BookMarks #116: Freedom at Midnight

Title: Freedom at Midnight

Authors: Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre

Genre: Non-fiction, History

Published: 1975

BookMarks

The book gives a narrative of the last year of the British Raj from the appointment of Lord Mountbatten as Viceroy of India, to Partition and Independence and Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. The book is at times intriguing, at others gossipy and sometimes filled with gruesome passages presenting the story of those turbulent times.

What is obvious is that it is written from a British perspective. They are presented in a kindly light, traders who somehow ended up ruling the country and never as oppressors. All problems are those of the natives, who couldn’t govern themselves! Talk about whitewashing of history.

Hence, it is best read as Mountbatten’s memoirs and perspective rather than as a work of just history.

A few passages and assertions which stood out for me

• Mountbatten’s claim that if he had been aware of Jinnah's poor health, he may have delayed the deadlines for independence and Partition might not have happened.
• The weighing machines at the railway platforms! Those are finally gone.
• Book banned in Pakistan because it referenced Jinnah having bacon with eggs for breakfast!
• 'Trade not territory', the Company's officers never ceased repeating, was their policy. Yet they ended up ruling and exploiting an entire sub-continent!
• 'The difference between what we do and what we could do would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.': Gandhi
• The eccentricities of Indian maharajas - none more than Kapurthala who decided he was reincarnation of Louis XIV and declared French as his court language
• What an arduous task dividing the possessions between countries must have been. Yet, in one aspect there was no debate - Wine cellars always went to Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan received a credit for what they contained.
• The masses from the villages heading towards Delhi on Independence Day - Tributaries of an immense and triumphant stream, they flowed with the dawn towards the centre of their rejoicing capital to celebrate in its streets the end of a colonization most of them had not even known.
• Gandhi's idea of self-contained village ideas vs industrialization. Something of Aatma-nirbhar Bharat was still there.
• After Independence people refused to pay bus fares, assuming they should now be free.
• £2000 – Cyril Radcliffe’s fee for dividing the countries, which he returned!
• Everywhere the many and the strong assaulted the weak and the few - Still holds true!
• Reading the butchery of the trains was just like the dooms scrolling during Covid times. Wanted to but just couldn't stop. What had gotten into the people.
• Khadi wearing politicians - evidence that the man under it reveres at least the memory if not the message of the man who espoused it.
• The tragedy of Buta Singh Overall, a difficult read. 

Many of the passages are eye-openers. Also, in today’s times, it is easy to see how selective reading of events & confirmation bias can just swing the opinion of the masses. Constant vigilance is the need of the hour to prevent the recurrence of the brutality of those times.

Previously on BookMarks: Dream With Your Eyes Open