This rare documentary having original video clips from 1947. These rare videos and narrations of Indian Independence were taken from different sources and compiled beautifully into in mini documentary which explains the situation at the time of independence.
This documentary gives us a glimpse of how Britishers interpreted the Independence, Partition and their departure from India.
In the March 1947, Earl Louis Mountbatten and his wife Edwina Ashley arrived at New Delhi. The great-grandson Queen Victoria and second cousin to George VI, Mountbatten brings a regal presence to the dramas of the Indian Independence. As the last Viceroy he bears responsibility for India’s fate.
2nd April, 1947, Mountbatten –
“I have now completed my first week in office, I should like to be able to paint an encouraging picture of my first impressions but feel it would be misleading if I did so. The scene here is one of the unrelieved gloom. At this early-stage I can see little common ground on which to build any a great solution for the future India. The only conclusion I been able to come to that unless I act quickly I may well find the real beginnings a civil war on my hands.”
By May 1947, attempts to create a unified India have failed, Gandhi retreats from political life. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League and Jawaharlal Nehru of the Indian National Congress concede to divide India.
Fearing a total loss of control, Mountbatten brings forward the transfer of power to August.
Two nations will be created by partition the secular India and a new homeland for India’s Muslims – Pakistan.
On the day of Indian Independence, Nehru addresses the people of India,
“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”
The 15th in August 1947 the British Empire in India has come to an end.
The last Viceroy Louis Mountbatten –
“The National flag raising in the surge was done amidst scenes of the most fantastic rejoicing. It is the flag broke brilliant rainbow appeared in the sky which was taken by the crowd as a good omen.”
Qasim Mohammed –
“On the 15th of August, came freedom, the freedom to burn, loot and murder. While Delhi and Karachi were celebrating, Central Punjab was burning.”
Between August 1947 and March 1948, four-and-a-half million Hindus and Sikhs were forced to migrate from Pakistan to India, six million Muslims must move in the opposite direction.
Britains in the Indians miss the bloodshed
Sahid Ahmed –
“It is a battle ground people have gone mad, trains to Pakistan are being looted and occupants slaughtered. We all knew that the carnage was in the offing so did Mountbatten. The British Empire that tried to build India over centuries can never let down this great tragedy”
Lt. Colonel Hudson
“The sight from the air owe inspired in this chaos millions of refugees were struggling to get to India or Pakistan thousands of others were doing their best to prevent them murdering them by the 100s. A death is nothing there are things more terrible than death.”
Ten million people are displaced in the partitioning of India, 1 million are dead.
By the summer of 1948 most to the British have left Boyd Hudson has been in India for fifteen years –
“India is full of ghosts, houses I have lived in now inhabited by Indians remind me of the days which will never come again. When viceroy drove past with the cavalry escorts redcoats, I have seen the greatness of the British India, but now it is all in good and we are the last to leave the few who are trying to tidy up the mess which the sudden splitting of old Empire has caused.”
Britain has lost its greatest Imperial possession,
Mahatma Gandhi once said that if India became free the rest in the Empire would follow. In the next 10 years the fire of Indian independence will spread around the globe home from the Middle East to Africa.
Must Read: Partition of India 1947: A tale of turmoil