Most of this is quite familiar if one has read the author's biographical account in 'Daughter of Empire: My Life as a Mountbatten'.Up to one third of this book is almost verbatim in that one, with few differences, and latter part too is familiar from having read that, albeit being a bit more detailed here.
The main charm here is entries from diaries verbatim, although it doesn't mean one is reading entire diaries of course, and even more so, photographs of various towering characters of that era, not seen often elsewhere. There are some nice ones of Jawaharlal Nehru, of course, and a couple deserve mention - one of him pensive, and another where he is at tea with the author's mother Edwina Mountbatten with his daughter and her (presumably elder) son, thus one looking at three future prime ministers of India amongst the four figurers seen. Indira here looks very young, shy, smiling, and more beautiful than most professional beauties of the time even without any make up or any expensive attire or decorations.
Pamela Mountbatten's account is valuable in many other ways too of course, in that one reads about various important events and about people of the time. For example one reads of and too sees in the photographs the crowds at various occasions, too thick to allow the dignitaries to walk without walking on sitting people and yet all calm, friendly, non threatening - as also the author mentions repeatedly. The charm and friendliness of Gandhi and Nehru, beloved figures in India, and the cold persona of Jinnah impervious to any friendly overtures, focused on his aims.
Pamela Mountbatten repeatedly attempts to balance her and her family's love of India against accusations by various sources (chiefly from Pak and US) about paritiality, but fact is their love for India was for all of India, whole of which included the parts that were then cut off to divide the nation to provide another new nation for those intolerant of living with people of other faiths. Whether from Mountbattens or from leaders and people of India, there never was any dearth of love for people thus separated from India, even when there was dire opposition to the idea of dividing the nation.
The author minimises the account of sufferings of refugees they saw in camps, mentioning but not going into the heart rending tales of what they suffered, but the photographs seen of devastations in Lahore and other parts of Punjab tell the tale silently. The streets obviously lined with tall homes of the prosperous are reduced to resemble archaeological discoveries of ancient times and one can only imagine the travails of the people driven out by the massacres in the photographs of the visit by Mountbattens, even though no suffering ones are seen - that is taken care of by the authorities, evidently, before allowing the visit.
Pamela Hicks, nee Mountbatten, is very sensitive to various accusations against her father as the last viceroy, for example the accusation of haste of withdrawal without caring for the human devastation left behind, made amongst others by the author of Shameless Flight, and presumably others, possibly only from those from US. She reasons that without such haste in handing over power, the devastation would have been worse - which neither can really predict, even with hindsight.
What is undoubtedly true is the devastating account of the massacres let loose by order of Jinnah in Calcutta on 16th August 1946 in the name of Direct Action Day, to remove all doubts from minds of leaders of Congress and from the British about what his intentions were if his demands of a separate piece of India were not given to him wrenched away from mainland of India. She mentions the number of massacred at 20,000 during that day and couple of days on, and this was without guns, chiefly with knives. Until that massacre Congress and indeed most of India was against such division of the ancient land, separating people, neighbours, families - but this massacre and the unspoken threat delivered by this massacre of more to come if the demand by Jinnah were not met, broke the resolve of Gandhi and others, and they gave in to the partition that then resulted in not only a million deaths by massacres but ten times that many rendered homeless, driven out of their homes and lands and regions to cross borders for sake of life. What the result would have been if the demand were not met is anybody's guess.
But those that know more and are not bound to cover for sake of various political reasons speak of this whole idea of partition being born or at least coming to reality during days of WWII when Berlin was occupied by Red Army, and Churchill realised need of a strategically posed military base in a nation that would allow this, for sake of what is termed The Great Game, which was the tussle of European powers for world domination and mainly about the play in west and central Asia. India led by a non partisan government was not about to allow military bases to be used by US and UK for attacks on USSR, which Jinnah had no problem promising - hence, in those immediate days, the partition of India.
Now of course it ought to be obvious to anyone not blinded by needs to prevaricate that this is what inevitably resulted in the now so horribly far from containable genie of terrorism, let loose over decades by the new nation created for purpose of war against an ancient one by breaking up another ancient land. That this terrorism was going to bite those that created it ought to have been obvious to anyone not blinded by preferences driven by skin colour seems obvious to those not so blinded, of course. That such preferences often get buried under equally silly preferences for monotheistic and preferably conversionistic faiths is sign of even more convolution of thinking.
As is of course the bias setting up one gender superior to another in humanity on basis of ability to physically overpower, which logically extended sets up buffaloes over men, as does defining male superior by virtue of organ set up male donkeys superior to human males. But then few are really used to question assumptions concrete in society, need of comfort of being with others being paramount to social animals.
One of the endearing factors about this and the other account by the author is the evident love of hers and her parents for people across such dividing lines in humanity, and coming from a family close to royals then ruling empires girdling the world, this is all the more special. That she mentions India returning this love without reservations, and her realising and mentioning how much more special it is in face of the hardships endured by various people, is all the more so endearing.
