Forbidden Love

He was the prime minister of a new born nation, she was the wife of the last Viceroy representing an empire where, once it was said, the sun never set..  Read More…

 January 26, 2014, Sunday:  The crescent was up in the eastern sky like the curved fruit bearing stalk of a palm tree. He sat in the valley of the dune looking at the sea drawn out beneath a crimson evening sky. The waves rolled over its façade like the rippling midriff of a spinster past her prime.
Post cards from the past: Nehru, the Mountbattens and Indira Gandhi.


She was playing hide and seek with the tide, more like a child than the woman of 58 she actually was. When the waves rolled in, she would run towards the shore, once they rolled back, she would go after them. The salty breeze blew the silken strands of her hair up and caressed her long pale neck at its back. She turned towards the dune and called out his name and waved her hand in invitation. He got up but did not move. She turned back again casting her eyes over the refracted shadow of his unmoving figure.

She then picked up her sandals from the dry sand and began to walk back towards him. The tide came in wetting her feet. On its roll back it filled the deeper rear part of her foot prints with sea water in which appeared the reflection of the moon in the sky. The momentum of the tide on its roll back left the sea water within the foot prints shaking, eventually breaking the reflection into petite fragments. It was as if she was reluctantly leaving behind those broken bits of moon strewn all over the tiny strip of shore line.

It is believed that Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to Edwina Mountbatten continuously for twelve long years from 1948 and chose not

The Mountbattens sitting cross legged on the ground at Gandhiji's funeral.

The Mountbattens sitting cross legged on the ground at Gandhiji’s funeral.

to be discreet about it. Nehru at that time was 68 and Edwina ten years younger. Little did they realize that time was not in their favor. A year later, in 1960, Edwina died alone in her sleep while on a trip to Borneo. Beside her bed was her treasure of Nehru’s letters, and the blue satin ribbon that held them together lay open.

After India had acquired independence from Britain, the Mountbattens made many visits to the country. The biographer in the family and the younger daughter of the Mountbattens Pamela Hicks acknowledges that it was at this time love blossomed between the lonely Nehru and her mother. ’My mother already had lovers. My father was inured to it. It broke his heart the first time, but it was somehow different with Nehru,’ she wrote. Mountbatten himself at that stage confided to his elder daughter Patricia, ‘She and Jawaharlal (Nehru) are so sweet together, they really dote on each other.’

With sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit at Palam air port in New Delhi.

With sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit at Palam air port in New Delhi.

However, back in Britain the Mountbattens’ public romance with India did not go down very well. At Gandhiji’s funeral in 1948 the Mountbattens had no qualms in sitting cross legged on the cremation ground like anybody else while the last rites were performed. When those pictures appeared in the British newspapers Churchill felt that the Mountbattens had gone too far by behaving like natives and disgracing themselves. He even refused to shake Mountbatten’s hand when they returned home. That did not stop Edwina from visiting Nehru every year. At that time Nehru’s sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit was the Indian High Commissioner in Britain and he also made reciprocal visits to Edwina.

Before Nehru’s own death in 1964, after a chance meeting with him, writer and journalist Dom Moraes said that Nehru spoke more like a poet rather than a statesman. During Nehru’s 17-year-long prime ministerial tenure, from the day of India’s independence to the day he died, there never was a direct challenge to his leadership. Despite the steady decline in the number of seats the Congress party held in parliament during the 3 elections in his life time, as if aided by some magic wand,

A private moment: Nehru and Edwina.

A private moment: Nehru and Edwina.

he could always strike a chord with the ‘aam aadmi’ (common man). While Gandhiji’s repartee was focused mainly on the glories of ancient India, Nehru dreamed of leading the nation to the modern age through implementing scientific and industrial projects adaptable to Indian conditions. Like in the case of his contemporaries US President John Kennedy and Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia, the count of Nehru’s achievements was not just a few, as were his failures. Whatever said and done the India of today stands on firm ground over the cornerstones he had laid.

Obviously the nagging problem of Kashmir, the debacle of the 1962 war with China, the rampant government bureaucracy, were all thorns around the rose Nehru always wore over the lapel of his áchkan’ (knee length coat). At the same time in establishing a constitution within two and half years after independence, investments made in primary and higher education, the plurality in governance, setting up of the Atomic Energy Commission and the sustenance of democracy, the equation appears to some degree balancing.

As the general elections grew closer unsavory references have begun to appear in public over the Nehru-Patel relationship. Perhaps what Patel had to say of Nehru in an October 1949 article would speak for itself.

Before the Nehruvian dreams faltered and hope was traded for skepticism: Indira Gandhi watching over her father's body in Teen Murti Bhavan.

Before the Nehruvian dreams faltered and hope was traded for skepticism: Indira Gandhi watching over her father’s body in Teen Murti Bhavan.


“.. Gifted with an idealism of high order, a devotee of beauty and art in life, and equipped with an infinite capacity to magnetize and inspire others and a personality which would be remarkable in any gathering of world’s foremost men, Jawaharlal has gone from strength to strength as a political leader.
.. It was, therefore, in the fitness of things that in the twilight preceding the dawn of independence he should have been our leading light, and that when India was faced with crises after crises, following the achievement of our freedom, he should have been the upholder of our faith and the leader of our legions. No one knows better than myself how much he has labored for his country in the last two years of our difficult existence. I have seen him age quickly during that period, on account of the worries of the high office that he holds and the tremendous responsibilities that he wields.
…. Contrary to the impression created by some interested persons and eagerly accepted in credulous circles, we have worked together as lifelong friends and colleagues, adjusting ourselves to each other’s advice as only those who have confidence in each other can.”

Yet what the Indians miss most from the Nehru era is the old world charm of greater courtesy, gallantry, comradery and compassion among themselves.

In 1967, Syed Akhthar Hussein Rizvi (popularly known as Kaifi Azmi) penned a song for a film titled ‘Naunihal’ which was picturised over the funeral procession of Nehru. The opening lines of the song ran:

Meri aawaaz suno, Pyar ka raaz suno, Maine ek phool jo seene pe saja rakha tha, Uske parde mein tumhe dil se laga rakha tha, Tha juda sabse mere ishq ka andaaz suno..

This article appeared in print in ‘Khaleej Times’ published from Dubai (United Arab Emirates) on January 26, 2014.

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