The story of the handover of power has already been told…. I know my personal experience as a minister in the Churchill and Attlee governments. This gave me an insight into the role played by the British government in its relations with the Indian government and Indian political leaders in the final phase. But before I go any further, I`m sure to remind them that we meet on the eve of Lord Mountbatten`s octogenarian birthday….. The second consequence of the 1947 Act was that the Crown`s Paramountcy on Princely States would become obsolete, thus terminating all contracts that restricted Linlithgov. Congress, which already formed the transitional government in September 1946, was initially nervous about the expiration of the Paramountcy they wanted to transfer to India. In theory, monarchical monarchs become independent when they mature and will not be forced to join India or Pakistan. Thus, the Indian army developed as an army of mercenaries in the interest of imperialist power, totally cut off from the mainstream of the people, without national objectives, and deliberately kept away from the political environment. It is an army like this that the Indian government received as a legacy of the British. After August 15, 1947, the Indian army, alongside its anti-national heritage, was placed for two years under the supreme command of General Boucher, British commander-in-chief. Our training in defence services continued to be in the hands of the imperialists, as was the case at Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, where in October 1950 „the commander, General W.D.A. Lontaigne, entered the main conference room, interrupted the speaker and denounced our leaders for their short-sightedness and inaction in the face of Chinese action“ … 36 Viceroy ismay (London), 8 May, L/P-J/10/79 and L/PO/427.
Beyond the benefits for India and Great Britain, there must also be room for a more controversial type of common benefit, which has also been taken into account. On June 24, 1947, the Minister of Foreign Affairs speculated in a memorandum for the Committee of India on the period following the transfer of the Constitution under Dominion status. He said the viceroy insisted that „the more we allow the two new Dominions to organize the constitution and focus on administrative matters, the longer Dominion status will likely last,“ and he supported this view, adding that „our interest is probably to ensure that the current leaders of Congress can strengthen their positions without the left-wing elements having a chance to make radical constitutional changes.“ This is a rather rare evidence that lends some support to the popular opinion of radicals that decolonization is a shabby agreement between the old and the new leaders (L/PO/431).
