The Mountbatten MythS. Gopal FREEDOM AT MIDNIGHT By L. Collins and D. Lapierre Vikas, New Delhi, 1975, 45.00 VOLUME I NUMBER 1 January - March 1976 The two authors of this book have over
the years developed a type of book-making for themselves. The idea is to pick
up some subject of recent history which is full of incident and drama, visit
the site, read up as much as you can, interview such of the participants as are
still around and then write a blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute account. There is
a broad base of fact, though this is not very important; but certain events are
highlighted, some personalities are exaggerated and the drama is converted
into melodrama. There is some research but it is submerged in imaginary
dialogue. Nothing is done to warn the unwary reader that the authors were not
all the time behind the curtains or under the car-seats with their
tape-recorders. The result is a kind of Cecil B. De Mille on paper. One has the
feeling of reading a panoramic film script. Gripping but not true; vivid but
unreal.
The writers have already
tried their hand on Paris during the war and the creation of Israel; and now
they have got round to the transfer of power in India in 1947—a subject, with
its blend of colour, passion, personality and tragedy, which is obviously
suited to their talents. They have done a lot of homework and the reader new to
the subject will get a broad, general impression of the men and issues
involved. The book also shows, on the whole, the right approach and sympathy.
For the non-Indian reader, therefore, this basically
non-serious book can be said to have some value, however limited. He will smile
again at timeworn jokes about the Maharajas, relive the horrors of Partition,
discern the schizophrenia of Jinnah and recognize the nobility of Gandhi and Nehru.
But the fact of an Indian edition raises other problems. For most of us these
general strands are parts of a well-known background. Readers here are more
likely to sniff at or accept the details which are claimed to be new; and this
is where the danger lies. Collins and Lapierre have spent a large amount of
time with Mountbatten and his version of events colours the narrative.
Obviously, and understandably, to the last Viceroy everything else in his life
since 1947 has been an anti-climax; and he has been incessantly reliving those
events. But as time passes he sees himself more and more at the centre of the
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