The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten

The Last Viceroy: February to August 1947 (1x9)

Data di messa in onda: Feb 26, 1969

Mountbatten returns to India as Viceroy and, faced with the increasing unrest and anti-British feeling, insists on having plenipotentiary powers. June 1948 is initially suggested as a time limit for India's independence. Mountbatten becomes firm friends with Gandhi and Nehru but finds Jinnah less approachable, and with trouble brewing in Bengal and Punjab and other provinces, he reluctantly opts for partition. The agreed plan is eventually drawn up and the date for independence and partition brought forward to 15 August 1947. Mountbatten's team race to complete the arrangements and try (for the most part successfully) to persuade the Princes to accede. On 13 August Mountbatten with his wife travels to Karachi to join Jinnah at the assembly, in spite of a bomb threat. As midnight approaches on 14 August, Nehru addresses the assembly in Delhi.