This volume reproduces in full Mountbatten’s own account of the last five months of British rule in India based on reports he sent to London at the time. Written with disarming frankness, we witness the failure of Mountbatten’s initial attempts to secure independence on the basis of a united India. He then turned to some form of agreed partition and his eventual success was achieved after considerable feats of diplomacy. The figures of Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, Vollabhbhai Patel and other key leaders loom large in this account. Mountbatten provides a valuable introductory historical survey and a chapter in which he draws up his conclusions. There are thirteen appendices providing the texts of key documents and an index of the persona involved in these momentous events.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lionel Carter
Lionel Carter is a graduate of the London School of Economics and was awarded a doctorate by Cambridge University having been supervised by Sir Harry Hinsley. For more than ten years, Lionel Carter was a member of the team (led by Nicholas Mansergh) which produced the British Government's series of Documents on the Transfer of Power to India, 1942-47. From 1980 until 1999, Carter served as Secretary and Librarian of the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge. Carter has published four volumes with Manohar: Chronicles of British Business in Asia, 1850-1960 (2002); Mountbatten's Report on the Last Viceroyalty (2003); and two earlier volumes of Governors’ reports: Punjab Politics, 1936-1939: the Start of Provincial Autonomy (2004) and Punjab Politics 1940-1943: Strains of War (2005).
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