10. Viceroy’s House Part 3; The Chaos After Partition, Gandhi and Nehru

We’re sitting in the drawing room of Lady Pamela Hicks’ home in Oxfordshire having a generally very informal conversation about Lady Pamela’s memories of living through some pretty extraordinary and now historic times. It’s just India, Lady Pamela and me – Lisa the producer recording it and putting it all together – we’ve chosen to have no studio, no formalities just conversation and plenty of tea and cake. In this, the third of our Viceroy’s House episodes Lady Pamela, now 18, recalls the euphoria and subsequent difficulties after Indian partition when her father, Lord Mountbatten was doing what he knew was the ‘impossible job’ as the last Viceroy of India. In the now very tense aftermath of partition Lady Pamela, along with her mother Lady Louis Mountbatten, are still working in the refugee camps and Lord Mountbatten is working flat out. But the political and social situation is very challenging, Gandhi starts his hunger strike and yes we do talk about the friendship between Indian Prime Minister Nehru and Lady Edwina.