Jubilee Post News & Views
ABHIGYAN SHEKHAR
Today is the 56th death anniversary of India’s first prime minister Pandit Nehru and we look into his affair with Lady Mountbatten. The relationship between Nehru and lady Mountbatten is no secret anymore, almost every academic and historian who has worked on the partition of India or Nehru has mentioned the unusual relationship between the two. Time and then it has also been used as a political weapon by his critics and though his supporters claim to be as progressive as Nehru, they have also been very defensive about this.
Lord “Dickey” Mountbatten was appointed the last Viceroy to India in February of 1947 for a smooth transition from British India to an Independent India. With the lord arrived his wife Edwina, a woman in his late 40’s who was one of the most powerful and richest Woman in Britain. Over her course of time Edwina and Dickey came close to Congress Leader Jawaharlal Nehru who had a progressive outlook much like the viceroy himself as mentioned by many historians. With time the friendship between Nehru and Edwina grew and continued till her death in 1960.
The relationship between Edwina and Jawahar did grow with time and is accepted by Edwina’s daughter herself. In her book “Daughter of Empire” Pamela Hicks mentions that the relationship between her mother and Nehru was based on “equality of spirit and intellect”. As quoted by a report in PTI Pamela says “She found in Panditji the companionship and equality of spirit and intellect that she craved”.
As a 17 years old teen Pamela did notice the early stage of the friendship which later turned to be one of the most talked love affairs of 20th century. Pamela in her book also talks about the exchange of letters between the two till her mother’s death in 1960. Nehru was 58 when Edwina arrived in India and though there are rumours which claim that the two were in physical relationship Pamela refuses this as she says that the two neither had time nor the space for it. It is also very obvious that for a man in his late 50’s physical relationship isn’t something easy considering the age, though today one should not care even if the two were in any kind of physical relationship.
The relationship between the two was out in open even when the two were alive. The Late author Khuswant Singh in his book “ Truth love and a little malice” talks of one such incident when Nehru visited England for the first time as the Prime minister of India , The Daily telegraph had a photograph of Nehru at the Mountbatten’s door and Edwina opening the door for him the caption under the photograph said “the late night visitor of Lady Mountbatten” the newspaper also claimed that Lord Mountbatten was out of the city when this happened.
Although he is accused of a lot of problems that India faces today and Nehru’s critics and opposition might never agree to this but for the British media and Anti Mountbatten lobbies the relationship between Dickey’s wife and the first prime minister of India was always seen as something which led the Lord to favor Nehru by going out of the way and the best example for this is Lord Mountbatten’s visit to Kashmir during the partition where he allegedly asked Maharaja Hari Singh to join India after Nehru asked him to do so.
There is no doubt that a big lobby in London always thought that the affinity between the Mountbatten and Nehru helped India during the partition of India and Pakistan to a large extent and Edwina -Nehru relationship was responsible for the soft corner that Lord Mountbatten had for India.
It’s not like the talks and rumour mongering about the affair was only happening in England, it was always a hot topic for a certain section here in India as well but till the time Nehru was alive no newspaper or journalist must have dared to talk about it and even if the opposition made allegations about the affair the congress party and Nehruvians hypocritically refused to accept the relationship between the two.
For anyone who claims to be progressive should have accepted a relationship between two consenting adults who were mature enough to make decisions for themselves and if the congress party has refused it till now it’s because of their utter hypocrisy. The refusal of the affair gave his harsh critics a chance to go below the belt and portray Nehru as a “Womaniser” and this continues even today in 2020 though they should realise whatever existed between Nehru and Edwina wasn’t a crime but the most beautiful expression between two human beings.
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Though with time India has changed and so has the mindset of a big section of the society specially the millennials , their sensitivity has grown and they might or might not like Nehru’s policies or politics but his personal life does not matter and if at all they might see the relationship between Edwina and Nehru as a consensual relationship between two adults and it’s upon the congress party to accept this and move forward in a true progressive sense. The acceptance will only help the dooming politics of congress to gain some attention and a large section of progressive liberal vote ,if at all they plan to come back.
(ABHIGYAN SHEKHAR is a delhi based freelance writer)
