India Remembered: A Personal Account of the Mountbattens During the Transfer of Power (Hardback)

In March 1947, Lord Louis Mountbatten became the last Viceroy of India, with the mandate to hand over 'the jewel in the crown' of the British Empire within one year. Mountbatten worked with Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas Gandhi and the leader of the Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, to devise a plan for partitioning the empire into two independent sovereign states, India and Pakistan, on August 15, 1947. Mountbatten remained as interim Governor-General of India until June 1948. During this time, Lord Mountbatten's daughter and India's mother, Pamela, was with her parents. She kept a diary recounting this extraordinary tale of history and recollections of their trips to stay in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Orissa and Assam, and the exotic palaces of Indian rulers; and the Rajputs in Central and Western India, the imperial palace-cities built by the mughals. "India Revisited" is a scrapbook of private family photographs taken during this historical period (Edwina Mountbatten walking arm in arm with Nehru through a courtyard, or Ghandi taking tea for the first time at Viceroys House) and photographs taken presently inside their audience halls, private apartments and service quarters. There will be anecdotes from Pamela Mountbatten's diaries, reminiscences of having to leave 10 minutes before dinner was actually announced as the walk from the bedroom to the dining hall was so far (if running really late, riding a bicycle through the corridors to make time). It includes photographs evoking the atmosphere of the Mountbatten's favourite retreat, that of Viceregal Lodge in Simla.