Mountbatten and India, 1964-79:after Nehru

Abstract

This article throws light on Lord Mountbatten's enduring involvement in India after 1964, an overlooked feature of his later life. On a number of issues such as the abolition of titles, privileges and privy purses of Indian Princes (1967-71), imposition of Emergency in India (1975), arms sales, expulsion of BBC (1970-72) and evolution of history-writing on Partition, this article evaluates his changing role as a 'friend of India' in Britain, while becoming an irksome interlocutor for both the British and Indian 'official mind'. This draining of Mountbatten's influence, though not involvement, through the 1970s, represented an inter-generational dilation of Indo-British relations.