Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Tunzelmann Alex Von

Author:Tunzelmann, Alex Von [Tunzelmann, Alex Von]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2008-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

TEN DAYS after the transfer of power, the scale and awfulness of what was under way had still not been realized in Delhi. “We are only just alive,” wrote Edwina to her friend Kay Norton, “but the last gruelling five months have been well worth while after all the incredible happenings and demonstrations of the last 10 days.” She expressed the hope that the refugee situation would soon be resolved.48 In the days after writing those words, both she and Jawaharlal Nehru visited the Punjab, and the grim truth began to sink in.

In 1946, Nehru had made three predictions to the journalist Jacques Marcuse. “One, India will never be a Dominion. Two, there will never be a Pakistan. Three, when the British go, there will be no more communal trouble in India.” Marcuse was back in Delhi just after partition to interview him again, but could not bring himself to remind Nehru of their previous conversation. In the end, Nehru brought it up himself. “You remember, Marcuse, what I told you? No Dominion, No Pakistan, No …”

Both men were silent for a moment, until Nehru added wistfully, “Wasn’t I wrong?”49

On 24 August, he set out at six o’clock in the morning in an airplane for the Punjabi town of Jullundur and spent hours traveling by car and jeep across the dusty plains. He emerged to walk through deserted ruins which had been lively, noisy and welcoming villages. Now there was no sound, no life; just corpses, cinders and dried-up splashes of bloodstain in the dust. He saw a caravan of one hundred thousand refugees, moving despondently away to a new, unknown land. He talked to as many as he could. “I cannot imagine another day when he could have felt more strongly that all his hopes, his dreams, his faith in human nature were crashing down in pieces,” remembered his secretary, H. V. R. Iengar. Finally, he made it to bed at two o’clock the next morning, before getting up at half past five to fly to Lahore. The passengers on the plane slumped back in their seats, exhausted and miserable; except for Nehru, who was engrossed in reading a slim volume. Iengar asked him what it was. He explained that it was a Sanskrit play: Mrcchakatika, or The Little Clay Cart.50 It is the witty and scandalous story of a hero, Charudatta, “the tree of plenty to the poor,” “a treasure of manly virtues, intelligent, liberal, and upright,” who has given up his hereditary riches to the people. Charudatta falls in love with a spirited, bold and compassionate woman, Vasantasena. But Vasantasena is claimed by another man: the frivolous, hasty and foolish brother-in-law of the king. “There is no changing nature,” a character remarks; “nothing can keep an ox out of a field of corn, nor stop a man who covets another’s wife.” In the end, Charudatta not only wins the love of Vasantasena but through “noble daring wrest[s] an empire from its ancient lords.”51 Much in this ancient tale must have resonated.

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