Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!gatech!ut-sally!topaz!harvard!paturi
From: paturi@harvard.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: Mountbatten's role in India
Message-ID: <687@harvard.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Feb-86 10:37:17 EST
Article-I.D.: harvard.687
Posted: Thu Feb  6 10:37:17 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Feb-86 07:23:10 EST
Organization: Aiken Comp Lab, Harvard
Lines: 41


Vasant Honavar (uwvax!ai.wisc.edu!honavar) 
on the role of Mountbatten in India:

	It was not Mountbatten's job to prevent partition.
	His assignment, as the last British viceroy to India
	was to ensure the transfer of power from the British
	to the Indians. It is a well known fact that although
	the Indian National congress was the key force in the
	struggle for Indian independence, as it became evident
	that the British had decided to transfer power to the
	Indians, there were a number of contenders who would
	have loved to have their own independent states/nations.
	While it is accepted that Patel played a major role in
	unifying India, he would have found his job much more
	difficult without the cooperation of Mountbatten. It is
	again true that Gandhi was the one who strived for 
	Hindu - Moslem harmony. But it was Mountbatten who
	ensured to a large extent that the country did not plunge
	into anarchy, which would very much have been the case
	considering the lack of governing experience among the
	Indian leaders of the day. The greatness of Mountbatten
	is derived from the fact that he, coming from a country
	that had colonised India for a long time, did more than
	merely handover the reigns to any arbitrary group or groups
	of Indians that would have liked to rule (the princes included)
	.He transferred the reigns to the "right" bunch of people.
	Any error on his part would have plunged India into a civil
	war of a magnitude much higher than the one caused by partition.
	While I personally would have liked to have a united India,
	it is hard to see how such a thing could be accomplished by
	someone in Mountbatten's role when it could not be accomplished
	by the greatest of Indian leaders of that time. In short,
	Mountbatten earned the respect of Indian leaders of the time
	by doing more than what his mission called for - so much so
	that he was asked to stay on as the first Governer General of 
	INDEPENDENT India. We should evaluate Mountbatten based on 
	his personal accomplishments in India during what can be called
	some of the most tumultous in Indian history and not on the 
	basis of the misdeeds of a colonial power prior to the time
	of Independence.