Breaking News - Mountbatten's daughter Pamela discusses her mother's relationship with Nehru
Nehru seen seeing off Pamela and her parents. For the detailed interview see www.hindu.com/2007/07/18/stories/2007071862131300.htm The Daily Times report is pasted below:
Mountbatten used wife to influence Nehru on referring Kashmir to UN
* Daughter says Nehru and Edwina had a platonic relationship
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: The youngest daughter of Louis and Edwina Mountbatten says her mother and India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru were very much in love, but it was a platonic affair and no sex was involved.
Lady Pamela Hicks said in a television interview that Lord Mountbatten, British India’s last viceroy, did use her mother to influence Nehru into going to the UN on the Kashmir row with Pakistan.
But Hicks insisted in her interview to Karan Thapar in CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate programme to be telecast on Sunday night that Nehru and Edwina never got physical. “If you long to believe that (they had sex), then don’t let me prevent you. But I don’t believe it,” she said. “I believe just that they loved being together ... they might like to hold hands or to hug or something like that. (But) I don’t believe, I really don’t believe, because of the fact that my father was so often around and that there was not a hint of that.”
Hicks gave the interview to mark the publication of her book ‘India Remembered’ about the 15 months she spent in the country from March 1947 to June 1948.
Pressed that it would have been natural for a widower that Nehru was to be attracted sexually to a beautiful woman that Edwina was, Hicks said: “It could be and maybe everybody will think I’m being very naive but the fact she had had lovers in the past, somehow this was so different. It really was.
“My mother was so happy with Jawaharlal ... my father knew that it helped her because a woman can, after a long marriage, and they had had their silver wedding so they’d been over 25 years together, a woman can feel perhaps frustrated, and perhaps neglected ... and so if a new affection comes into her life, a new admiration, she blossoms and she’s happy ... It made my mother, who could be quite difficult at times, as many very extraordinary women can be ... lovely to be with her. There were no prickles.”
She said that both she and her father, Lord Mountbatten, handled the Nehru-Edwina affair with tact. Asked how easy that was, she responded: “We just had to go out of the room.”
Hicks admitted that Lord Mountbatten did use his mother to influence Nehru’s thinking. “But he certainly wasn’t going to throw her, he didn’t say to her ‘go become the prime minister’s lover because I need you to intercede’. It was a by-product of this deep affection.
“I think it could have been my father, just in dry conversation might have been able to get his viewpoint over. But with my mother translating it for Panditji and making, you know, appealing to his heart more than his mind, that he should really behave like this, I think probably that did happen,” she said.
Breaking News - Mountbatten's daughter Pamela discusses her mother's relationship with Nehru
Nehru seen seeing off Pamela and her parents. For the detailed interview see www.hindu.com/2007/07/18/stories/2007071862131300.htm The Daily Times report is pasted below:
Mountbatten used wife to influence Nehru on referring Kashmir to UN
* Daughter says Nehru and Edwina had a platonic relationship
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: The youngest daughter of Louis and Edwina Mountbatten says her mother and India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru were very much in love, but it was a platonic affair and no sex was involved.
Lady Pamela Hicks said in a television interview that Lord Mountbatten, British India’s last viceroy, did use her mother to influence Nehru into going to the UN on the Kashmir row with Pakistan.
But Hicks insisted in her interview to Karan Thapar in CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate programme to be telecast on Sunday night that Nehru and Edwina never got physical. “If you long to believe that (they had sex), then don’t let me prevent you. But I don’t believe it,” she said. “I believe just that they loved being together ... they might like to hold hands or to hug or something like that. (But) I don’t believe, I really don’t believe, because of the fact that my father was so often around and that there was not a hint of that.”
Hicks gave the interview to mark the publication of her book ‘India Remembered’ about the 15 months she spent in the country from March 1947 to June 1948.
Pressed that it would have been natural for a widower that Nehru was to be attracted sexually to a beautiful woman that Edwina was, Hicks said: “It could be and maybe everybody will think I’m being very naive but the fact she had had lovers in the past, somehow this was so different. It really was.
“My mother was so happy with Jawaharlal ... my father knew that it helped her because a woman can, after a long marriage, and they had had their silver wedding so they’d been over 25 years together, a woman can feel perhaps frustrated, and perhaps neglected ... and so if a new affection comes into her life, a new admiration, she blossoms and she’s happy ... It made my mother, who could be quite difficult at times, as many very extraordinary women can be ... lovely to be with her. There were no prickles.”
She said that both she and her father, Lord Mountbatten, handled the Nehru-Edwina affair with tact. Asked how easy that was, she responded: “We just had to go out of the room.”
Hicks admitted that Lord Mountbatten did use his mother to influence Nehru’s thinking. “But he certainly wasn’t going to throw her, he didn’t say to her ‘go become the prime minister’s lover because I need you to intercede’. It was a by-product of this deep affection.
“I think it could have been my father, just in dry conversation might have been able to get his viewpoint over. But with my mother translating it for Panditji and making, you know, appealing to his heart more than his mind, that he should really behave like this, I think probably that did happen,” she said.