Review by Choice Review
Few books have no redeeming value whatsoever. This one comes very close indeed. It purports to be "the secret history" of the end of an empire, with the empire defined as India, but there is no secret history at all. There is no military, diplomatic, political, or economic analysis that would justify the subtitle. This is, in fact, a very old-fashioned, racy narrative focusing on the high politics of the independence movement and narrating the well-known activities and peccadilloes of the usual suspects in the drama, such as Gandhi and Jinnah, but it is done in a thoroughly simplistic and romantic manner as if no serious research had been done on the subject in the last 50 years. Above all, however, it must fit into the Mountbatten hagiography and encompass oft-told goings-on during the affair of Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten. A novel has been written about the affair, and this book can be placed next to it. Twenty-eight of the 35 photographs in the book are of the Mountbattens and/or Nehru. Summing Up: Not recommended. R. D. Long Eastern Michigan University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
ON the balmy evening of Aug. 15, 1947, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, the great-grandson of Queen Victoria and the last viceroy of India, gave a sumptuous party in the Mughal Gardens of Delhi to mark the end of empire. Thousands of tiny lanterns hung from the bougainvillea and jacaranda trees as the great and good of India, past and future - native princes in dazzling array, British colonial army officers, Indian politicians of every creed and stripe - wandered among the fountains and rose beds, sipping Champagne and eating canapés. Louis Mountbatten moved among the throng with his vivacious wife, Edwina, whose close relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru, India's foremost statesman, was already the source of lurid local gossip. Nehru had been independent India's first prime minister for less than 24 hours. Pakistan was not yet a day old. It was a surreal occasion - Britain renouncing and dividing up the jewel of empire with every appearance of satisfaction; India and Pakistan applauding a freedom that would soon be engulfed by bloodshed and war. The viceroy (known as Dickie to his friends, and Lord Mountbatten to absolutely everyone else) was gorgeous in his finery, bedecked with medals, sash and brocade like a figure from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera Implausibly handsome, royal of blood and regal of bearing, Dickie loved to dress up. No Englishman was better suited to the task of representing the dissolution of empire as a grand celebratory gesture. The fairy lights winked in the trees of the Mughal Gardens and dusk fell on Delhi that night, but the subcontinent was already aflame. Thousands had perished in Lahore in an orgy of religious murder. Over the coming days and months, as Britain slipped away, the riots would spread in a holocaust of communal violence. With the stroke of a pen, the king's representative in India granted independence to four-fifths of the British Empire, or 400 million souls. The young British historian Alex von Tunzelmann has elected to tell the story of that handover and its aftermath through five people: the Mountbattens; Nehru; Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan; and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, spiritual leader of the independence movement. This is history as multiple, interconnected biography, and what it lacks in depth is more than made up for in panache. Beyond the great clash of communities, religions and ideas, Indian independence was a story of the subtle interplay of these five powerful individuals, whose relations encompassed three close friendships, two bitter enmities, at least three cases of hero-worship, a love affair and one very odd marriage. Dickie Mountbatten was in many ways a strange choice to preside over the end of empire. He had proved himself a particularly inept wartime commander. As "cousin to almost every king, prince and grand duke in the monkey-puzzle family tree of European royalty" he was most in his element as a sort of royal fixer. Arguably his signal achievement to date was to encourage the betrothal of his nephew Philip to Elizabeth, the future queen. Von Tunzelmann has a fine time puncturing royal pretension. Her description of the future Duke of Edinburgh is delightfully cruel: "His father was a playboy who had disappeared into the Champagne bars of the Côte d'Azur; his mother, abandoned, had gone mad and become a nun; his sisters had all married Nazis." Dickie, however, was determined that through Philip, the House of Mountbatten should occupy the throne; his candidate got there, though his name did not. This, then, was the man selected by Prime Minister Clement Attlee to oversee the hideously complex process of Indian independence. Many expected him to fail utterly. Some, like Winston Churchill, regarded the handover as little short of treachery. The preposterously named Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax spoke for many when he wrote to the new viceroy: "Muslim & Hindu in India, like Jews & Arab in Palestine, will continue to quarrel until one of the contending parties invites the Russians to come in & help them. After that, the date of World War No. 3 is anybody's guess. ... Every good wish to you in your difficult task." Yet in other ways a charming, gung-ho, genealogy-obsessed scion of British royalty was just the man for a very specific task: to get Britain out of India as swiftly and cheaply as possible. This, von Tunzelmann argues, Mountbatten achieved: He "turned a stagnating mess into perhaps the most successful retreat from empire in history - from the point of view of the imperialist nation, at least." Whether Britain failed morally is another question. Some have called for Mountbatten to face a posthumous court-martial, laying the tragedy that engulfed India firmly at his door. The viceroy failed to appreciate the level of Sikh fury in the Punjab; he did not deploy British troops when the violence escalated; and he hurried through the preparations for partition with disastrous and inexplicable speed. The intensely complicated work of drawing the new borders was left to Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a barrister with no personal experience of India and an impossible deadline. He completed this monumental, unenviable task in 40 days, sweating in a boiling bungalow. Radcliffe then burned his papers and scuttled for home, observing: "There will be roughly 80 million people with a grievance who will begin looking for me. I do not want them to find me." Von Tunzelmann does her best to defend Mountbatten, pointing out that his hands were tied by a deteriorating situation. She quotes Gandhi's bleak observation that India faced only two alternatives, continued British rule or a bloodbath. "You must face the bloodbath and accept it," the Mahatma told Mountbatten. The truth is that Britain wanted to quit India with dignity if possible, but speed above all; the cost in human lives was of secondary importance. This is a book more concerned with the smaller, more colorful threads of individual character than with the broader tapestry of history and retrospective judgment. Woven through it is the poignant love affair between Edwina Mountbatten and Nehru. Whether that relationship was ever consummated is unknown, and unimportant. What is certain is that it was intense. Lord Mountbatten with his wife, Edwina, and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1948. Dickie knew about the relationship, and was not only tolerant but encouraging. Edwina's passion for Nehru was echoed in her determination to help his people, and as the carnage spread, she plunged fearlessly into the squalid refugee camps and hospitals. Countess Mountbatten hated the fripperies of her position as much as her husband adored them; her highly visible campaign to improve the lot of ordinary Indians is remembered today, long after Mountbatten's flags and medals have been forgotten. In the flood of books marking the anniversary of independence, this one is different. It does not seek to apportion blame, nor offer an exhaustive account of events, nor even, despite its subtitle, to expose the secrets of that time. Except for one rather unnecessary homily at the end, it suggests no prescriptions for the future. Instead, "Indian Summer" achieves something both simpler and rarer, placing the behavior and feelings of a few key players at the center of a tumultuous moment in history. In the years after independence, Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten continued to meet, and write, and share a love of India. When she died, suddenly, at the age of 58, Nehru sent an Indian Navy frigate to the spot where she had been buried at sea in the English Channel, to cast a single wreath of marigolds. Britain wanted to quit India with dignity if possible, but speed above all. Human lives had less importance. Ben Macintyre is an associate editor of The Times of London. His latest book is "Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
"The end of the British Raj remains a controversial topic among historians. Could partition have been avoided if British and Indian politicians were more prudent? Could the communal violence that cost up to a million lives have been avoided or at least mitigated? Although Von Tunzelmann touches on these questions, she does not attempt to answer them, but perhaps those answers are beyond the scope of this general history of the closing years of British control. Instead, she provides an interesting look at the key players in this tumultuous period. Despite the title, there are no startling revelations here. But Von Tunzelmann's portrayals of Nehru, Jinnah, Gandhi, and Louis Mountbatten are often provocative and at odds with more conventional views. Gandhi, for example, is seen as rather rigid, sometimes petty, and maddeningly indecisive. Nehru, the giant of Indian nationalist aspirations, seems more British than the British themselves and distinctly uncomfortable as a leader of a mass movement. This is not a particularly comprehensive account, but for general readers, this work will be very valuable."--"Freeman, Jay" Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The transfer of power from the British Empire to the new nations of India and Pakistan in the summer of 1947 was one of history's great, and tragic, epics: 400 million people won independence, and perhaps as many as one million died in sectarian violence among Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. In her scintillating debut, British author von Tunzelmann keeps one eye on the big picture, but foregrounds the personalities and relationships of the main political leaders-larger-than-life figures whom she cuts down to size. She portrays Gandhi as both awe inspiring and, with his antisex campaigns and inflexible moralism, an exasperating eccentric. British viceroy Louis "Dickie" Mountbatten comes off as a clumsy diplomat dithering over flag designs while his partition plan teetered on the brink of disaster. Meanwhile, his glamorous, omnicompetent wife, Edwina, looks after refugees and carries on an affair with the handsome, stalwart Indian statesman Nehru. Von Tunzelmann's wit is cruel-"Gandhi... wanted to spread the blessings of poverty and humility to all people"-but fair in its depictions of complex, often charismatic people with feet of clay. The result is compelling narrative history, combining dramatic sweep with dishy detail. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In her debut work, Tunzelmann offers an extremely well-written and lively history of a pivotal time for two nations. While Britain and India prepared for the post-World War II dismantling of the former empire, the political players found that disentangling the two powers was more complicated than anticipated. In describing the behind-the-scenes history of the crises accompanying Indian independence and partition, the author focuses predominantly on Louis and Edwina Mountbatten, Mohandas Gandhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru and how their personal lives affected the political situation and one another. Tunzelmann maintains that while Mountbatten, as the final viceroy of India, was mainly bemused and stymied by the infinite challenges of the rising Indian government, his wife was far more competent in grasping these complexities while efficiently doing humanitarian work. In fact, it was her close relationship with Prime Minister Nehru that raised eyebrows and may have altered the course of history. This is an eye-opening view of a remarkable time, as the British Empire divested itself of its largest colony and a new world power was born. For another perspective on the strong personalities behind these changes, see Shashi Tharoor's Nehru. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/07.]-Elizabeth Morris, Barrington Area Lib., IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Tepid account of the end of the Raj, though with a little imperialist-colonialist hanky-panky thrown in for good measure. It is small news that Britain ceded its empire willingly, forgetting about little exceptions such as the U.S. and Malaysia. When it gave up India at midnight on August 14, 1947, the civil strife that led to the partition of India and Pakistan ensued almost instantly. The architect of empire's end--and, at least in part, of that partition--was the viceroy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, "Dickie" to his friends, who, British historian von Tunzelmann writes, had a jape two minutes before his tenure ran out by "creating the Australian wife of the Nawab of Palanpur a highness, in defiance of Indian caste customs and British policy." Hardly an example of enlightened rule, one might think, but Dickie had a thoroughly modern attitude otherwise, even encouraging his wife Edwina to enjoy a mnage-a-trois with none other than Jawaharlal Nehru, on the way to becoming the father of his country. Edwina was the chief beneficiary of the arrangement; writes von Tunzelmann, "With Dickie, she was in an affectionate, sexless companionship; with Jawahar, she had found something more profound and more passionate." All well and good, and even though Edwina would later threaten divorce and took off by herself for India annually once the couple had returned to England, Dickie was at ease, continuing a long correspondence with Nehru on such things as the status of Kashmir and the political makeup of Nehru's new cabinet--the dry and boring stuff of history, in other words. Von Tunzelmann too frequently strives for effect ("Bose emerged from the foam off the coast of Singapore, a fascist Aphrodite spewed up from the deep"), and the Mountbattens' unusual accommodation too often threatens to overshadow the real story, which is that of Indian independence. That story is better told elsewhere, most recently Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi (2007). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
