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

by Alex von Tunzelmann

By 1947, even Gandhi’s colleagues in Congress were beginning to suspect that he had gone “a bit senile.”42 Mountbatten described himself as “staggered” by Gandhi’s suggestion but was not yet sure enough of his balance to dismiss the plan outright.43 Nehru was more realistic and told him it would not work. A note of frustration had become discernible lately in Nehru’s tone when he spoke of the Mahatma. He described the old man as “going round with ointment trying to heal one sore spot after another on the body of India, instead of diagnosing the cause of this eruption of sores and participating in the treatment of the body as a whole.”44 A couple of weeks later, Gandhi was forced to drop the plan on the grounds that Congress was not prepared to accept it. The rejection prompted his withdrawal from formal involvement in negotiations for the transfer of power, though he would continue to contribute from the sidelines.