Resident; this would in any case be advisable in the Nizam's own interests, for if he failed to do so and needed ‘assistance to deal with internal disorder’, then ‘the justification for providing it would have to be very strong’! Corfield added: ‘H. E. H. appreciated this point’.

¹⁰ The phrase is Moore's (‘India in 1947’), but Nehru more than once referred to ‘many Ulsters’ (e.g. in his ‘explosive’ note of 11 May 1947 to the Viceroy, L/PO/429).

¹¹ Viceroy to Secretary of State, 17 June, R/3/1/137. The need for two cables had arisen because the Political Department had objected strongly to the draft prepared by the Reforms Department. The former won this particular round: the Secretary of State ruled that they had correctly interpreted the relevant paragraph of the Memorandum of 12 May 1946. But this was after Nehru had already won on a more important issue at the conference on 13 June. See note 13.

¹² Viceroy's Personal Reports Nos 12 (11 July), 14 (25 July), and 15 (1 August), L/PO/433.

¹³ The conflict between Congress and the Political Department was of very long standing. Each interpreted the 1946 Memorandum in its own interests as perceived: for Corfield the States were, as paramountcy lapsed, moving towards their independence, from which they could, but only if they chose, enter into free negotiations for some ‘political arrangement’ with the Government of India; for Nehru, States’ independence and the disruption of the country being ‘anarchy by the back door’ and therefore impossible, the option of having no ‘political arrangement’ was not open. The logic of the one led to proposing that States should be left free to make contacts as they wished—with the Constituent Assembly if they wanted incorporation in the Union, with individual government departments on administration relations and with the External Affairs Department if they aimed to be independent states (Corfield's long memo of 27 March 1947, R/3/1/136). The logic of the other led to creating a new States ministry which would secure a closing of all fissiparous options by arranging accession in respect of the three subjects (Nehru to Viceroy, 26 May, R/3/1/136 and 4 June, R/3/1/137). The India Office wobbled between a number of points somewhere between the two. Corfield's efforts and some Office resistance are well shown in L/P&S/13/1831. A major turning point in the struggle for the Viceroy's support was the Viceroy's 18th Miscellaneous Meeting on 13 June (R/3/ 1/137) when Nehru charged Corfield to his face with ‘misfeasance’ and demanded an immediate high-level judicial inquiry. The decision was taken to set up a States Ministry. That Ministry's negotiations with the States are referred to in R/1/30/39 and R/1/30/40 and are the subject of Menon's book (Integration of the Indian States). James Manor has made the point that ‘since the vacuum created by the decampment of one paramount power was bound to be filled by another’, it can be said ‘that paramountcy was transferred and that it was inevitable that it be transferred’. (Manor, ‘The Demise of the Princely Order: A Reassessment’, in Jeffrey, R. (ed.), People, Princes and Paramount Power (1970)Google Scholar, and in a personal communication.) In terms of the relative powers and capacities of the government at Delhi and the rulers of the States, there is clearly much validity in this view. But the course of historical inevitability does not invariably flow as smoothly as this formulation appears to imply. Nor, I suggest, is the force of rearguard thoughts and actions to be underestimated. This is particularly so as regards timing—and timing can be vital. In that regard, Manor did well to mention (note 50) that his discussion was ‘intended to refer mainly to states other than Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir’.

¹⁴ Secretary of State to Viceroy, 18 April, R/3/ 1/ 136. But he did allow that ‘the most presumably that we could consider would be a special treaty relationship’.

¹⁵ Drafts for India Committee meetings on 7 and 12 May, L/PO/428.

¹⁶ In the end, as already mentioned, all these versions were abandoned, leaving nothing but the ‘unchanged’ policy. Nehru's note of 11 May was circulated to the India Committee on 16 May. The re-draft of the Viceroy and the India Office revise were circulated on 17 May (L/PO/429). It is an odd mystery that Nehru himself in a letter of 16 May 1947 to the Viceroy suggested that the very words introduced by the Viceroy to meet his (Nehru's) objections ‘should be deleted’ and replaced simply by a reference to the Cabinet Mission scheme of 16 May 1946. Did he find ‘hope’ too weak? Could he have seen the Cabinet Mission scheme as more certainly integrative? The matter is very unclear and I am inclined to believe that he mistakenly failed to secure what was intended to be, and indeed would have been, a nudge towards integration, that is, a little modest support for what the Viceroy was eventually to attempt. Menon, certainly, was still seeking such a ‘nudge’ nearly two months later (see note 20). The ‘compromise’ version was in fact a return to the one originally drafted in Delhi. It accorded well with Corfield's views. It should be noted, however, that at the time of its drafting—as early as mid-April probably—the Viceroy's staff had scarcely turned attention to the States, and the matter of Dominion Status—which might be thought to create new responsibilities to successor governments—had not yet clearly emerged.

¹⁷ Note by Secretary of State, 24 May, L/P /10/79. (Italics mine.)

¹⁸ See Moore, ‘India in 1947’, where reference is made to the Templewood Collection and the Monckton papers. I have seen no direct, clear evidence that Mountbatten approved, but Ismay wrote to tell the Viceroy what he was doing— Mountbatten was in Kashmir at the time—and there is no sign of Viceregal disagreement. Ismay (Delhi) to Mountbatten (in Kashmir), 19 June, R/3/1/137. Apropos the Portuguese connection, the question of foreign powers themselves fishing in the troubled waters of the princely States was often in British minds. Even Corfield recognized this as a danger attaching to independent princelings (Corfield note of 13 May, R/3/ 1/136 and L/PO/428). The Americans asked on 25 April for an assurance that Britain was ‘not contemplating maintenance of direct relations with the States after the transfer of power’ (R/3/1/136). The Secretary of State was pleased to learn in July that the State Department had given instructions to its Delhi embassy to keep clear of dealings with States while accession discussions were proceeding, but the French were more worrying: ‘There are indications that the attitude of the French Government, particularly in regard to Hyderabad, may not be so sound, but the Foreign Office are taking such steps as they can to prevent the French going off the rails’ (Secretary of State to Viceroy, 25 July, R/3/1/139). Jinnah for his part encouraged Hyderabad's approaches; indeed, when Hyderabad dared to mention to him its wish to relate also to India, though with the safeguard of not having its forces used against Pakistan, that was for Jinnah totally inadequate: ‘I require Hyderabad as an active ally … in any such war’ (Viceroy's Personal Report No. 14, 25 July, L/PO/433).

¹⁹ Secretary of State memo, 24 June; to Viceroy, 27 June, L/P&J/10/81.

²⁰ Secretary of State to Viceroy, 1 August and Viceroy to Secretary of State, 4 August, R/3/ 1/139. Although Mountbatten's main public statement in favour of States' integration within the two Dominions—‘You cannot run away from the Dominion Government which is your neighbour any more than you can run away from your subjects for whose welfare you are responsible’—was contained in his address to the Rulers on 25 July (R/3/1/139), it would be wrong to conclude that he arrived at that position only at that late date. As early as 20 May 1947 Abell cabled back to Delhi to say that the ‘Viceroy holds that if there are two Dominions, States’ relations with the Crown will have to be through one or other of the Governor-Generals. There can be no direct relations between Crown and States because such relations would cause the disintegration of India’ (R/3/1/153). Two valuable months were lost before that position was firmly put to the Princes. As late as 7 July 1947 Menon was pleading with the India Office: ‘Even an inkling that HMG would accord independent recognition [to the States] would make infinitely difficult all attempts to bring the States and the new Dominions together … An unequivocal statement reiterating HMG's view that States should … make their arrangements through one or other of the Dominions will make all the difference in the delicate negotiations before us’ (R/3/1/138). That request, made just four days after my confrontation with Ismay, was not met. Only in a personal letter to the Viceroy as late as August did the Secretary of State say that the Princes ‘cannot expect their existing personal relations with the Crown to continue on the same basis otherwise than within the Commonwealth and through the new Dominion Governments’ (R/3/1/139).

²¹ Viceroy's Personal Report No.12, L/PO/433. V. P. Menon, too, made a confession, though later. In his book, Integration of the Indian States, and referring to the month of August 1947, he writes: ‘If truth be told, I for one had simply no time to think of Kashmir’ (p. 395). Nehru, ofcourse, had thought anxiously of Kashmir for months but it proved easy for this to be dismissed as an emotional bee in his bonnet.

²² See the reference in Mountbatten's Personal Report of 16 August 1947, L/PO/433. As late as 10 October Mountbatten in an interview with Mahajan, the Dewan-designate of Kashmir, was urging a plebiscite, referendum or elections to determine accession to Pakistan or India (R/3/1/140). But by then he was a constitutional Governor-General and less able to impose his will than in June and July.

²³ The other point was very general: Amery had invited attention to his own book, Thoughts on the Constitution, and in particular to Chapter IV on the Commonwealth. In giving the Viceroy a summary of that chapter, I commended the author's imagination in looking forward to a Commonwealth Secretariat; it came nearly a quarter of a century later. (Amery even contemplated its location, but set his eyes not on Marlborough House but on Windsor or Hampton Court.) I also found value in another of his visions which has in some measure been realized—the development of regional Commonwealth groupings. (Author's private papers.)

²⁴ Author's private papers and R/3/1/152.

²⁵ Author's private papers and Moore, ‘India in 1947’, which refers to Mountbatten files 41 and 213; also R/3/1/152 which has a note on the Viceroy's 57th Staff Meeting on 5 August—the only one I attended—where the paper was discussed. Mountbatten wished to have consideration given to two matters not dealt with in the paper: joint nationality and the possibility of a Commonwealth conference in Delhi (which might be put to Nehru if he came to London in November to attend the Royal Wedding). He also directed that my paper be sent to Monckton for his comments.

²⁶ L/P&J/ 10/89, L/P&J/ 10/90, L/P&J/ 10/91, L/P&J/ 10/92.

²⁷ The note is written on a Lumby memo of 22 September, L/P&J/10/92.

²⁸ What began as a ‘ballon d'essai’ by Turnbull in October 1946 became first draft of a letter from the India Office to the Dominions Office; all phrases except that on Russia are taken from it. The point about Russia is in a separate note over initials which are not clear. Scepticism about the judgement of the Chiefs of Staff is retained in the final version which removed most of the provocative language. This was sent to Dominions, Colonial and Foreign Offices over Monteath's signature on 8 November 1946 (L/P&J/10/122).

²⁹ The replies came in during November, L/P&J/10/122. The replies were from Machtig, Gater and Sargent respectively. The view of the Dominions Office note as ‘pretty light stuff’ came from Laithwaite.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Moore, ‘Disengagement from India: The Commonwealth Solution’, a paper presented at the Commonwealth History seminar at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, on 6 November 1980. The reference there given is to Mountbatten file 109 and the added paragraph reads: ‘HMG hope that India will remain a free and independent member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. If, however, this does not eventuate, HMG is most anxious, after the transfer of power, that there should be the closest and most friendly relations between India and the United Kingdom. A feature of this relationship should be a military treaty. At the appropriate time delegates from the Chiefs of Staff will be sent to India to assist you in framing it’.

³² The document was circulated to the India Committee by Pethick-Lawrence on 12 March and discussed on 13 March. It was also described as ‘suggestions by a member of the Interim Government’, L/PO/428.

³³ Viceroy's Personal Report No.1, 2 April, L/P&J/10/79.

³⁴ Mountbatten in his Personal Report No. 5 of 1 May 1947 spoke of a ‘new problem’ having arisen through Jinnah's statement that the question of Pakistan and the Commonwealth was not one of whether or not she would apply for admission but whether or not she could be expelled without her consent. He told Jinnah that Britain would be in ‘a quite impossible position’ if Pakistan was in the Commonwealth and India was not and war were to break out between them. At the same time he noted that Congress was engaged in ‘violent discussion’ on the propects and was ‘very frightened’; they ‘should be given no inkling of what HMG's attitude will be’ (L/P&J/ 10/79). It was a little disingenuous on Mountbatten's part to describe Jinnah's claim as posing a ‘problem’. Rather, it was grist to his mill so far as concerned encouraging Congress towards the Commonwealth: ‘I am working a very delicate manoeuvre to give Congress an opportunity of offering to come back into the Commonwealth in some form, which might bear fruit, but it is too delicate a matter to write about at present. Ismay can give you the latest form’. (Viceroy to Secretary of State, 1/2 May, R/3/1/136.) See also Moore, ‘Disengagement from India’. The Chiefs of Staff gave much consideration to the implications of Pakistan within and India outside the Commonwealth. They concluded that while the best outcome would be both within, if only Pakistan was keen, she should be accepted in view of her strategic importance. See especially JP (47) 55 of 9 May 1947, an aide-mémoire from the Joint Planning Staff, and the discussion at the C.O.S. 62nd meeting on 12 May, both in L//PO/428. Not unrelated to this is the Congress attempt in June to persuade HMG to declare that there would be no differentiation in UK's relations with India and Pakistan. See, for example, Kripalani's letter of 2 June 1947 (L/P&J/10/81). Gandhi, too, made a special plea on this point which was reported on 12 June 1947 to London. Turnbull minuted on 19 June that careful consideration was needed before HMG gave any such assurances. If Congress was uncooperative, why should Pakistan ‘get nothing better’? The time had come when we could begin to consider British interests on their merits and ‘it may turn out that we shall get much better arrangements with Hindustan by keeping open the possibility that if Hindustan does not give us good arrangements we shall come to more favourable ones with Pakistan’ (L/P/10/99). On 26 June the India Committee approved a reply to the Viceroy saying that no assurances could be given because to do so would be to ‘throw away [our] strongest bargaining point with Congress’. Unless they were kept apprehensive about UK having better relations with Pakistan (and indeed, it was added, with non-acceding States!) Congress might actually ‘refuse any definite arrangements with us in regard to defence and other matters’. So the Viceroy was advised to stick to the hope for ‘equally good and close arrangements with both the new states’ (L/P/10/81).

³⁵ The London document was on ‘Transfer of Power to more than one authority’ and was originally presented to the India Committee on 4 March as a contingency plan. The Delhi document, ‘A method of transferring power to successor authorities in India which would result in a form of transitional constitution analogous to that of a Dominion’ was started by Menon but worked on by Christie and made available to the Committee on 10 May (L/PO/428 and L/P&J/10/79).

³⁶ Viceroy to Ismay (London), 8 May, L/P&J/10/79 and L/PO/427. Apart from advantages to India and to Britain, one must also allow room for a more controversial kind of joint advantage which also received some consideration. On 24 June 1947, the Secretary of State in a memorandum for the India Committee speculated on the post-transfer period of constitution-making under Dominion status. He reported the Viceroy as urging that ‘the more we enable the two new Dominions to keep off constitution-making and devote themselves to administrative matters, the longer Dominion status is likely to last’ and he endorsed this view adding that ‘our interest probably lies in securing that the existing Congress leaders can fortify their position without the left-wing elements having a chance to make radical constitutional change’. This constitutes a fairly rare piece of evidence lending some support to the view, popular among radicals, that decolonization was a shabby deal between old and new rulers (L/PO/431).

³⁷ Ismay to Viceroy, 10 May, L/P&J/10/79.

³⁸ Nye to Viceroy, 2 May, R/3/1/152. Nye was one of the Governors whom Nehru considered for staying on!

³⁹ Circulated to India Committee, 13 May, L/P&J/10/79. Smuts may seem out of touch, but one must remember that there was still much opinion of that kind in Conservative circles in London at this time and, although the PM and the Dominions Office did try to keep all the Dominions up to date, things were moving very fast in mid-May.

⁴⁰ India Committee meetings, 19 and 20 May, L/P&J/10/79.

⁴¹ Smuts to Attlee, 26 May, L/P&J/10/79.

⁴² Extract from Viceroy's note of interview with the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, 15 May, R/3/1/152. Dr Evatt had instructed the Australian High Commissioner to talk with Nehru.

⁴³ Record of conversation, 23 May, L/P&J/10/79. It would seem that either Krishna Menon went too far or Henderson misunderstood.

⁴⁴ Nehru interview with News Chronicle, 27 May, L/P&J/10/79.

⁴⁵ Moore, , ‘Mountbatten, India and the Commonwealth’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, XIX, 1, p. 18.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ L/PO/429. File R/3/1/152 on ‘The possibility of India remaining in the Commonwealth’ contains two interesting items. First is the reply of Listowel to the Viceroy who (in addition to putting Rao and me to work on the matter) on 25 July asked London to give thought to the ‘looser association’ which could accommodate a republic. The Secretary of State (9 August) said ‘hard thinking’ was going on, ‘but the problem of devising a form of association which is even looser than that at present binding the Dominions and which is yet not entirely meaningless or indeed, in the absence of a real measure of common purpose and interest, even dishonest, is no easy one’. Second, on 6 February 1948, presumably in response to a request from Mountbatten, Erskine-Crum (Conference Secretary) digs out a Rao paper (not on the file) on ‘India and the Commonwealth’ and comments that he sees no way of avoiding two categories of members, one based on allegiance founded on ties of blood, culture and religion, the other based on common citizenship.

⁴⁷ That was during our conversation on 2 July. See also note 48.

⁴⁸ Author's private papers. According to Moore, ‘India in 1947’, the document is on Mountbatten file 93. At the 63rd Staff Meeting on 24 July, the Viceroy directed that copies of the Australia—New Zealand Agreement of 1944 should be sent to members of the Partition Council (R/3/1/161).

⁴⁹ Undated, L/P&J/10/98.

⁵⁰ L/PO/107. Turnbull passed the letter to Croft on 30 April. It was also sent by Amery to the Viceroy.

⁵¹ Secretary of State to Viceroy, 9 May, L/P&J/10/79.

⁵² India Committee, 13 March, L/PO/428.

⁵³ Viceroy's Personal Report No. 3, 17 April, L/P&J/10/79.

⁵⁴ Viceroy to Secretary of State, 1 May, L/PO/428.

⁵⁵ The Christie—Menon plan was circulated to the India Committee on 10 May, L/PO/428.

⁵⁶ Ibid. Only a few days earlier, the India Office's parallel plan was ready and circulated on 2 May (L/PO/428). Of its ‘Joint Council of Delegates’, the Secretary of State said on the one hand that such arrangements ‘could not continue for more than a comparatively short period’ but on the other hand added that ‘the stress of circumstances’ might lead to cooperation which ‘might develop into permanent joint arrangements’.

⁵⁷ Viceroy to Ismay 11/12 May, L/PO/427.

⁵⁸ India Committee, 20 May, L/P&J/10/79. It appears that neither Attlee nor Cripps (in his briefing of me a week later) were the originators of this interest in Austro-Hungary. Mr David Blake has very kindly pointed out its earlier history. Amery may well have been the man behind the first reference which occurred back in February 1945 in response to a request from the War Cabinet for a general review of models for Indian constitutional development (Transfer, V, p. 535). It failed to resurface when studies of confederal systems were carried out in preparation for the Cabinet Mission (Transfer, VI, pp. 1159–63). But on 17 April 1946 Amery (out of office now of course) wrote to Pethick-Lawrence in India and made reference to this model (Transfer, VII, pp. 300–1) and it then appeared in the Mission's discussions with the Viceroy (Transfer, VII, p. 383). Cripps and the Office would have had it readily in mind a year later.

⁵⁹ L/P&J/10/123. The note is dated 23 May.

⁶⁰ India Committee, 20 May, L/P&J/10/79.

⁶¹ Cripps' memorandum, 27 May, L/P&J/10/79.

⁶² Viceroy's Personal Report No. 11, 4 July, L/P&J/10/81 and L/PO/433.

⁶³ A suitable final item on joint organization is, appropriately, to be found in the last of the Viceroy's Personal Reports, No. 17 of 16 August (L/PO/433). On telling Nehru on 29 July of HMG's desire to discuss defence matters with India and Pakistan, Mountbatten reports that ‘Nehru welcomed this wholeheartedly…particularly as it would facilitate discussion of questions of mutual assistance with Pakistan. I have mentioned this to Jinnah who was equally pleased’. The italics are mine, as is the view that, while not too much weight should be placed on this single item, it does strongly suggest the way in which the two areas of policy neglect and failure—viz. the princely States (including Kashmir) and joint organizations—tragically reinforced each other.

⁶⁴ In saying this I wish to make clear the points which are entailed. While I naturally acknowledge that Congress and League were not in any way seeking joint bodies, that there was a legacy of distrust between them to be overcome and to that distrust was soon to be added the bitterness created by partition's human cost, at the same time I have to emphasize Mountbatten's potential for influence in the months of June and July. This did not extend to a common Governor-General (but perhaps that was a sign of Pakistani distrust of Mountbatten?) but it could have established the modest expert bodies I have indicated. I further believe that these could have survived partition's agonies if these had not been aggravated so profoundly (not in human but in political terms) by the Kashmir question. In the thirty-four years which have followed grounds for mutual hostility have grown. And yet still there is the longing for some closer ties and collaboration. In that sense one could, as a 1981 postscript, take passages from the speech of India's External Affairs Minister on a visit to Pakistan on June 11 when he referred to the passing of ‘the pre-partition generation’ with its mixture of ‘nostalgic and bitter sentimentality’ and its replacement by a readiness to pursue ‘shared interests’ through a sharing of experience in ‘active cooperation’. Or one could quote, as evidence of a revived aspiration after thirty-four lost years, the following news item from Overseas Hindustan Times, May 14, 1981: ‘On April 23 the first collective meeting took place in Colombo of seven South Asian Foreign Secretaries. The joint communiqué stated that they had agreed on concrete moves towards regional cooperation and to that end had arranged for five of the countries to set up study groups for particular fields of development activity to report within six months. All decisions would continue to be taken on the basis of unanimity’.

⁶⁵ Ismay draft to Hollis and Mountbatten amendment, 15 September, R/3/1/161. I permit myself another personal note. Indignation and despair at attitudes in high places in Delhi led me to write two pieces for anonymous publication. One in early July focused on the States issue and was intended for the New Statesman. Whether or not I sent it is unclear; it was in any event not published. (The comments on India in Kingsley Martin's paper were at this time rosy to the point of smugness and my criticisms would not have fitted well.) I find myself still endorsing now the positions I took then. The other was sent in early August to an Indian weekly and published. It dealt with the British interest in India's Commonwealth membership and the hopes for future close association on defence and foreign policy. It took a position of suspicion and distrust and attributed conspiratorial tendencies in a manner I now find overdramatic and exaggerated.