Lord Mountbatten Research Articles

Conjuring Up a King

Conjuring Up a King

Tangled Hierarchy: an interview with Jitish Kallat

ABSTRACT This article presents an interview with artist Jitish Kallat, on the occasion of his curation of the exhibition, Tangled Hierarchy (2 June–10 September 2022), at the John Hansard Gallery (UK); and later staged at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in India (13 December 2022–10 April 2023). The focal point of the exhibition are five brief notes written by Mahatma Gandhi on the backs of old envelopes, which Kallat viewed in the Archives of the University of Southampton. Penned on 2 June 1947, as a means of communication with Lord Mountbatten despite Gandhi undertaking a vow of silence, the envelopes pertain to the imminent partition of the Indian subcontinent. Opening on 2 June 2022, so marking 75 years of the momentous meeting, Tangled Hierarchy presented a carefully curated display of historically and geographically diverse contributions; establishing a complex, layered reading of histories, perspectives and meanings.

Historical Negationism and Epistemological Misrepresentation of Jinnah and Muslims in the Film Viceroy's House

Viceroy’s House” by Gurinder Chadha is a 106 minutes long film released in English and Hindi in 2017. The film is about the last days of the British Raj and the subsequent partition of India in 1947. The film is based on the books "Freedom at Midnight (1975") and "The Shadow of the Great Game:The Untold Story of Partition (2005"). The film documents the period of the last Viceroy of India Lord Mountbatten who was missioned to handover freedom to India but unfortunately ended in the partition of India in his course of responsibilities. The current study discusses the misrepresentation of Jinnah the founder of Pakistan portrayed as an ambitious politician who wanted the division of India in line with imperial designs. This historical negationism and epistemological misrepresentation is in line with Corrigan's (2015) discussion about ideology in films where he discusses how films dominate and sometimes distort ways of seeing the world.

The Colony by Audrey Magee

Reviewed by: The Colony by Audrey Magee Ann Marie Short AUDREY MAGEE The Colony New York. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 2022. 374 pages. SET ON A REMOTE island off the western coast of Ireland in the summer of 1979 and written in a style that alternates between terse dialogue, revealing streams of consciousness, and poetic descriptions of an unforgiving [End Page 68] landscape, Audrey Magee's The Colony is a stunning meditation on place, power, and self-determination. Magee's second novel, longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for both the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Irish Book Prize, features a compelling constellation of characters struggling to assert an identity of their own design. While the violence of the Troubles escalates, first in the background but soon in ways that intrude upon their lives, they must negotiate the personal and political implications of their ambitions and desires. From the perspective of Mr. Lloyd, the English painter with a colonizer's gaze who travels there to spend the summer painting its cliffs, the island is nothing but "a large rock" located "on the edge of Europe." Although he is a landscape painter, Lloyd quickly begins to fancy himself an English Gauguin, painting portraits of "the islanders" (as they are called throughout the novel), despite having explicitly promised his hosts that he was not there to paint people. Meanwhile, French linguist JP Masson arrives on the island to spend his fourth summer in a row completing doctoral research that he hopes will help rescue the Irish language from extinction. The conflict between the two men is inevitable and immediate—each resents the other's intrusion upon a place to which he feels entitled. Neither realizes the irony of his own intrusion, both foreigners with their own agendas imposing their politics on a group of people who, historically, have not been afforded a say in much that affects them. Fifteen-year-old James and his mother, Mairéad, arguably the novel's most compelling characters, are the islanders whose lives are most upended by Lloyd's and Masson's summer projects. Each is caught in their own way between tradition and a personal desire to subvert the status quo and forge their own identities. James becomes Lloyd's student, wishing to escape his fate as a fisherman by moving to London with him to be an artist: "Despite all the troubles of Northern Ireland and the tension between Dublin and London, a wonderful new exhibition showing the work of an English artist and his Irish protégé proves that art is greater than politics." Meanwhile, the young widow Mairéad, resigned to living out the rest of her life on the island, finds other ways to challenge expectations, secretly posing nude for Lloyd's paintings. Though they should, ostensibly, resent the Englishman's presence on the island and his social and economic power over them, both James and Mairéad seek to borrow some of his authority to free themselves from the inevitability of their prescribed roles. Just as Lloyd and Masson disrupt the islanders' status quo, the narrative arc is structurally disrupted by short, factual descriptions of the killings occurring in Northern Ireland that summer, including the IRA bombing that killed Lord Mountbatten and several members of his family in August 1979. Both stylistically and in their explicitly violent content, these episodes are jarring, wrenching the reader out of the slow, quiet solitude of life on the island. The juxtaposition reminds us that the linguistic and cultural conflicts taking place on the island and the political violence of the Troubles are actually one and the same. Even as the violence occurs in different registers, this threat of destabilization looms over the entire novel. Ann Marie Short Saint Mary's College Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Sir Ernest Cassel, a ‘Jew of taste’

Abstract ‘Windsor’ Cassel, financial adviser to Edward VII, emigrated from Cologne to Liverpool aged 16, in 1869. Within five years he was earning a substantial salary. By 1888 he owned a residence in Mayfair, renting and then purchasing country houses and sporting estates. He owned an apartment in Paris, built a chalet in the Swiss Alps and rented villas near Biarritz. With the assistance of New York based dealer Joseph Duveen, in the 1890s Cassel collected Meissen porcelain, and from 1902 acquired antique English silver from leading London dealers. In 1904 Cassel purchased Brook House, Park Lane, which he extended and furnished with historic British portraits, French furniture, clocks, jade, porcelain, silver and contemporary paintings. The house and its contents were inherited by his granddaughter Edwina Ashley, who married Lord Mountbatten after Cassel’s death. Brook House was redeveloped, and although the best paintings, porcelain and silver were redisplayed there by the Mountbattens, the remainder of Cassel’s collection was sold at auction in 1932.

Mountbatten and India, 1964-79: after Nehru

ABSTRACT This article throws light on Lord Mountbatten’s enduring involvement in India after 1964, an overlooked feature of his later life. On a number of issues such as the abolition of titles, privileges and privy purses of Indian Princes (1967–71), imposition of Emergency in India (1975), arms sales, expulsion of BBC (1970–72) and evolution of history-writing on Partition, this article evaluates his changing role as a ‘friend of India’ in Britain, while becoming an irksome interlocutor for both the British and Indian ‘official mind’. This draining of Mountbatten’s influence, though not involvement, through the 1970s, represented an inter-generational dilation of Indo-British relations.

Swordplay: Lord Mountbatten, Count Terauchi and the Japanese Surrender in Southeast Asia

Abstract Field Marshal Count Terauchi’s personal surrender of swords to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten in November 1945 highlights some of the complexities related to the Japanese surrender in Southeast Asia. Japanese swords served as important symbols for both their owners and the Allies. Mountbatten’s determination to dispossess the Japanese of their swords reflected his views on Japan’s militarism and a desire to impress upon soldiers their subservience to British authority when most had not been directly defeated in battle. On the other hand, Mountbatten was constrained by the huge area placed under his command, the lack of resources at his disposal and rising nationalist resistance. In these circumstances, Mountbatten sought the co-operation of surrendered Japanese personnel in British interests. The issue of surrendering Japanese swords underlines Mountbatten’s conflicting objectives and Count Terauchi’s efforts to manipulate the situation.

Adaptation or Historical Anomaly?: Partition Narratives and Their Visual Counterparts

This research accentuates the presence of multi-layered histories within partition literature and its adaptations as a historiographic mise en abyme— an interpretive multiplicity of historical narratives. The aim is to highlight, probe and eventually determine the significance of addressing multivocality within sensitive historical accounts when told through the aesthetic mediums of fiction and film. In the context of this research, the traditional narrative of the partition of the Subcontinent includes political and nationalistic attitudes on both sides of the divide. The research sets out to explore the extent to which these overreaching accounts and wide-ranging versions of the partition empower the concerned entities to give subjective meanings to their partition experiences. Gurinder Chadha’s film Viceroy’s House (2017), which is partly based on the memoirs of Louis Mountbatten, documented in Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (1976) is taken as the case study, with reference to its source text. The primary trigger of this research is the debate between the Traditionalist and Revisionist school of Historiography, as it seeks to examine the inherent problematic nature of revisionist partition history on text and on screen. This research presents the textual and film narratives of partition as alternative archives, whose authenticity and validity is yet to be established, in comparison with the historical documents/texts. It advocates the necessity to constantly re-evaluate and reinterpret history in the light of new facts; however, all attempts to revise history in the name of aesthetics, without merit and evidence, should be recognized as subjective versions.

Mountbatten, Auchinleck and the End of the British Indian Army: August–November 1947

Juxtaposing the private papers of Louis Mountbatten and Claude Auchinleck, this article seeks to shed light on the most influential factor in the reconstitution of the British Indian Army into the Indian and Pakistani armies, namely, the two men's worsening relationship between April and November 1947, in view of what each saw as the other's partisan position, and its consequences: the closure of Auchinleck's office and his departure from India. In doing so, it brings to the fore another aspect of that fraught period of transition, at the end of which the British Indian Empire was transformed into the dominions of India and Pakistan, and highlights the peculiar predicament in which the British found themselves during the transfer of power.

Lord Mountbatten's last supper to public health's last rites - The trajectory of medicine.

Lord Mountbatten's last supper to public health's last rites - The trajectory of medicine.

The Integration of Jammu and Kashmir in Indiaand the Role of the British Government

The Partition of India was one of the worst human tragedies. With millions dead in India and Pakistan, it has left deep scars on both sides. Was the Partition of India inevitable? Who were the key decision makers? What was the role of the then leadership in India and of the British who were ruling India? These are some of the questions raised and discussed time and again. Unfortunately, the then conflicts, problems and unrest did not end with the Partition of India. In fact, the Partition created a new discontent between India and Pakistan as two third area of Jammu and Kashmir was occupied by the Pakistani army in 1947 and till date it is under the illegal occupation of Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir, a princely state, was strategically very important for India and also for Pakistan. With Independence, the princely states, considering their geographical contiguity, had to sign the Instrument of Accession and join either the dominion of India or that of Pakistan. The ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession to join India on October 26, 1947. On October 27, 1947 the Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten ratified the Instrument of Accession and thus Jammu and Kashmir became a part of India. Despite this, Pakistan used force and occupied territories of the state. On the advice of Mountbatten, the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, took the matter of the Pakistan aggression to the United Nations. Although India had approached the United Nations over the issue of aggression by Pakistan on Indian soil, Pakistan and the West diverted India's complaint of aggression to the alleged controversial accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India by Maharaja Hari Singh. Why did the British and the USA do this? Were they against India? Were they favouring Pakistan? Or was this a part of the ‘Great Game ’, to restrain further expansion of the Soviet influence in the region? This paper attempts to explore the role and intentions of the British government with regard to the accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to India, and the controversies therein.

British Royal and State Funerals: Music and Ceremonial Since Elizabeth I. by Matthias Range

Reviewed by: British Royal and State Funerals: Music and Ceremonial Since Elizabeth I. by Matthias Range Jennifer Oates British Royal and State Funerals: Music and Ceremonial Since Elizabeth I. By Matthias Range. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2016. [xvii, 408 p. ISBN 9781783270927 (hard-back). $90.00.] Music examples, illustrations, tables, appendices, bibliography, index. Matthais Range's new book provides a thorough examination of the music of royal and state funerals in Britain over four centuries, from that of Elizabeth I in 1603 to the Queen Mother in 2002. Though there are studies of significant funerals in Britain, most focus on individual ceremonies, [End Page 650] few attempt a comprehensive examination of the topic, and none concentrate on the music. As the first study to explore "music and its distinct role and functioning within the ceremonial, taking into account not only the funeral service but also the lying-in-state and the outdoor processions," Range traces the evolution of music within royal and state funerals in the larger context of music and British history, illustrating how "the analysis of the music and its interaction with the ceremonial at funerals contributes in a special way to the understanding of their changing character, meaning and perception" (p. 3). The focus is on the music and ceremony, but Range includes details that impacted the placement of the musicians, service, and so forth, such as indicating through which door of the abbey or chapel a funeral procession or body entered. The meticulous research, thoughtful organization, and the overall skillful balance between a broad view and comprehensive examination of individual funerals make this book a significant resource. The introduction provides an overview and serves as an essential read for anyone interested in the topic. Here, Range explains the difference between the royal and state funeral (as well as the heraldic, ceremonial, and military funeral), defines the time frame covered (from the first significant royal funeral "that took place after the full, secure establishment of the Church of England" [p. 2] to the first major royal funeral of the twenty-first century), includes a helpful literature review, and, perhaps most importantly, provides a thorough section on terminology (including the differentiation between English/British, public/private, funeral/burial) and descriptions of the ceremonial parts of a funeral, the liturgy of the funeral and burial service, and the music (Funeral Sentences, anthems, fanfares, and other music). The titles of the eight chronological chapters that follow the introduction trace the general outline of the history of these obsequies, from the public royal funeral processions of chapter one ("Heraldic Heyday: From Elizabeth I to the Duke of Rothes [1603–1681]") to the public state and private royal funerals of chapter five ("Public Heroes and Private Royals: From Pitt the Elder and Lord Nelson to Queen Adelaide [1778/1806–1849]"). The next chapters cover the gradual return of public royal funerals as the Empire faded, in chapters six ("Apogee and Royal Retreat: From the Duke of Wellington to Prince Albert Victor and William Gladstone [1852–1892/8]"), seven ("Imperial Farewells: From Queen Victoria to Winston Churchill and the Duke of Windsor [1901–1965/72]") and eight ("The Royal Return to the Public: From Lord Mountbatten to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother [1979–2002]"). The comparison of Princess Diana's very public ceremonial royal funeral—which was a state funeral "in all but name" (p. 306) as well as the first post-modern royal funeral, with its inclusion of interfaith and ecumenical gestures (including Anglican music, John Taverner's Greek Orthodox-influenced music, and secular popular music performed by Elton John)—and the Queen Mother's equally public but more subdued royal state funeral, provides a fitting conclusion by highlighting the full return to the lavish public royal funeral and taking us into current practices. While Range focuses on the obsequies of royalty and major military or political figures in England, he goes beyond the English borders for several funerals, such as those of the Duke of Rothes in 1681 (described by James Balfour Paul as "the most sumptuous funeral ever seen in Scotland" [Heraldry in Relation to Scottish History and Art (Edinburgh: D. Douglas, 1900), 75]), George I in Hanover (the...

Countess Mountbatten of Burma CD, DL (1924–2017)

Our Society mourns the death of our Honorary Vice-President, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, who passed away peacefully at her home in Mersham, Kent, on Tuesday 13 June 2017, aged 93.In 1943, at age...

Autobiography and history on screen: The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten

The television series, The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten (1968), was a unique collaboration between an independent production company, Associated-Rediffusion, a national museum, the Imperial War Museum, and one of the most famous aristocratic and military figures of the twentieth century, Lord Mountbatten. Furthermore, Mountbatten was the programme’s presenter, appearing on screen to describe his experiences autobiographically. Through the use of film and images, Mountbatten’s ‘life’ was intertwined with the historical ‘times’ of over half a century. Though praised at the point of its release to British audiences in 1969 by the public, critics and historians alike, The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten has since largely been ignored by scholars interested in the history-on-television genre. By detailing the origins, format, production and reception of the series, and by comparing it to both The Great War (1964) and The World at War (1973–1974), which were also produced in conjunction with the Imperi...

Autobiography and history on screen: The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten

The television series, The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten (1968), was a unique collaboration between an independent production company, Associated-Rediffusion, a national museum, the Imperial War Museum, and one of the most famous aristocratic and military figures of the twentieth century, Lord Mountbatten. Furthermore, Mountbatten was the programme’s presenter, appearing on screen to describe his experiences autobiographically. Through the use of film and images, Mountbatten’s ‘life’ was intertwined with the historical ‘times’ of over half a century. Though praised at the point of its release to British audiences in 1969 by the public, critics and historians alike, The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten has since largely been ignored by scholars interested in the history-on-television genre. By detailing the origins, format, production and reception of the series, and by comparing it to both The Great War (1964) and The World at War (1973–1974), which were also produced in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum, the immediate success and subsequent failure of The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten to attract popular and academic attention provides an argument for widening the discussion on television history and its limited categorisations.

Conflicts During the Planning of Indian Independence and its Partition in Pour l’amour de l’Inde by Catherine Clément and Indian Summer by Alex von Tunzelmann. An Embodiment Approach to Violence

The end of the Raj and the British Empire had multiple consequences on Indian history, geography and society. While India was joyfully declared an independent nation, its partition caused innumerable violent episodes, the exodus of religious groups, Hindu-Muslim riots and conflicts with its new-born neighbour Pakistan. In such a tumultuous scenario, Gandhi’s proclaimed message of ahimsa (non-violence) opposed the will of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and the, until then, Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten who managed British Government policy. Pour l’amour de l’Inde (1993) by Catherine Clement, and Indian Summer. The Secret History of the End of an Empire (2007) by Alex von Tunzelmann both explore the last days of colonized India in detail and with a sharp eye on the events and personalities that shaped this new India. The literary reconstruction of historic events gives a new insight into the decisions which led to Indian independence and division. In both novels, the body plays an important role. With physical and metaphorical references, from the maternal body of India being tainted, to Gandhi’s fasts and refusal of medication, the body is charged with political and symbolic meanings.

Hajari, Nisid Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition

Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 328p.Partition, the division of the Indian subcontinent into two countries in 1947, will always be remembered as one of the 20th century’s major tragedies, involving one of the greatest forced human migrations in history, displacing more than 10 million people. It led to more than a million deaths in the context of Britain’s departure from the subcontinent and the independence of India and Pakistan. Finally, it was the opening chapter of one of the world’s most complex and unresolved rivalries, producing a nuclear hot spot many regard as the most dangerous in the world.Nisid Hajari has written a very readable book about the politics of Partition, detailing the negotiations and power dynamics in the run-up to August 15, 1947. With journalistic skill, the author provides intimate portraits of the book’s main characters, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel (Sardar) and Lord Louis Mountbatten also appear frequently, but Hajari essentially depicts the drama of Partition as a two-man show.While Hajari excels at transforming a complex and unwieldy event into a page-turner, his account is India-centric and ultimately too biased towards Nehru’s views to provide a balanced account. India’s first Prime Minister, the reader is told on the first pages of the book, was “dashing”, “famously hand-some”, had “high, aristocratic cheekbones and eyes that were deep pools – ir-resistible to his many female admirers”. “Although disdainful of superficialities, he took great care with his appearance”, the author marvels. Throughout the book, Hajari describes Nehru’s supposedly superhuman qualities, for example when he offers risking his life to protect Muslims in Old Delhi.Jinnah, by contrast, is largely depicted as a power-hungry crook who lacked any principles, “irascible” and “criminally negligent” in his thinking

The Long Goodbye: British Agency in the Creation of Navies for India and Pakistan

The armed forces of India and Pakistan draw legacies from a common British imperial past. British influence persisted in the navies that emerged from independence and partition on the South Asia subcontinent. Complaints over treatment and other grievances in the colonial Royal Indian Navy underscored a major mutiny in February 1946, prior to division of warships, shore-based establishments and personnel between the two countries. The transformation into truly national navies was long and involved, buttressed by continued reliance on British professional expertise and arms transfers. While the Admiralty offered warships on the basis of association with the commonwealth and defence cooperation in the Indian Ocean, navies in India and Pakistan led by senior British officers pursued distinct agendas and force structures that more and more looked towards potential war against each other. Louis Mountbatten, the last British viceroy, intervened often in naval matters before and after partition, encouraging Indians and Pakistanis to build up naval forces suited to national needs as well as serving British interests and imperial defence commitments during the early Cold War. Continued British presence impaired full nationalisation and the assumption of higher leadership roles by qualified indigenous naval officers in the newly independent commonwealth nations.

Trial and Error Model on Kashmir Conflict

Jammu and Kashmir is situated between 32o-15' to 37o-05' latitude north and 72o-35' to 80o-20' longitude east and is commonly known as Kashmir — the princely state of 1947. It is bounded by China in north and east, Afghanistan in north — west, Pakistan in west and in south by India and has complex physiographic divisions, consisting of — Poonch and Jammu, with two further subdivisions — Shivalik; Sub-Himalayan zone — Pir Panjal range — Valley of Kashmir; blessed with a fertile soil, glorious climate, grand mountains, fine rivers and lovely lakes — main Himalayan mass — Gilghit-Hunza. In August 1947, India and Pakistan became independent. Under the scheme of partition provided by the Indian Independence Act of 1947, Kashmir was free to accede to India or Pakistan, even some historians say about remaining Independent, however, Kashmir remained a country in itself for just 73 days since 14th August 1947 to 27th October 1947. Its accession to India in nuance with tribal raid, became a matter of dispute between the two countries and fighting broke out later that year. Whether Maharaja was forced for the accession or did on the basis of religion or carried out in a treacherous manner, but the response of Lord Mountbatten about accession saying the question of accession should be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people . Furthermore, in August just after partition, standstill agreement of Maharaja was accepted by Pakistan accommodating Independent status Kashmir, unfortunately, presently it is mired in the political offices of New Delhi and Islamabad.

A Historical Perspective : The Emergence of Islam and Muslim Identity in India : British Colonialism and Indian Congress Leadership in the Vivisection and Partitioning of India

This paper attempts to deal with the complex and intricate issue of the emergence of Islam and Muslim identity in undivided India. In so doing, the paper focuses on an historical perspective, for purposes of recalling the great divide in India before partition. The two papers also encapsulate the issues that permeate Indian independence from British colonialism and, they attempt to discuss, the formation of two independent countries in the form of independent India and independent Pakistan, as two distinct nation states. More importantly, these aspects will be discussed in paper two of the two part series of articles. This partition or vivisection of the Indian subcontinent was a great tragedy of history and of our times, in the 20 th century. It will also very briefly discuss the formation of Bangladesh as a relic of British colonialism in the great design to split the Indian subcontinent into three nation states. This will be undertaken in paper two. It therefore discusses the designs of British colonialism and brings to the fore issues that need to be grasped in terms of both Indian and British leadership in dividing the Indian sub – continent. The role of Indian leaders and of Viceroy Lord Mountbatten are discussed as a great tragedy to justice and the infliction of great pain to so many people that, were unnecessarily massacred and separated from their land of birth by partition. This aspect will be discussed in paper two of this series of articles. The paper draws upon the work of Jaswant Singh, Peter Hardy, William Dalrymple, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a great son of India, Richard Hough and, a host of other distinguished writers and scholars, in respect of the emergence of Islam and Muslim identity in the Indian sub – continent. On the other hand the paper draws from the experiences and observations of the writer himself, who was a student in India for seven years (1971 – 1979). Travelled the length and breadth of India during this period, and lived in New Delhi, Bombay, Lucknow, Hyderabad and Udaipur in Rajasthan for protracted periods of time. Interviewed and spoke to many people and travelled to Muslim and Hindu regions of the subcontinent and travelled to Indian Kashmir and to Ladhak, and its capital Leh (part of India but in Western Tibet). For a period of seven months in 1974, at the young and tender age of 22, the writer travelled from Jammu (Kashmir) by road to Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan and, had the opportunity of seeing for himself some of the issues raised in this paper. Had the opportunity of mingling with the locals of different religions and cultures of these countries and battled the harsh terrains and, saw the magnificent sceneries’, the diverse and rich cultures of magnificent, proud and intellectual people, in spite of a sea of