“Love blossomed” between a “lonely” Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of the country, and the last Viceroy of India Lord Mountbatten’s wife, Edwina, who had other “lovers” before, says her daughter.
Pamela Mountabatten, who fondly called Nehru “Mamu” (maternal uncle), has used diary entries and extracts from family albums as documentary evidence to write India Remembered: A Personal Account of the Mountbattens During the Transfer of Power. In a section titled “A Special Relationship” Pamela writes: “My mother had already had lovers. My father was inured to it. It broke his heart the first time, but it was somehow different with Nehru.”
She quotes a letter which Lord Mountbatten wrote to her elder sister in June 1948 on the Edwina-Nehru relationship: “She and Jawaharlal (sic) are so sweet together, they really dote on each other in the nicest way and Pammy and I are doing everything we can to be tactful and help ”
‘Happy three-some’
So there existed a “happy three-some” based on firm understanding on all sides, writes Pamela.
Pamela also quotes a letter written by Nehru to Edwina in March 1957: “Suddenly, I realised that there was a deeper attachment between us, that some uncontrollable force, of which I was dimly aware, drew us to one another, I was overwhelmed and at the same time exhilarated by this new discovery. We talked more intimately as if some veil had been removed and we could look into each other’s eyes without fear or embarrassment.”
Edwina was 44 when she came to India in 1947 with Lord Mountbatten, who was to guide India to Independence as the last Viceroy. Pamela, who was taken out of school to accompany her parents, spent the next 15 months recording the birth of two nations.
Describing her mother as an introvert she says that her parents worked well as a team. “My father trusted her decisions implicitly... And of course, her special relationship with Pandit Nehru was “platonic”. “...although it was not physical, it was no less binding for that. It would last until death,” she writes.
Nehru — who wrote to Edwina over a period of 12 years — would never write to her until about two in the morning, when he had finished his work.
He would start with a charming opening paragraph, very touching and personal, and he would end affectionately. Even after the Mountbattens went back to London Edwina-Nehru met about twice a year.