The other delegates exchanged glances. Gandhi’s power was in his personality; he led and inspired while others did the hard work of building a power base that could rule India.
“Subject to the guarantees, we would accept,” Jinnah said slowly.
“The Commonwealth would be happy, I suspect, to appoint a neutral court to arbitrate such matters,” Homchoudhury said.
“Then we have an agreement,” Nehru pronounced. “We can move on to…”
“The matter of promises made,” a dark-bearded man said. Homchoudhury scowled; Yadavindrah Singh stood there, watching them all. “Promises were made to us and we will see them kept.”
Yadavindrah Singh swept his eyes across the council and dismissed them all with a single aristocratic sniff. He found them all wanting, from the ridiculous Gandhi to the man from the future. Small petty man, lawyers and politicians, men who knew nothing of making wealth, but would be quite happy to steal it. He bowed once to Wavell – the Governor-General was due some respect – and he stalked to the table.
“Ever since your people came to this land, you made promises and agreements with the Chamber of Princes,” Yadavindrah Singh said, addressing Wavell directly. The reaction from the other delegates would have been priceless under other circumstances. He glared at Wavell’s aide, a Foreign Office diplomat. “Now you are telling us that you will abandon us to these…”
Words failed him. He allowed his glare and shuddering long look of disgust to display his feelings. “These people will take the jewel in the King-Emperor’s crown and rip it to shreds. None of them had any glory; none of them have any higher purpose in mind, but power. They have done nothing to earn it; they only want to steal it from those who have worked and worked to earn it. We demand that the promises made to us when we allied ourselves with the Raj be honoured, or we will be forced to crease our support of the Raj and its improvements to India.”
There was a long pause as minds ticked over the threat. The Indian railroads ran through the princely states; the entire system could be brought to a halt if the princes refused to allow the trains to pass. There were army bases and airports, farms and resources – and there would be a famine in two years unless steps were taken – and many other things, all essential to running India in reasonable order.
Yadavindrah Singh allowed himself a smile as the silence lengthened. If Wavell joined him, with his control over the Army and the Indian Civil Service, which remained loyal to the Raj, the nationalists could be destroyed with ease.
Wavell met his eyes. “There remains a Japanese presence in Burma,” he said. Both men knew that it would have been far worse in the original history. “Distracting the army could be considered… treasonous.”
“Am I a loyal servant of the British Crown, who will be treated according to the terms with which he made his submission, or a Head of State in my own right?” Yadavindrah Singh asked coldly. The silence lengthened again.
The grey-suited Foreign Office diplomat – Mr Harriman Grey – spoke into the silence. “I have orders not to discuss this unless the council – and the Provisional Government – reached an impasse. I believe that that moment has now come.”
He looked around the room. “The British Government would prefer to avoid issuing an ultimation or a similar statement,” he said. “However, we are running out of time; the Japanese are knocking at the door. Historically, turmoil here nearly lost the war – and we don’t want to risk any repeats of that. Therefore, we have a solution to put forward.
“We propose the formation of a two-tied government,” Grey said. “One tier will be the civilian government, elected along the lines of the House of Commons, which will be the main centre of government. The second tier will be the House of Princes, one that will possess comparable authority to the House of Lords in Britain, and serve as a second chamber of government. It would be easy, but…
“Quite frankly, a war of independence won’t work,” he said, and noticed Wavell’s nod. “India is an integrated nation, it would be like the Lake District trying to declare independence. If you’ll pardon the analogy, all of you pulling in different directions will simply tear the country apart.”
He waited for the commotion to die down. “Ambassador Homchoudhury suggested using the Commonwealth Constitution as a framework for India,” he said. “I am authorised to offer you, on behalf of the government, major technology transfer and independence, which would boost India’s position within the Commonwealth. If you come to an agreement soon, along those lines, we will ensure that India becomes one of the most powerful Commonwealth states.”
“We might end up ruling the Commonwealth,” Homchoudhury injected. “If everything was stable here, we could easily attract immigrants from Britain to aid the development. Think what we could do with total literacy and no need to keep a watch on all of the borders!”
“Indeed,” Grey said. “However, there is one other point I have to make. Quite frankly, and I trust that you’ll forgive me speaking bluntly, the British Government does not wish to risk involvement in a Balkan-style morass. If you fail to come to an agreement, then I must inform you that Britain has decided that there will be no further involvement in India.”
Eastern Iran
Iran
13th May 1941
The man stood on a horse, looking up into the east, towards India. The horse, a good-tempered beast, didn’t seem to mind the indignity, choosing instead to crop at the ground. The oasis wasn’t such a bad place for the Russian cavalry and they had been happy to help the Indian party on their way.
“Good luck, Comrade,” Commissioner Petrovich said. Subhas Chandra Bose, the leader of the Indian National Army, nodded in return. “Bring the Indians to the glories of communism.”
Bose carefully didn’t show any of his real feelings. Defeating the British yoke was important, but his regime was going to be based more on Hitler’s, than Stalin’s. India wasn’t ready for communism yet – even the Moscow theoreticians agreed on that. For the Netaji of India, the entire situation provided a possible gain; would all of the Indians accept their place in a new British Empire?
“It’s a long hard ride,” he said, and shuddered despite himself. Not even the most dashing British officer, confident in his superiority and his special relationship to the natives, could control the tribesmen for long. They viewed their land as being in Purdah, like their women, and all interlopers must die. Their respect for the British was grudging at best, born of a series of battles in which they had been roundly thrashed. Unlike the Afghanis, they had never been able to convince the British to give up and leave them alone.
Bose shuddered. He’d heard rumours of what was happening in Afghanistan, and suspected he knew the cause. The Russians were driving south, building up their transportation network and military, and forcing the natives to work for them or die. His friends in Berlin, the Fuhrer’s lackeys, had warned him; the Soviets were unlikely to smile upon a fascist state in India.
“Let’s go,” he said, and made a mental note to have his words rewritten into something more heroic in the future. Himmler, the leader of the SS, had shown him just how the past could be rewritten. His companions, men captured in France during 1940, wheeled their horses around and prepared to start the long ride into India. Bose smiled; Kipling himself couldn’t have done better.