The Last Days of the Raj
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00:00:001947. The British are leaving India. Exhausted by the war, overwhelmed by insurrection, Britain
00:00:12needs an exit strategy. But how do you get out of a sub-continent you've ruled for 150
00:00:19years? Especially when long-buried arguments burst violently into the open. The man sent
00:00:26to India to close down the British Raj and keep order was Lord Louis Mountbatten. No
00:00:31year of British rule in India would produce more bloodshed than the last.
00:00:38I am under no illusion about the difficulty of my task. I shall need the greatest, the
00:00:59greatest goodwill, the greatest goodwill, Charles. I shall need the greatest goodwill
00:01:09of the greatest possible number. Popinjay? Yes, but a rather splendid Popinjay. I think
00:01:25Mountbatten brought with him all the, well, all the background. I mean, when you think
00:01:33he was seven years old when he visited the Tsar of Russia. From a small child he'd had
00:01:40this sense of occasion. War hero and cousin of the King, Lord Mountbatten had liberated
00:01:48Burma from the Japanese. With his wife Edwina, the millionaireess who had once blazed in
00:01:54London society, the Mountbattens were a striking choice to end British rule in India. We had
00:02:03this tremendous feeling that they would work in tandem. You had this feeling that they
00:02:08were a couple. In March 1947, the couple arrived in Delhi with a reputation for speed of action
00:02:16and a most un-British sympathy for Indian independence. I think everyone felt this is
00:02:23it. I think there was a tremendous sense that this is the beginning of something which
00:02:27is going to be successful. British India was a country of 400 million people belonging
00:02:34to many religions. Two groups stood out. The Hindus, who were the clear majority, and the
00:02:40Muslims. For centuries under the British, they lived side by side in peace. Mountbatten's
00:02:50challenge was to end British rule and prepare for a smooth transfer of power to this gigantic
00:02:54and diverse nation. He had just 18 months to complete it. For the last time in history,
00:03:02a Viceroy begins his term of office as Lord Mountbatten takes the oath of allegiance from
00:03:06the Lord Chief Justice of India, Sir Patrick Spence. This is not a normal Viceroyalty on
00:03:13which I am embarking. His Majesty's government is resolved to transfer power by June 1948.
00:03:20This means the solution must be reached within the next few months. I am under no illusion
00:03:26of the difficulty of my task. I shall need the greatest goodwill of the greatest possible
00:03:38number. Today, I am asking India for that goodwill. The objective was very clearly stated
00:03:54and it was in fact brutally stated. So whatever happens, we leave this country on such and
00:04:00such dates. In a country that's really rather laid back and inert, I mean, none of us had
00:04:08worked that hard. He made his ADCs work, he made his staff work, the Indian office work.
00:04:17Even the domestic servants had to be on their toes. People will say that's not the way the
00:04:27last Viceroy did things, nor the one before, or the one before that. Viceroy's door opener,
00:04:32Viceroy's chicken plucker, Viceroy's cushion puffer. You see, we need to cut down on stuff.
00:04:37And the number of banquets. It's quite obscene the way we're expected to gorge ourselves while
00:04:42there's a famine in Bengal. Thank you. Yes, I see. You know there is much to be said here
00:04:51for continuity. Oh, I don't think so. I always found continuity to be the most overrated virtue.
00:04:58They were extremely different from people who had gone before and made a very special effort,
00:05:07I think, to do all this on a basis of friendship and understanding. I know who I must meet first,
00:05:15Mountbatten told his staff. This was the man previous Viceroy's had come to see as their
00:05:21most dangerous enemy. Mahatma Gandhi had embraced the poverty of his countrymen and
00:05:29dedicated his life, much of it as a political prisoner, to getting rid of the British.
00:05:34In March 1947, he came to Mountbatten with a vision that Hindus and Muslims would now rule
00:05:44India together. Hey, they said I would find you out here. Edwina Mountbatten. Oh, I could have
00:05:57waited in the cool hall, but I was curious to see your Mughal garden. It's your garden, Mr. Gandhi.
00:06:03We are merely the trustees. You know, for the Mughals, the garden was a glimpse of heaven.
00:06:10They drew inspiration from the Holy Quran, modifying and adapting what was found to make
00:06:20a paradise on earth. All elements perfectly blended. The gentlemen of the press are here
00:06:29and would like us to pose for photographs. Oh, then we must show them our best faces.
00:06:41The extent of Hindu-Muslim distrust was referred to by Gandhi throughout his life. He called it
00:06:48the question of questions. It's very hard to deal. But he felt that this was a question that had to
00:06:54be tackled because Hindus and Muslims had to live next to each other. They were neighbors in hundreds
00:07:01of thousands of Indian villages. There was no way out except some kind of coexistence.
00:07:07Gandhi's commitment to Hindu-Muslim unity was one that Mountbatten shared. But in 1947,
00:07:14that unity was under enormous stress.
00:07:19That is the time when the Muslims began to fear. They said, as long as the British were here,
00:07:24we were all the same. But now, if this is going to happen and it's going to be a democracy,
00:07:29then we will be a permanent minority. And what protection do we have? At that point,
00:07:36they couldn't trust the Hindu.
00:07:39The man who took this Muslim fear of the Hindu and made it respectable was Mohammed Ali Jinnah,
00:07:44described to Mountbatten as the most difficult man in India. Jinnah was almost a reverse image
00:07:50of Gandhi. He had embraced a Western lifestyle and he thought Muslim-Hindu unity to be a fantasy.
00:07:55We are two nations, Muslim and Hindu. What we have in common is the British yoke. But that is
00:08:10about to be lifted. And then we must go our separate ways. That is why we ask for Pakistan.
00:08:16Sir, there are some who say you want to create a nation...
00:08:19...without ruining the crease in my trousers. Ask me what is it like in a British prison?
00:08:25I couldn't tell you. I would have to refer you to Mr. Gandhi.
00:08:29Here is a man, totally Westernized, in Western clothes. And of course, he was a tremendous charisma.
00:08:36And all the time, whether he was talking to us or talking to the people,
00:08:41we saw a great lawyer presenting his case.
00:08:45The partition of India will be done amicably, by discussion, in an atmosphere of freedom.
00:08:51The British will not...
00:08:51The British will accept partition. They always do. It worked in Ireland, it will work in Palestine,
00:08:58it will work here.
00:09:01Jinnah's radical idea was partition. India's Muslims would be given a state in the northeast
00:09:07and west of the country, in the areas where they already formed a majority. This would be Pakistan.
00:09:13The rest of British India would be left to the Hindus, which Jinnah called Hindustan.
00:09:20We thought that unless we have our own country, we cannot really have our own government
00:09:27and govern the way we like and live the way we like.
00:09:30Because we knew that the British were going. It was a matter of time.
00:09:35To India's most powerful politician, the idea of a separate Muslim homeland was an abomination.
00:09:43A disciple of Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, the leader of the Congress party,
00:09:47spoke not of Hindus or Muslims, but simply of Indians.
00:09:51You won't achieve anything, Mountbatten was told, without this man's agreement.
00:09:58I don't want you to think of me as the last viceroy winding up the British Raj,
00:10:03but as the first to lead the way to the new India. I shall of course be speaking to Mr Jinnah.
00:10:10Pakistan? Where does this fantastic idea come from? Who knows what it really means?
00:10:28A separate Muslim nation in India is absurd. It's actually medieval.
00:10:37Pakistan. A concoction of Mr Jinnah and his tank writer.
00:10:51I don't think Mr Jinnah could have understood India. It was a cultural unity
00:10:58and had been for thousands of years. A plural society. A place of many religions and languages.
00:11:07All of that had passed him by.
00:11:17In 1947, Jinnah's ideas had started to take root amongst India's Muslims.
00:11:23Hindus and Muslims are two separate cultures. They don't pray together. They don't dine together.
00:11:32Their festivals are different. Their cultures are different. Their dresses are different.
00:11:38How could you? You can't amalgamate yourself into their culture or into their habits as
00:11:45they cannot amalgamate themselves into our culture. They are two different nations.
00:11:52We were actually the poor people. Masses were poor Muslims.
00:11:56And shopkeepers and bankers and all these, they were Hindus mostly.
00:12:01By the time Mountbatten arrived in India, the concept of Pakistan had a mass organisation behind it and Mr Jinnah was riding high.
00:12:21It is clear, Mountbatten wrote, that this is the man who holds the key to the whole situation.
00:12:31People tell me Pakistan cannot be defined.
00:12:37I don't think so.
00:12:39People tell me Pakistan cannot be defined.
00:12:45People tell me Pakistan cannot be defined.
00:12:51I hope, Mr Jinnah, you might help me understand it.
00:12:55I have written many times on the subject.
00:12:57Without explaining how this new nation will come about.
00:13:01Where will its borders lie?
00:13:03What will its relationship be to India?
00:13:05Hindustan.
00:13:07I beg your pardon?
00:13:09You said India.
00:13:11It will be called Hindustan.
00:13:17At the end of his first week in Delhi, Mountbatten had reached political stalemate.
00:13:25But 200 miles away, a retired schoolteacher called Master Tara Singh changed the terms of the declaration.
00:13:35And the debate completely.
00:13:37Our lands are about to be overrun.
00:13:41Our women dishonoured.
00:13:43Our children forced to take alien vows.
00:13:47My grandfather got emotional at that point of time.
00:13:51Whereas the Muslim League was saying that long live Pakistan.
00:13:55And he raised, Masterji raised the slogan of death to Pakistan.
00:13:59Because he didn't want Pakistan to come into existence.
00:14:03He sounded the bugle.
00:14:07Finish the Muslim League.
00:14:11Death to Pakistan.
00:14:15Death to Pakistan.
00:14:27Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, had just 18 months to end British rule in India.
00:14:33But India was falling apart.
00:14:37Nowhere was the tension greater than in the northern province of the Punjab.
00:14:41With its volatile mix of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs.
00:14:51On April 3rd, 1947, a week after Mountbatten arrived in India,
00:14:55his governor in the province, Sir Evan Jenkins, sent a storm signal to the Viceroy.
00:15:01There is little doubt that some of the Sikh leaders are circulating grossly exaggerated accounts of Muslim atrocities.
00:15:11I pointed this out to one Sikh leader.
00:15:15This is Master Tara Singh.
00:15:17Yes. Retired school teacher.
00:15:20Taken to rattling his kip.
00:15:24I said that propaganda of this kind gave the impression that they were about to attack the Muslims.
00:15:30He laughed heartily at this.
00:15:32And said the Sikhs would do no such thing until the British had left India.
00:15:40Jenkins' telegram made one thing clear to Mountbatten.
00:15:44The question of how to withdraw from India had turned into the question of what to do about the Punjab.
00:15:50The Punjab, with its capital Lahore, was home to 25 million Muslims.
00:15:56If partition happened, Pakistan would be based here.
00:16:00So thought Mr Jinnah and the Muslim League.
00:16:04But it was the worst place for Jinnah to stake a claim for a Muslim homeland.
00:16:08For the Sikhs saw the Punjab as their home too.
00:16:12Master Tara Singh's incendiary speech had raised the stakes for everybody.
00:16:17Master Tara Singh had taken out his kirpan, the sword, and he said,
00:16:21this will decide whether the Muslims rule Punjab or the Sikhs rule Punjab.
00:16:26And that was stunning.
00:16:29We were so depressed and upset.
00:16:32Some were obviously angry also.
00:16:42Once Master Tara Singh very clearly came out against partition,
00:16:46then his home district was the first one which was attacked by the Muslim mobs.
00:16:59We started having these people coming in from the villages with terrible knife wounds.
00:17:06It was mostly Sikhs at that time.
00:17:09And they would walk in from the village to Lahore
00:17:12and all our hospitals were then full of wounded Sikhs.
00:17:20With Sikhs and Muslims on the brink of war over partition,
00:17:24Mountbatten again turned to his favourite solution,
00:17:28how to get Jinnah to drop his Pakistan demand.
00:17:42And then Gandhi came forward with a plan to achieve exactly that.
00:17:46A plan that if Jinnah accepted would satisfy the Muslim demand for power
00:17:51while not requiring Mountbatten to partition India.
00:18:21What do you think Mr. Jinnah would say to such a proposal?
00:18:43I doubt that Gandhi would have been devious in making that offer.
00:18:48The offer, the idea should have been on the table a bit earlier.
00:18:53Because by the time Mountbatten came,
00:18:56the idea of the partition had become so much a part of the Muslim League.
00:19:02From a slogan it had become an article of faith.
00:19:09Jinnah was brilliant.
00:19:12He was dedicated.
00:19:15He did not feel he could play second fiddle to anybody.
00:19:20It was Gandhi's idea, wasn't it?
00:19:22Let's say it's a vision we both share.
00:19:26You know, it cost a fortune to keep him in such poverty.
00:19:30They say Mr. Jinnah travels first class. It's true, I do.
00:19:34And Mr. Gandhi travels third class? Also true.
00:19:38But everywhere he goes, his coat follows.
00:19:41A hundred third class tickets?
00:19:44Suddenly it's Mr. Jinnah who looks abstemious.
00:19:49When he talked to me, know that 18 million Muslims are listening.
00:19:53Gandhi represents no one but himself.
00:19:56Ask him to get his scheme past Nehru and the Congress
00:19:59before you ask me what I think of it.
00:20:07Jinnah's refusal to accept Gandhi's offer of government
00:20:10stripped Mountbatten of his ace.
00:20:15It left the question of partition in the hands of those on the ground.
00:20:20In the Punjab, armed Sikh militias,
00:20:22stirred up by religious leaders, went on the rampage.
00:20:25They were killing, looting and raping, raping the girls.
00:20:50Those killers came from, I don't know, from where?
00:20:59Sikh attacks prevent Muslim reprisals.
00:21:06Whatever they did was in self-defence.
00:21:09No Muslim, whatever he was, whatever capacity he was,
00:21:14whatever status he was, he didn't do it first.
00:21:18It was them who started.
00:21:21There was a sort of madness going on.
00:21:23People who lived together, unaware that it mattered at all.
00:21:27You're a Muslim, I'm a Hindu and you're jogging along together.
00:21:30We're all human beings.
00:21:33And now suddenly we are enemies, such hateful enemies.
00:21:45It was just piles of body, blood everywhere.
00:21:48The houses were burning, there was acrid smoke everywhere.
00:21:52And women and children crying, those who survived.
00:21:56And the masses of wounded people.
00:21:59It was very difficult to find any hospital to take them in.
00:22:15One saw so much of blood and dead bodies and children being wounded or dead
00:22:22or parts of people being displayed.
00:22:25All these things hardened one and one just went on with one's job.
00:22:31Not all the Punjab massacres were reported in New Delhi.
00:22:34But it was impossible to keep the unfolding nightmare completely at bay.
00:22:39Well, I mean, people were horrified
00:22:41because, frankly, people hadn't expected an explosion on that scale.
00:22:48On April 15th, Mountbatten summoned his provincial governors to the capital
00:22:52to get their advice and to lay down his own strategy.
00:22:57Creation of Pakistan. I will resist if at all possible.
00:23:00But I do recognize that if India has to be partitioned
00:23:04then Punjab and Bengal must be partitioned too.
00:23:07That will not be an easy thing. Not on the Punjab.
00:23:12When Jinnah talks of two nations it sounds so clean.
00:23:17But an ounce partition and every village, every field, will provide a source of argument.
00:23:24To keep the peace I'd need at least 70,000 troops.
00:23:27Well, you won't get them. We don't have anything like those reserves.
00:23:30Then we'd have little choice but to get out and leave them to it.
00:23:33The Sikhs will fight, but they'd prefer us to be out of the way first.
00:23:37And the Muslims?
00:23:38The Muslim policy is one of daring us to leave.
00:23:40Typically farsighted.
00:23:42Mr Jinnah has declined my offer to travel to the Punjab to calm the situation.
00:23:48I don't see what good he could do there. He speaks neither Urdu nor Punjabi,
00:23:52just Chancery Lane English.
00:23:54Be that as it may, Mr Jinnah has agreed to issue a statement along with Gandhi
00:23:58calling for peace.
00:23:59Gandhi's been telling our soldiers in Bengal to meet the knives of the mob with their bare chests.
00:24:06I personally do not undervalue the Mahatma's contribution.
00:24:13And just in case you think I've been at the ghost curd, I will remind you gentlemen,
00:24:16I'm a soldier, not a civilian.
00:24:18And if this communal violence gets out of hand, I shall issue military orders.
00:24:22Sikh kirpans, Muslim swords, Hindu, whatever their choice of weapon,
00:24:27shall then contest British Empire aircraft and British Empire tanks.
00:24:34His very determination defeated his longer term aim.
00:24:39Mountbatten himself also got hassled into situations by circumstances.
00:24:46To which one contribution was his own element of his own haste.
00:24:55Everywhere in the Punjab, people were now in fear of their lives.
00:25:03With militias on the loose over much of the province,
00:25:06one half of the population was particularly vulnerable.
00:25:10Our women cannot go out, we cannot run.
00:25:13They have never been outside their own.
00:25:18And if there is an attack, and if they are abducted,
00:25:21then what we are going to do, what should we do?
00:25:24So they said that they have decided that they will burn their women.
00:25:30It was the women, both Sikh and Muslim, who suffered most.
00:25:34women. It was the women, both Sikh and Muslim, who suffered most. The dishonour of rape was
00:25:42enough for fathers and brothers to kill their own. They will put their women in a room,
00:25:51put kerosene oil on them, light them, burn them, and then they will be free to fight
00:26:00with the attackers, and there will be no danger of their women being abducted.
00:26:14I even bought a tin of kerosene oil to burn my sister. But when I came home from the meeting
00:26:22and saw my nephew and nieces and my sisters, I said, no, I can't do this.
00:26:36With people being defined by their religion and killed because of it, Gandhi appealed
00:26:41for reason.
00:26:45You have heard his account. Fifty-eight of his companions killed because they were Hindus.
00:26:55And you have heard others call for revenge. It is a human response, but it is a mistake.
00:27:07We always viewed such things of Mr. Gandhi as hypocritical, because at that stage when
00:27:13things had already been out of your hands, to go ahead and to say we are trying to stop
00:27:18it, I mean, it's just nonsensical. Because you could have avoided it, not to let it happen.
00:27:24Then once it starts, then to move and to say, well, I'm trying to stop it, it's just sheer
00:27:30hypocrisy.
00:27:31I have said many times, an eye for an eye will make the world blind.
00:27:42He was caught in an impossible contradiction. He could not enlist the Hindus without proclaiming
00:27:51his Hinduness. And he could not proclaim his Hinduness without alienating many Muslims.
00:28:00With Gandhi out of the equation, Mountbatten turned to the one man who could reach the
00:28:05Muslims. A final attempt was made to seduce Jinnah from the Pakistan demand.
00:28:13I heard that you used to be an actor, Mr. Jinnah.
00:28:16No, I used to read Shakespeare to entertain my London friends. News got around, Jinnah
00:28:22reads well. What a piece of work is man.
00:28:28He didn't seem to fit his cause, as it were. He was not an orthodox Muslim. He was a highly
00:28:34westernized person who lived a very westernized life in a very cosmopolitan city, Bombay.
00:28:43All of that didn't fit in with this fanatic outlook that, you know, religion was something
00:28:52that decided nationality.
00:28:54I signed up with a theater company and I wrote to my father in Bombay to tell him the good
00:28:59news.
00:29:00How marvelous. He must have been delighted.
00:29:02Madam, he was not delighted. He wrote back, do not be a traitor to the family.
00:29:10We lost a great actor.
00:29:12But gained a great statesman.
00:29:18You know, India has never been a true nation. It only looks that way on the map. You see,
00:29:29the cow I want to eat, the Hindu stops me killing. Every time I shake hands with a Hindu,
00:29:37he has to wash his hands.
00:29:44The only thing we Muslims have in common with the Hindu is our slavery to the British.
00:29:49No, it's hardly slavery anymore.
00:29:52But already the violence starts, you see. That is why the map you take back to London
00:29:59will not be of India, but two separate nations, Hindustan and Pakistan.
00:30:06If I follow your logic and recommend the partition of India, I am bound, am I not, to partition
00:30:16the Punjab too?
00:30:18Why not? Punjab is a unity. It has its own identity, its own history. It has been like
00:30:25this for generations.
00:30:26So has India.
00:30:28You cannot split Punjab.
00:30:30By the same token, you cannot split India.
00:30:33Pakistan needs Punjab.
00:30:34And India needs what you call Pakistan.
00:30:40This is just a game. I cannot play this game.
00:30:47I assure you, Mr. Jinnah, it is not a game.
00:31:00With his failure to shift Jinnah even an inch, Mountbatten went to see for himself the area
00:31:05fought over by Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs.
00:31:09In northwest frontier province, he learned the Muslim League had organised a show of
00:31:13strength for Pakistan.
00:31:16They're Bataan tribesmen, mainly. About 100,000, we believe.
00:31:21They're in a pretty ugly mood, sir.
00:31:24What I mean to say is they are armed.
00:31:29Are you all right, darling?
00:31:31Ruined. Pulling out the damned ashtrays on that plane.
00:31:37It was known to be a very menacing visit to go. It was a very brave thing to do and very
00:31:43impossible to do right at the beginning because Mountbatten was setting the tone, you see,
00:31:49setting the tone of how things would go forward.
00:31:58They'll be able to see you from up there, sir.
00:32:04I'm coming too.
00:32:13Pakistan Zindabad! Pakistan Zindabad!
00:32:43Pakistan Zindabad!
00:32:51They faced this huge, great, hostile crowd of people and, you know, it was a sense that
00:32:56things would go either way.
00:32:59And they stood there and they just, well, they just, the whole people just calmed down.
00:33:14Mountbatten Zindabad! Mountbatten Zindabad!
00:33:26Mountbatten Zindabad! Mountbatten Zindabad!
00:33:28Mountbatten realized that Jinnah's call for Pakistan was moving millions.
00:33:33The tour of the Punjab had brought home to Mountbatten the depth of religious hatred
00:33:47between Muslim and Sikh. It was, he said, like walking into the middle of a civil war.
00:33:53At that point of time it was more a question of survival. Because the Sikhs were a minority
00:33:59then, Sikhs are a minority even now. And for a minority community to survive, it's very
00:34:05difficult. Partition, the Muslim League policy for India, Mountbatten had opposed. But it
00:34:13now looked like it was happening anyway through the sheer force of violence. If it did happen,
00:34:22Mountbatten knew that he would have to sacrifice the Sikh minority who opposed it.
00:34:27We will never again be able to live in peace with the Muslim. Not with so many killed in
00:34:37cold blood, or turned at knife point into accepting Islam. But you will have to live
00:34:42with them unless the Punjab is partitioned. You must not partition the Punjab. It must remain as
00:34:48the Sikh homeland. Who built the Punjab? Ask your own officers. Who are the best farmers? They
00:34:58will tell you that the Sikhs are the best farmers. Everywhere in this land we have our holy places.
00:35:04The Sikhs, so proud and so martial and so confident that the British would not let
00:35:14them down. Felt betrayed. Felt nothing was there now for them. According to the census,
00:35:22the Muslims have a majority in Lahore. Head count. One, two, three, four. Why count insects when you
00:35:31can count the horses? We are the horses. There is a saying in this country that the Hindus always
00:35:54see the storm when it is still at a great distance. The Muslim sees it when it comes
00:36:00over him. And the Sikhs see it when it's passed. So apparently they of course thought of what
00:36:06should be done after the storm has passed. It's a revenge attack. A hospital. They are
00:36:29saying the Sikhs started it. They attacked the mosque. And the children? How can we let this
00:36:54happen? Where are the soldiers? She had an enormous perceptive grasp of what we were going
00:37:06through. And she knew that the feeling that if you haven't been displaced, you don't really
00:37:13understand this, what it feels like to know that you will never go home again. Mountbatten's visit
00:37:23to the Punjab had taught him one thing, that the vision of a united India was in tatters.
00:37:28My God, if it carries on like this, there will be all that civil war. Isn't it one already, Dickie?
00:37:35Astonishingly, Nehru and the Congress party had come to the same momentous conclusion.
00:37:50I think there was extreme anguish, extreme sorrow, and sort of feeling of despair almost that this
00:38:01was happening. And at that point, how to stop it? Surrendering his beloved vision, it was Nehru who
00:38:11now told India that he would accept partition. For generations, we have dreamt and struggled
00:38:20for a free, independent and united India. Three-fourths of India was available to them
00:38:27to develop the way they wanted. So they finally saw virtue in the plan that they earlier had
00:38:34opposed so much. It is painful for any of us to contemplate partition, but we recognise that a
00:38:43united India cannot be based on compulsion. The India of geography, of history and tradition,
00:38:52the India of our minds and hearts cannot change. With Nehru agreed to partition and the creation
00:39:04of Pakistan, Mountbatten returned to London to get the policy approved by the British government.
00:39:09On achieving this, his final hurdle was to get Jinnah to accept that Pakistan would only get
00:39:19half of the Punjab. You have what you want, Mr Jinnah. And Punjab? I don't think Nehru will
00:39:30give you that. The Muslim League will never accept a Pakistan without Punjab. Yes, I read
00:39:36your article in the newspaper. All of it. It's good tactics to retreat while sounding the charge.
00:39:46Because retreat you must. And then everybody can start to compromise. You can leave me with a moth
00:39:57eaten Pakistan. There is still time to stop me recommending partition, Mr Jinnah. No need to
00:40:06divide the Punjab. No need to reduce Lahore. Guarantees for the Muslim people built into the
00:40:13constitution. You, a father of that constitution. India, unpartitioned with its united army and
00:40:19navy. We're talking about what would surely be the greatest power in Asia. You're talking about it,
00:40:26not me. He was a superb tactician. Of course, helped a great deal by his knowledge that Britain
00:40:36is in a hurry. Therefore, now is the time to strike a deal. On June the 3rd, Mountbatten
00:40:45gathered the Indian leaders for one last push. Dickie would like to invite the photographers
00:40:56of course. What he needed from them all was both an agreement to partition India and an agreement
00:41:07to split the Punjab between them. Most importantly, they needed to agree to this in front of each
00:41:15other. The decisions we make this morning will affect one fifth of the human race. And for that
00:41:28reason, we must put our vanities and our appetites to one side. I would raise the possibility even
00:41:35now of the prospect of a united India if I thought it had the slightest possible chance of being
00:41:42accepted. And so consequently, we must turn our minds to how best we divide this great nation.
00:41:50Jinnah wanted Pakistan and Nehru wanted independence and Lord Mountbatten wanted
00:41:58to get the job done. That was his primary concern. That's what he came out to do and
00:42:03that's what he did. And this is the plan agreed by his Majesty's government in London two days
00:42:07ago. How do you separate all the Muslims in India into another state? Muslims are all over
00:42:18India. We have a huge Muslim population who have lived thousands of years in every part of India.
00:42:27So did they want all these people to move into another region? A corridor. A corridor. From where
00:42:37exactly? Calcutta to Lahore. If you are given Calcutta, if you are given Lahore. Hindustan can
00:42:44tolerate a narrow corridor. Hindustan? Hindustan? India. You're not India. We are India. It is you
00:42:52who choose to secede from it. I'm not seceding from anyone. The British are granting independence
00:42:58to two separate nations, Pakistan and Hindustan. India. Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is not the House
00:43:04of Commons. I will not continue until I see a row of smiling faces in front of me. As the Mahatma
00:43:12says, happy is the country with no history. It is not the past, but the future we must contend with.
00:43:20Railway stock, the army, the Air Force, the civil service, libraries and art collections, and the
00:43:36national debt, all to be divided between the two new nations. These are merely the guidelines. All
00:43:44I require now is for your agreement to the basic principle to partition India. I speak for the
00:43:54Congress. Although we have points of detail and there could be others, you have our assent. Mr.
00:44:03Singh, will you agree on behalf of the Sikhs? Aye, sir. Mr. Jinnah. I must first consult with my
00:44:11executive committee. Mr. Jinnah, if you delay, then the Hindus and Sikhs will delay and chaos
00:44:16will follow. That is not my responsibility. Then it is mine. I cannot accept. Then I will accept
00:44:27for you. All I need is for you to nod your head. Thank you. The June the 3rd meeting was a triumph
00:44:47for Mountbatten. Nehru had agreed to partition India, Jinnah to partition the Punjab. Now there
00:44:54was only one man in the way. Gandhi went on saying he didn't believe that the partition was a good
00:45:00idea, but I think he realised somewhere in the summer of 1947 that he wasn't able, not going to
00:45:09be able to hold out, so he retreated into silence. I have taken a vow of silence. But you can still
00:45:31talk to me. I want to say how sorry I am it has come to this, but ultimately it is impossible to
00:45:42enforce a united India against the will of any one community. I hope that when it is announced,
00:45:49you can give your blessing to partition. Have I said one word against you in my speeches? No,
00:46:04I don't believe you have. I do not need to give my blessing, but I will not oppose you. Thank
00:46:19you. I could see his anguish, but then anguish was not his constant emotion. He was cracking
00:46:33jokes. He was laughing. He had that capacity to absorb deep agony and summon some great reserves
00:46:42of resources in himself. With the road now clear, Mountbatten slammed his foot down. To the amazement
00:46:51of everybody, he announced that Britain would leave India 10 months ahead of schedule on August
00:46:57the 15th, 1947. I said, why did you do that? Because we were caught unprepared. He said he
00:47:05couldn't hold the country together, so he had to do it. It did seem that haste overpowered his
00:47:13judgment, because I think the hastening of the date created problems which might have been less
00:47:20severe if it had not been a case of tearing a date off his calendar. In June, the process of
00:47:28splitting India's assets in two began, a heroic task made into a desperate one by Mountbatten's
00:47:34new deadline. Everything from library books to infrastructure was divided. Men of the same
00:47:42battalion had to choose which country to serve. The cadets were given an option. Those who wish
00:47:50to migrate to Pakistan could do so, and those who wanted to remain in India could give their
00:47:57certificate accordingly. We were 66, including some Christian colleagues who had opted for
00:48:04Pakistan. And even then we were told, you can still change your mind. If you wish to stay here,
00:48:13if you want to go, you go. The battalion commanders or the company commanders,
00:48:32they were there. And they said, gentlemen, I'm sorry to inform you that those cadets
00:48:38who had opted for Pakistan, they're supposed to leave tonight.
00:48:41Parting was very emotional. Very emotional. Except we didn't cry loudly,
00:48:56but our hearts were aching. And the same on the other side.
00:49:00Where was the other side? To answer that question, Mountbatten was supplied with
00:49:08a civil servant who would draw the line between India and Pakistan. Sir Cyril Radcliffe.
00:49:13I'm very keen to see Shimla and the old English churches there. There's a quite
00:49:19magnificent Anglican altar. Very similar to Bath, I'm told. Yes, Shimla is very lovely.
00:49:27The streets are named after British mountains, you know. Snowdon, Ben Nevis and so on.
00:49:32Yes, and you can see the Himalayas in the distance.
00:49:35It's where Kipling learned to write, Shimla. Very much looking forward to seeing it.
00:49:40I think it's quite difficult to get someone prepared to take it on, because, I mean,
00:49:46you know, no thanks really. Nothing but brickbacks, don't you think?
00:49:50Sir Cyril, is this really your first time in India?
00:49:56Never before been east of Gibraltar.
00:50:02Radcliffe had just 36 days to divide the subcontinent.
00:50:15India, 1947. Six weeks to go before independence. Six weeks to go before the creation of Pakistan.
00:50:23The man charged with drawing the borderline between the two new states was Sir Cyril Radcliffe.
00:50:30He was actually put into some house all by himself. No one was allowed to speak to him,
00:50:35in case, we had to be clear that nobody had influenced him.
00:50:40Radcliffe had just 36 days to divide India.
00:50:45So I asked him, how did you really go about this thing? He said he had no time. So he
00:50:53had to do it in a hurry.
00:50:56Radcliffe's line through the Punjab would decide which cities, villages and religious
00:51:01shrines would belong to India, and which to Pakistan. He drew it knowing a civil war was
00:51:07already raging.
00:51:08We are very slightly changed from the semi-apes who ranged India's pre-historic play. But
00:51:19he that drew the longest bow, ran his brother down, you know, as we run men down today.
00:51:28Kipling. Rajat Kipling. The poet?
00:51:37The uncertainty over where the line would fall was creating panic, especially in the
00:51:41disputed city of Lahore.
00:51:45We thought Lahore would be on the Indian side, because the majority of people in Lahore
00:51:51were Hindus who owned urban property, whereas most of the Punjab, of course, was Muslim.
00:51:58But they were landed people, and the urban people, which was Lahore, we were quite sure
00:52:03would come to the Indian side of the border.
00:52:06We got scared about this partition part, because we didn't know what it meant. What will
00:52:12happen? Will we be separated from our friends forever? And that's very important for all
00:52:18of us, that, you know, they would imagine Lahore without Sikhs, imagine Lahore without
00:52:23our Hindu friends, imagine this thing becoming only Muslim. So it was a bit frightening.
00:52:31Across the Punjab, thousands were now making their own guesses as to where India might
00:52:35end and Pakistan's start. Muslims heading in one direction, Hindus and Sikhs in the
00:52:40other.
00:52:42Each train would take a thousand persons, and I made certain they went by villages,
00:52:46so everybody knew everybody, and that worked quite well. But the problems, of course, were
00:52:52the attacks on the trains as they went through the countryside.
00:52:56Armed vigilantes were ambushing trains and slaughtering passengers on the basis of religion.
00:53:02Many people from the villages, they came out with axes and big knives, because the Hindus
00:53:11and Sikhs, most of the Hindus and Sikhs were travelling on them, and they killed most of
00:53:15them. They killed them. But we were wearing burqas, they knew we were Muslims, so they
00:53:22spared us.
00:53:24We're producing a fearful butcher's bill, Mountbatten was told by his governor in the
00:53:29Punjab, Evan Jenkins.
00:53:32There must be someone there trying to steady things.
00:53:37A train came into Lahore station this morning. A thousand Muslim passengers. The only man
00:53:42alive was the engineer. You can't keep that secret.
00:53:48What's the situation with our own people?
00:53:50The Europeans. We're the untouchables.
00:53:57Is there anything I can do to help you?
00:54:00I need to know where Rackley's frontier will fall. What's Lahore? Are we in India, or are
00:54:05we in Pakistan?
00:54:06I don't know.
00:54:09Sir Cyril won't report until after the transfer of power.
00:54:13I'm sorry.
00:54:16Goodbye.
00:54:26Dead bodies came in that train. There was just a driver left to drive them. And anyone
00:54:31who happened to survive because he fell under somebody and crawled out afterwards. Carriage
00:54:36after carriage after carriage of dead bodies. On either side.
00:54:47Private armies of religious fanatics now set about cleansing Lahore of their enemies.
00:54:54We used to climb up onto the second floor and we could see the city burning.
00:55:01The inside city, the old city. I can still cry.
00:55:13Order had collapsed in the city. Even the police were fighting each other.
00:55:22We did not know what was happening for nearly two months. And every night we thought this
00:55:28might be the last night of our existence.
00:55:35They killed 65 members of my family one day. No fault. No fault of ours.
00:55:50My mother was killed. My father was killed.
00:55:58My two sisters, three sisters, two brothers.
00:56:06My grandfather, my grandmother. Grandmother on the maternal side.
00:56:15Her daughters, her children. Every one of them was killed. No fault.
00:56:21I'm sorry but the boundary force is not the solution.
00:56:24In Delhi, it seemed to both Nehru and Jinnah that the British authorities had stopped even
00:56:28trying to govern. You're telling me that the men who defeated
00:56:33the Wehrmacht now find a Punjabi rabble too hot to handle?
00:56:38I can't amend take control. It's proving all too easy to set fire to a
00:56:42Punjab village. Narrow alleys, wooden structures, abundant arsonists, not to mention the moral
00:56:49incendiaries. Excellency, if you will not allow us to
00:56:54govern, then you must take a firmer grip yourself.
00:56:56One thing you could do, both of you, is to make some concessions to calm people.
00:57:01Could Congress waive its claim to Lahore? What do you mean?
00:57:05The signs are that Sir Cyril will award Lahore to Pakistan.
00:57:09Beat him to it. Gain the goodwill. You have a direct line to Radcliffe?
00:57:14Oh, of course he doesn't. You should declare martial law.
00:57:19He can't do that. Well, you could when it was in Britain's
00:57:22interest to do so. That is unfair.
00:57:25I don't care whether you shoot Muslims or not. This must be stopped.
00:57:29Do you think the police are obeying me? They all know that in ten days' time I will
00:57:34be gone. I have policemen hiding in their own cells
00:57:38to protect themselves, others who are only too happy to run with the mob.
00:57:42The Punjab police is no more. People aren't waiting for Radcliffe to report.
00:57:49They're drawing the boundary line for themselves.
00:57:55With less than ten days to go to partition, the capital, Delhi, was hit by the mobs.
00:58:03As with the Punjab, the police seem to have gone.
00:58:07I blame the British also because they were in command.
00:58:11They had all the positions of command at the time, through 1946-47.
00:58:18And had they had the will to do so, they could have put down rioting.
00:58:28They thought we are leaving anyway, so let them have fun, let them kill each other.
00:58:37We tried to save, we tried to unify the country, we kept this country together.
00:58:42We gave them law, we gave them culture, we gave them modern education.
00:58:47And now of course they are fighting, they are at the throats of one another, let them
00:58:50fight it out. You ruled the country for such a long time,
00:59:00you had some obligation to help us out. I would have thought, we found this place
00:59:08in a mess, and we are leaving it in a mess. Don't be like that, darling.
00:59:18Maybe it's true, without us the Indians go to seed.
00:59:22You know that's nonsense. Well, have they learnt nothing from us?
00:59:28I am eternally surprised they can even begin to forgive us.
00:59:34Well, it's very easy for all of us to say the British has to be blamed, but not necessarily.
00:59:41I'm sorry, I don't fully agree with that. I might say that they were careless in not
00:59:47bothering what's going to happen to us afterwards. But this, all these killings took place because
00:59:53of our own fault and our own feelings and our own inhibitions.
00:59:58And we must also recognise, not only what the Congress did or did not do, not only what
01:00:04Gandhi did or did not do, not only what the British did and did not do, but what the Hindu
01:00:10extremists and what the Muslim extremists did right from the 20s, systematic dissemination
01:00:18of venom and poison.
01:00:25With less than a week to go to partition, a tidal wave of refugees from the Punjab broke
01:00:33on Delhi itself.
01:00:40I don't think that Mr Nehru ever thought there would be the kind of massacre that ensued
01:00:48and Mountbatten listened to him. I don't blame him. You listen to the people of the country
01:00:56and they listen to you.
01:00:58To Nehru, who long ago had imagined the triumphal scenes accompanying independence, the catastrophe
01:01:03came at a personal cost.
01:01:11I'm fairly thick-skinned, but I'm finding this more than I can bear.
01:01:28During the war, I remember, at a morgue, they lined the dead up in rows, just like pheasants.
01:01:36It's not the dead. It's the savages that kill them. They're worse than animals.
01:01:57I think I'm losing faith in my own people.
01:02:06She was well aware of the tragedy that had befallen. Three-quarters of a million people
01:02:24had died and many millions had been displaced. And she knew that, and she never stopped working
01:02:31on that.
01:02:33The scale of the tragedy was also acknowledged by Mr Chinna.
01:02:38I hope you're not blaming me for that.
01:02:41Well, I can't help thinking of your two nations theory.
01:02:45I said only what was already on the mind of Congress.
01:02:48I'm not sure if Nehru or Gandhi would agree with that.
01:02:51Let me ask you, who first brought religion into Indian politics?
01:02:59Who inflamed the masses of this country?
01:03:03You must remember, they did.
01:03:08Well, now we see, those masses are human beings, not saints.
01:03:18Mr Chinna had come from a very sophisticated Bombay society.
01:03:22They were sophisticated people. They talked of law and order and this and that.
01:03:27Real people, real people, they were partitioned.
01:03:31Their hearts were partitioned. Their minds were partitioned.
01:03:36Perhaps only Gandhi, now fasting for peace, understood what had happened.
01:03:43I remember your beautiful words when we first met in the garden,
01:03:48how everything had been blended to perfection.
01:03:52That was a garden, not a wilderness.
01:03:57It took skill and devotion and love.
01:04:09It's I who am fasting, not you. Please.
01:04:14I want you to know that we wholeheartedly support what you are doing.
01:04:23God is humbling my pride.
01:04:26I am being severely tested.
01:04:30Still my heart is full of joy.
01:04:37He was a realist.
01:04:40His fasts unto death were always meant to influence people who loved him.
01:04:49The Pakistan demand was voiced by Muslims,
01:04:52who at that time did not love him. They distrusted him.
01:04:57There was no way in which a fast unto death, resulting in his death,
01:05:02would have averted Pakistan.
01:05:05On August 14th, Pakistan, the world's first Islamic state, came into existence.
01:05:11In just ten years, Mr. Jinnah had taken the fanciful idea of a Muslim homeland
01:05:16and turned it into a nation.
01:05:21It was a happy day. We had attained whatever we wanted.
01:05:35We were happy.
01:05:55Twelve hours later, India followed, to become the world's largest democracy.
01:06:05On August 15th, Jawaharlal Nehru made his first speech as Prime Minister
01:06:10at the stroke of midnight.
01:06:16Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny,
01:06:21and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge,
01:06:26not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.
01:06:32At the stroke of the midnight hour,
01:06:35when the world sleeps,
01:06:38India will awake to life and freedom.
01:06:45A moment comes which comes but rarely in history,
01:06:49when we step out from the old to the new,
01:06:53when an age ends,
01:06:55and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance.
01:07:02We are a free and sovereign people today,
01:07:06and have rid ourselves of the burden of the past.
01:07:11We look at the world with clear and friendly eyes,
01:07:15and at the future with faith and confidence.
01:07:23The hall is empty, half empty.
01:07:26The buildings are burning.
01:07:28So this sort of freedom I didn't visualise.
01:07:31Maybe the others did, and they didn't mind,
01:07:34but I didn't feel the freedom at all.
01:07:44British rule ended in India on August 15th, 1947.
01:07:49There was this wonderful feeling,
01:07:52you know, I was not born free,
01:07:55and for me to realise suddenly that now I'm free,
01:07:59it was a very wonderful feeling.
01:08:08And then there was the tragedy
01:08:10that my country, my beloved country, has been partitioned.
01:08:17But as the last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, transferred power,
01:08:21the 400 million people of the subcontinent
01:08:24did not know where the borderline was
01:08:27that divided India from the new state of Pakistan.
01:08:37Only after Independence Day
01:08:39was Sir Cyril Radcliffe's award published,
01:08:42a line driven through the Punjab
01:08:44that pleased neither Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs.
01:08:48Against his instincts,
01:08:50Mountbatten had been forced to split the country in two,
01:08:53but the timetable was his.
01:08:56He failed completely to foresee
01:08:58the human consequences of partition,
01:09:00and failed to prepare for the chaos and upheaval that followed.
01:09:14The amount of misery
01:09:18I saw amongst these people who came,
01:09:21crying,
01:09:23''Where will my child come?
01:09:25''I left my child near such-and-such place.
01:09:27''Will somebody go and fetch that child?
01:09:29''I don't know where my husband went.
01:09:31''Was he killed?''
01:09:34I, as a young woman, thought,
01:09:36''No, why did we do all this and kill each other
01:09:39''when we had lived for hundreds and hundreds of years together?''
01:09:47It seemed in the aftermath of independence
01:09:49that the whole of the Punjab
01:09:51had taken to the road looking for safety.
01:09:54My job was to take an estimated number of 40,000 civilians
01:09:59on foot across 250 miles into Pakistan.
01:10:06The noises the camels were making would be quite extraordinary,
01:10:10the grinding of the wheels and the dust, dust, dust everywhere.
01:10:14All the time, I've seen women with swollen eyes.
01:10:20All the time they were crying.
01:10:23Their children were killed, their brothers were killed,
01:10:26their husbands were killed.
01:10:29I've seen people crying and crying and crying.
01:10:35They were praying and hoping that they should cross the border,
01:10:39they should cross the border,
01:10:41that they should cross the border,
01:10:43they should cross the border.
01:10:45If they cross the border, they will be left alive.
01:10:54The one and only doctor we had was reporting
01:10:57that he had seen 100 people dying every day
01:11:01and between 80 and 100 children dying and being buried as well.
01:11:11It was really a terrible mess.
01:11:14We didn't have time to do anything about it.
01:11:21A month after independence,
01:11:23Nehru and the Mountbatten's took a journey over the Punjab
01:11:26to see the situation for themselves.
01:11:29There.
01:11:32The pilot says that this particular caravan
01:11:35is at least 150 miles long.
01:11:48Which way are they going? I can't tell.
01:11:52I don't know.
01:11:53Which way are they going? I can't tell.
01:11:56Can you?
01:12:01To Pakistan.
01:12:15There's another coming the other way.
01:12:18Can you see?
01:12:19Yes.
01:12:23Can you see the caravans? They're going to meet.
01:12:28God help us.
01:12:33This shouldn't be happening.
01:12:37Not like this.
01:12:4920 million people were displaced by partition,
01:12:52never to see home again.
01:12:58One million died because they belonged to the wrong group.
01:13:09One million died because they belonged to the wrong group.
01:13:19We'd grown up in India.
01:13:22This was one country.
01:13:24I, even today, when I think of Bangladesh or Pakistan,
01:13:29I think of all of us as one culturally.
01:13:43I wouldn't have mind if I had been killed
01:13:45because there were survivors, my survivors.
01:13:48They would think that I'm a martyr.
01:13:51Those who have gone are martyrs.
01:13:54They died for a cause.
01:14:10It happened in history, it has happened.
01:14:14But not like this.
01:14:15Not like this.
01:14:17This suffering was too much.
01:14:19This killing was too much.
01:14:23For years, 1947 was seen as a strange eruption
01:14:26of medieval barbarism into the modern world,
01:14:29where neighbour killed neighbour.
01:14:35But now, partition and the primitive sectarian violence it caused
01:14:39seem less a relic of the past than a premonition of the future.
01:14:45A premonition of wars that were to come.
01:14:50It is the feeling of emptiness
01:14:52without the other communities being there,
01:14:55because all our lives we lived with those communities.
01:14:59That was the feeling.
01:15:01And that was my feeling, aged 17.
01:15:15In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:19In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:23In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:26In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:30In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:33In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:36In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:39In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:42In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:45In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:48In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:51In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:54In memory of the victims of 1947
01:15:57In memory of the victims of 1947
01:16:00In memory of the victims of 1947
01:16:03In memory of the victims of 1947