The latter include (a) the first India–Pakistan conflict on Kashmir (1947–49) and its diplomatic aftermath, 15 (b) the first decade of Indo-British relations within the Anglo-American pact-politics of the early-Cold War, 16 (c) the Indo-China conflict (1962) and its side effect of seeking a resolution of the Kashmir dispute, 17 (d) India’s defence preparedness in 1963, 18 and (e) the India–Pakistan war of 1965. It is in the histories of independent India and of Indo-British ties under the New Commonwealth (1949), 14 itself his contribution (with others), that Mountbatten appears frequently, if episodically. 10 Likewise, whether the biographies of Nehru, 11 or the historiography on the Partition of India, 12 they are focused on the ‘first year(s)’ of Partition, Independence, Integration of the Indian states and their contentious events. 8 Writers appreciative of Mountbatten’s time in India remain limited to praising his ‘mission’ in 1947–48, 9 while those critical of him also make their case for the same time. 7 In Mountbatten’s official biography, the post-1948 period, unsurprisingly, covered his naval career that saw him become First Sea Lord (1955–59) and Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) (1959–65). after leaving the subcontinent where he had arrived in March 1947 as British India’s last Viceroy and where he stayed on in August 1947 as Dominion of India’s first Governor-General. Yet, in the considerable scholarship on Mountbatten and India, there has not been much discussion of Mountbatten’s enduring interest in Indian affairs after June 1948, i.e. 6 This correspondence from the first month after Nehru’s death helped Mountbatten contribute to steady the British ‘official mind’, at an uncertain time in their outlook towards India. Khera, the last of the seven Cabinet Secretaries who served Nehru, added that ‘the story that Krishna and Indira were lined up against was a figment of imagination’. Menon, Mountbatten’s constitutional adviser during the original transfer of power in 1947, assured him that notwithstanding Shastri’s diminutive stature, ‘there are only two and odd years to go for the next general elections … and … therefore the cabinet will hold together’. This article is an exercise in tracing this trajectory of tailing off, which despite dwindling returns, throws an interesting light, from Mountbatten’s unique perch into certain Indian affairs and their inter-play with Indo-British relations, from the mid-1960s a time called ‘the Other Transfer of Power in India’. It side-lined it to a listening vantage-on the margins but privileged. This decline was an inter-generational dimming, but it did not decimate Mountbatten’s involvement in India. 3 This episode captures the changing contours of independent India’s first Governor-General’s influence in India, with the passing away of his friend and India’s first Prime Minister. 2 Mountbatten also congratulated Prime Minister Shastri, who, while agreeing to have a quiet lunch with him, declined his requests to let Nehru’s sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit represent India at the upcoming Commonwealth Prime Minister’s Conference or return to London as India’s envoy. 1 A waiting Belcher was grateful: ‘Your talk with the President was … of immense help and … it has been most fortunate that Radhakrishnan’s expectations turned out to be the truth. Belcher, then-acting British High-Commissioner (HC) in New Delhi. Mountbatten promptly conveyed this to R.H. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan told him that ‘he was confident that Lal Bahadur Shastri will become Prime Minister’. When Lord Louis Mountbatten came to India in May 1964 for his friend Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s funeral, President Dr.
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