Mountbatten, Auchinleck and the end of British Indian Army: August-November 1947

Juxtaposing the private papers of Louis Mountbatten and Claude Auchinleck, this article seeks to illuminate the crux at the centre of the reconstitution of the British Indian army into Indian and Pakistani armies, namely, their worsening relationship between April and November 1947, in view of what they saw as each other’s partisan position and its consequences, the closure of Auchinleck’s office and his departure from India. In doing so in considerable detail, it brings to fore yet another aspect of that fraught period of transition at the end of which the British Indian Empire was transformed into the dominions of India and Pakistan and showcases the peculiar predilections in which the British found themselves during the process of transfer of power.