The Viceroy's verdict
From John Osman Sir: I read with great interest the well-measured review by my former BBC colleague, Michael Vestey, of the Radio Four programme The Last Viceroy (Arts, 28 August), Perhaps both he and the historian Professor David Cannadine might like to know what Mountbatten himself thought of how he had performed in India.
On the only occasion I ever met him, he told me in no uncertain terms. It was in the officers' mess of the Life Guards at Windsor. He was not in his usual impressive naval uniform as an Admiral of the Fleet, but was even more gorgeously clad in the scarlet tunic of a Colonel of the Life Guards. I had just returned from covering the 1965 IndoPakistani war for the BBC and had been invited to the dinner as a guest of the regiment, which I had encountered in places like Cyprus and Aden. I was placed next to the guest of honour and we had a long conversation about India and Pakistan.
Mountbatten had obviously listened to some of my dispatches and was eager to talk. Inevitably the discussion turned to 1947 and the partition of India and Pakistan. Speaking with a frankness that surprised me, Mountbatten blamed himself, saying how he had 'got things wrong'. I had sympathy for this man who, at the age of 65, was anguishing over what he might have done better, years earlier and thousands of miles away. Mountbatten was not to be consoled. To this day his own judgment on how he had performed in India rings in my ears and in my memory. As one who dislikes the tasteless use in writing of the dictionary's 'vulgar slang' word, I shall permit myself an exception this time because it is the only honest way of reporting accurately what the last Viceroy of India thought about the way he had done his job: fucked it up.'
John Osman
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