Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire

by Alex von Tunzelmann

it was Mountbatten who tried to persuade them to set a firm timetable for the handover.73 It was Mountbatten, too, who had opened negotiations with Aung San; it was Mountbatten who had wanted to negotiate with Ho Chi Minh; it was Mountbatten who had persuaded the Dutch to negotiate with independence advocate Sukarno in Indonesia. In all of these matters, he was led by his wife. Referring to Indonesia, he admitted: “Nobody gave me an idea of the strength of the nationalist movements. Edwina was the first person to give me an inkling of what was going on.”74 From then on, said Driberg, “she showed an instant strong sympathy with any Asian nationalist who was being oppressed by some American-backed right-wing regime.”