ISSUE 375 - 13-11-2020

40 13/11/2020 NEWS LITERATURE POLITICS FASHION ART & CULTURE KIDS RELIGION FILMS
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Churchill planned to 'keep a bit of
India' as Britain pumped up the princes
New Delhi: Winston
Churchill's reputation as "an
unashamed imperialist and at a
time when imperialism is on
its last legs", as Sardar Patel
described him, remains
unblemished to date for most
Indians. Less known is a sinister
design by Britain's wartime
Prime Minister to undermine
India forever.
Veteran Editor Sandeep
Bamzai's latest book
"PRINCESTAN: How Nehru,
Patel and Mountbatten Made
India" (Rupa, Rs 595) reveals
for the first time an insidious
plan that went beyond the well
documented effort to balkanise
India.
CEO and Editor-in-Chief of
the Indo-Asian News Service,
Bamzai tells how, even when
the writing on the wall was
clear that Britain had to leave
India, Churchill sedulously
worked towards maintaining
British presence and influence
in India.
When he met Lord Wavell
in August 1945, Churchill
advised him to 'keep a bit of
India', writes Bamzai, who
says the British Prime
Minister had delivered an
unequivocal message to the
Viceroy in India.
The presence in India that
Churchill sought could have
been related to being in close
proximity to British interests
in Asia -- Britain under
Churchill had evidently not
lost its imperialist ardour even
though the balance of power
had by then shifted from
Britain to the US.
Hitherto, archival matter
has referred to plans for three
divisions -- India, Pakistan
and princely India. It was a
plan even Churchill's successor
Clement Attlee had not
dismissed.
Bamzai has now uncorked
another dimension to Britain's
vile plan under Churchill,
working in tandem with Indian
princes determined not to be a
part of republican India.
Excerpts:
The Conservative Party was
vanquished at the end of the
Second World War. In a parting
message to Lord Wavell at
the end of his trip back home
on 31 August 1945, Winston
Churchill had told him
unequivocally, 'Keep a bit of
India.' The echoes of that comment
made by Churchill while
escorting Wavell out and closing
the lift door were to reverberate
for a much longer time.
Churchill himself was thrown
out by the British and replaced
by Attlee. In the spring of the
same year, Churchill, then in
power, had spoken with
Wavell and told him of dividing
India into Pakistan,
Hindustan and Princestan.
Leopold Amery, secretary of
state in Churchill's War
Cabinet, had said something
similar to Wavell's predecessor,
Lord Linlithgow, during
the Cripps negotiations of
1942: 'Keep an eye for space
around Delhi.' But Linlithgow
ignored this comment for he
believed the British could hold
India for thirty more years --
he, in fact, said this while
demitting office on 19th
October 1943 in favour of
Wavell who, like Churchill,
was anti-Congress. All of them
got it completely wrong, for
Attlee sent Mountbatten to
India , replacing Wavell, and
the Earl of Burma threw himself
headlong into the task and
ensured British withdrawal
from the subcontinent by 15
August 1947 instead of the
designated 30 June 1948. And
the princes -- well, they were
swallowed up by Nehru,
Mountbatten and Patel in different
stages.
But 'keep a bit of India'
remained a theme with the
Monarchists and hope lingered
as princes, their Prime
Ministers and Dewans, under
the bidding of the British
Political Department in frontline
states of Kashmir,
Hyderabad, Bhopal, Jodhpur
and Travancore played the procrastinating
game flirting with
the idea of independence and
even Princestan. Interestingly,
the US State Department was
also fishing in these troubled
waters. Keen on the mineral
resources of some of the states,
Wavell, in a memo to Lord
Pethick-Lawrence, dated 26
February 1947, wrote,
Thomas E Weill, second
secretary US Embassy New
Delhi, came to see my deputy
Private Secretary soon after
HMG's statements were made.
He enquired about the government
to which HMG would
hand over power in the
absence of an agreed
Constitution framed by the
Constituent Assembly. He
asked whether it was the intention
of HMG to make treaties
with the Indian princes if there
was no all India Constitution.
He asked particularly with a
slightly meaningful look about
Travancore and mentioned that
Kalat may have oil.
(Excerpts from 'PRINCES-
TAN: How Nehru, Patel and
Mountbatten Made India',
printed with permission from
the publishers, Rupa
Publications)
Chiranjeevi tested
Covid negative, says
earlier result was false
Hyderabad: Popular Telugu
actor and politician K.
Chiranjeevi said he has tested
Covid negative on
Thursday as the earlier
result was a false positive.
"A group of doctors did
three different tests and
concluded that I am Covid
negative and that the earlier
result was due to a faulty
RT PCR kit," said
Chiranjeevi.
The Praja Rajyam party
founder and former central
minister thanked everyone
for the love and concern
showered for his wellbeing.
"My heartfelt thanks for
the concern, love shown by
all of you during this time.
Humbled!" said the megastar,
who originally came
from Mogalturu village
near Narasapuram in West
Godavari district.
The 65-year-old actor
shared an image of his latest
Covid test which declared
SARS-Cov-2- RNA detection
negative.