Revealed: last fearful days in India as Empire crumbled

indiamike

Vanessa Thorpe
Sunday September 1, 2002
The Observer

Historians have been stunned by previously unseen footage of the human misery that followed India's Partition. Now the public can see it - and it could damage Mountbatten's reputation

They are images that will change the way we think about the British Empire. Since the last days of the Raj, historians have wrangled over the imperial legacy in India, but the full extent of the suffering inflicted when Mountbatten, the last Viceroy in charge of the continent, pulled out in 1947, is about to be revealed as never before.

Following the enormous success of The Second World War in Colour, ITV is now to screen The British Empire in Colour, an astonishing collection of original colour film footage shot at the far-flung outposts of empire and now restored for its first public viewing.

The three-part television series, broadcast later this month, will feature unseen colour sequences from Africa, Australia, Canada and the West Indies. Yet it is frames shot at the time of the Partition of India that have stunned audiences at early screenings and already provoked argument among eminent historians - some of whom have drawn comparisons with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda.

The British, and in particular Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Charles's great uncle and adored mentor, come across as vainglorious interlopers who left the continent when trouble loomed. Terrible scenes, not seen before, of thousands of dispossessed refugees trailing across the newly created border with Pakistan will make it hard to defend the memory of colonial India as a caring, orderly place, which was run in increasing collaboration with Indians.

But for the outspoken historian Andrew Roberts, and for Professor Judith Brown, the Oxford academic who advised the programme-makers on India, these distressing pictures will be a welcome jolt to Britain's complacent self-image.

'At the time of transition the British establishment admitted that around 100,000 had died,' said Roberts this weekend. 'But from my own researches the figure is more like three quarters of a million. A figure not unadjacent to what happened in Rwanda and worse, I think, than in Bosnia.

'It is high time that programmes such as these should bring us sharply up against our own failed responsibilities at the end of Empire.'

Brown also believes the Carlton/TWI series will at last show viewers 'the human cost' of Mountbatten's fateful decision to pull out of India at short notice and leave the Muslims and Hindus to fight over the new division of territory.

'This is going to be something of an eye-opener,' she said. 'We talk now about the awfulness of ethnic cleansing and, well, here it was. Once you start talking to any family in Delhi they all have their own terrible story of partition, and it is the same on the other side of the border in Pakistan.

'The footage shows terrible trails of people and much of this is not known about in Britain where it was described at the time as "a peaceful transfer of power".'

Brown argues that the British were obviously 'delighted to extricate themselves', but admits that the problems of partition cannot all be laid at Mountbatten's door. He had, after all, opened up the Viceregal Lodge to Indians and banned racist remarks.

'The diaries of the previous Viceroy, Wavell, show that he already knew the British were living on borrowed time,' she said.

'But we could not send out troops to help because there were coal shortages in Britain and people just wanted to have a roof over their head and some coal in the grate.'

The horrifying new footage paints an unfair picture of the Raj, however, according to the historian Jan Morris.

'On the whole the British Empire in India was benevolent and enlightened as empires go,' she said. 'Of course, we now know that the idea of Empire itself is wrong, but that doesn't mean all that was done there was wrong. Mountbatten can't be blamed for the antipathies between religions.'

Morris agrees with Brown that Mountbatten was something of a showman, but she argues that the Raj was maintained by 'generations of decent people who went out there selflessly'.

The controversial footage was bequeathed to the Imperial War Museum in the 1990s but has been watched by astonished curators for the first time this summer.

While there are impressive familiar images of colonial regalia and imperial pomp, it is the scenes of partition that struck the museum's archivist, Kay Gladstone.

'The refugee scenes are extraordinary,' he said. 'The immediacy of the colour makes us respond because we all lack the imagination to see this kind of pain in black and white newsreel.

'I don't think it can be viewed impartially,' he added. 'You can't be complacent about what was happening there.'

Series producer Lucy Carter is prepared to face criticism about editorial bias against Mountbatten and the British decision to pull out of India at high speed.

'I knew we were going to get asked about our objectivity,' she said. 'But the fact is that when you get into a story like this, your natural views come over.

'This is a story that still divides academics. Some think Mountbatten created chaos; all I can say is that this is the most historically breathtaking material I have ever seen.

'This was the largest forced migration the world had known and it manages to capture the epic proportions of it. It makes history suddenly become very real and we used as much of it as we could.'

· The TWI/Carlton series The British Empire in Colour will be broadcast on ITV this month. A book, video and DVD will also be available to coincide with the series

abracax

I grew up in a place called Hamilton, Ontario and we know all about Mountbatten there because every year there's a big memorial notice in the papers listing the local lads who were killed during his little adventure in Dieppe. Nothing is too bad for a vainglorious fool who strutted around in his white uniform while millions died and Nehru porked his wife. May he rest in pieces.

__________________
He travels fastest who pays for a cab.

abracax

P.S. I think your avataar may be blasphemous.

anonymous

The Observer belongs to the Guardian newspaper which is a notorious left wing rag and the UK's staunchest defender of the pure Socialist faith. It's right up there with the Daily Worker in terms of objective credibility. Doesn't surprise me at all that they blame their traditional upper class enemies in England but the fact of the matter is that it was Hindus and Moslems who were butchering each other. The Observer takes the side of the Oxbridge literati and other professional "human rights" activists who prefer to focus the blame on the English for not being able to stop the slaughter while ignoring the culpability of those who were actually doing the killing.
Hey by the way, I dig that new picture of Jesus. He looks like a cool guy but the picture is so small I can't quite make out the details. Is that a glass of Scotch in his right hand that he's toasting the congregation with while making the thumbs up sign with the left?

indiamike

Jesus is just giving the BIG THUMBS UP

Mike

Alan D

If this thread is anything to go by then this new ITV series looks set to cause some controversy, especially in UK and India. Still, it will be a welcome shift of focus away from the Second World War which still crops up on our tv screens, in one form or another, several times each week.

As someone whose family's only connection with India was drinking tea, I don't think you would expect me to defend the Raj. Historically speaking though, I think many of us can not point fingers. The history of the world so far consists of conquest, war and genocide--a long tale of man's inhumanity to man, which shows no sign of ending. The recent re-match between Christianity and Islam may yet produce more horrors.

I will watch this series with as much detachment as I can, though by all accounts this won't be easy.

Historians may argue that
1. We should never have been in India.
2. That the Raj was either a good or a bad thing for India.
3. That we should have left sooner.
4. That the manner of our leaving should have been different.

For them it is an academic pursuit that they wish to master.

For the rest of us the important thing is to try and prevent future wars and genocides from taking place. How much have we learnt from our few thousand years of recorded history? Not a lot.