INDIA

DAVIDGILMOUR DIVIDED IT STANDS

INDIANSUMMER: THESECRETHISTORYOF THEENDOFANEMPIRE

★

By Alex von Tunzelmann (Simon & Schuster 464pp £20)

THEGREATPARTITION: THEMAKINGOF INDIAANDPAKISTAN

★By Yasmin Khan (Yale University Press 251pp £19.99)

INDIANSUMMER is surely destined for Hollywood. Equipped with a handsome and flamboyant cast, Alex von Tunzelmann has already more or less arranged the settings, designed the costumes and produced a script which flits from place to place and from character to character, deftly interweaving private lives with political events in a racy, dramatic and often humorous narrative. It’s easy to envisage some colourful scenes: ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten and ‘David’ Prince of Wales larking about in a pool and pig-sticking in Jodhpur (frivolous upperclass background); Mountbatten as viceroy and his wife Edwina having nightly rows in midsummer Delhi (marital stress and pathos); Gandhi on his day of silence visiting Mountbatten and answering the viceregal conversation on paper (amusing interlude); Edwina and Nehru (the Great Loves of each other’s lives) rushing off to stop a riot during partition (heroism), walking in the hills around Simla (romance) and being discovered some years later embracing in the lovely hill-station of Naini Tal (sex). The finale is difficult to decide upon. The Mountbattens being cheered by emotional Indian crowds at Independence? The former viceroy whispering into his Queen’s ear that the invasion of Suez is ‘lunatic’? Mountbatten and members of his family being blown up by the IRA? All these would be strong, but stronger and more sentimental still would be the sight of the Indian frigate sent by Nehru all the way to the English Channel so that a wreath of marigolds could be thrown

into the sea after Edwina’s coffin. The audience will appreciate the author’s classification of her characters into good guys, Nehru and Edwina (not only romantic but also brave, philanthropic and politically commendable), bad guys, Churchill (for encouraging Jinnah and Pakistan) and Jinnah (for creating Pakistan), and some figures who manage to be often silly and sometimes astute (Gandhi and Mountbatten). Viewers will find the Gandhi of this film very different from the Mahatma of Richard Attenborough; they will also enjoy a more accurate representation of the period. Although she has been unable to see the Edwina– Nehru correspondence, Alex von Tunzelmann has been resourceful in research and tells her story with verve and fine judgement in a colourful, virtuoso style. Yet occasionally she is flippant and unfair to certain characters, concentrating their defects and inconsistencies into a short passage and thereby giving the impression that they were ridiculous people. Apart from relishing Gandhi’s political blunders, she picks out the silliest of Mahatman views on non-violence (eg that the British should not resist Hitler and that women should not resist rapists), the most heartless of his decisions (eg refusing to let his dying wife have penicillin) and the crankiest of his activities (eg testing his vow of celibacy by sharing a bed with naked girls). Yet she allows him to redeem himself at the end when his heroic fast in Calcutta saves the city from further communal carnage. Mountbatten is also a target for jibes and mockery before he too comes up trumps in an emergency. The author loves to dissect his absurdities, especially his vanity, his love of flags and uniforms, and his obsession with genealogy, a passion which becomes a triumph when his nephew Philip marries Princess Elizabeth and becomes Duke of Edinburgh. She is ruthless about his military shortcomings, his weakness as a strategist, his bungling over the Dieppe raid. The account of his naval career, which relies largely on Philip Ziegler’s masterly biography, is hilarious, a catalogue of accidents that blighted the ships under his command. These would hit a British mine or crash into British ships or attract German torpedo fire because their captain was speeding ‘too noisily’ or making ‘overzealous use of his signalling lights’. On one occasion Mountbatten changed direction when he was

Mountbatten: averting his gaze

33

LITERARY REVIEW August 2007