:: Inder Malhotra

Midnight Memories

By Inder Malhotra

Aug 15 : SIXTY-TWO years on memories of the magic day remain etched on my mind in the minutest detail. I was 17 then and had waited for this dawn since I had become aware of the world around me. Normally, I would have been at my college, about 150 miles from Delhi, but circumstances had forced us — my elder brother, three of our college mates and I — to cool our heels only 10 miles from the nation’s capital at a railway station called Nangloi, now swallowed by Delhi’s monstrous sprawl, where my father was station master.

Savage massacres and what was to turn into the largest mass migration in peacetime in history had begun well before the ecstasy of freedom and the agony of Partition. Most of north India lay completely paralysed. Schools and colleges were shut. There was no public transport, rail or road.

So on the morning of August 14, 1947, we decided to walk to Delhi so that we could be in good time for the midnight ceremonies. But just as we were about to start, after a copious breakfast, I was distracted by what I thought was the rank stupidity of the girl next door. Pestered by her younger brother who wanted to know what the enormous excitement was about, she explained to him: "Aaj Pandit Nehru ki taajposhi hai (Today is the day of Pandit Nehru’s coronation)". I was furious. Here was our great country starting a new life as an independent and democratic nation, and this fool was still mired in the monarchical era. I was on my way to confront her when my brother wisely restrained me. Much, much later I began to wonder whether the girl I had dismissed as foolish and semi-literate was more percipient than anyone of us.

Walking to Delhi was joyous, not tiring. Indeed, we felt that we were gliding a few inches above the ground. On the outskirts of the capital we found a tonga that took us to Lodi Colony where lived a brother-in-law of one of my three friends. The householder and his wife welcomed us graciously. After some rest and early dinner we told our hosts not to wait for us at night and embarked on our march towards Parliament House. We soon discovered that tens of thousands of others had the same idea. The size of the crowd on the broad boulevards around the circular building grew unimaginably large, but it remained reasonably disciplined. There was no pushing and jostling. A few minutes before the midnight hour, a hush fell on the mammoth mass. On the public address system Nehru’s memorable "tryst with destiny" speech could be heard clearly. When he reached the words, "A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out of the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance", we all wept with joy.

Afterwards, wending our way to Connaught Place, in search of a snack, was an arduous task because of the dispersing crowds. The place was awake and agog with noise. Here we became witnesses to a lively debate that encapsulated the conflicting emotions of the moment. "Eh azaadi nahin barbadi ay (this is not Independence but ruination)", said some irate refugees from what was now Pakistan and where an equal number of Indian Muslims were seeking shelter. Several others fell on them like a ton of bricks. "We have suffered as much as you have — deaths of dear ones, loss of property — but tonight is not the night to grieve about that. It is time to celebrate. The country is free at last". Yet another refugee interjected: "We may have lost everything we possessed. But let me assure you that for every building we have left behind, we will erect two". The next intervention was totally different. "No, no, we mustn’t despair. Gandhiji will take us back to our homes, as he has promised". This hope was to die five-and-a-half months later with the Mahatma’s assassination.

It is, perhaps, needless to add that on that momentous day Gandhi was not in Delhi or anywhere near it. He was at distant Noakhali in what is now Bangladesh, which had been the scene of exceptionally vicious communal carnage. His duly designated political heir, the iconic Jawaharlal, was the dominant figure in Delhi and the crowds loved him.

Years later I learnt from two colleagues, one an Englishman and the other a Calcutta-based Indian, that on August 15 at Noakhali they had sought the Mahatma’s views on winning Independence. The Briton had asked the question. Gandhi turned to the Indian: "Sahib se kah do kay mera dil sookh gaya hai. Mein kuch nahin kah sakta. (Please tell the sahib that my heart has dried up. I cannot say anything.)".

On the morning of August 15, we somehow managed to get back to Lodi Colony. We heard on the radio at lunch time that at 8.30 in the morning, India’s Chief Justice Harilal J. Kania had sworn Lord Mountbatten in as the first Governor-General of Independent India. His Lordship almost failed to get back to Government House, as the Viceroy’s House, now called Rashtrapati Bhavan, was then renamed. The crowd around Parliament House was so dense that a 400-strong bodyguard team could not force a way for Lord Mountbatten’s carriage. Nehru then climbed to the carriage’s roof and waved back the formidable throng. The people obeyed him as they would not have obeyed anyone else.

In Lodi Colony, as in every other part of the city, the rest of the day was an unending party. Long before the appointed hour of six in the evening, we were at India Gate where the festivities were to climax by the hoisting of the National Flag by Nehru. Military bands were in attendance. There was to be a parade. As the flag broke at the top of the mast, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky, an auspicious sign. However, the parade had to be cancelled. For, so enormous were the crowds that nobody could move. Eventually, Nehru and Lord Mountbatten managed to leave amidst shouts of "Pandit Nehru ki Jai", "Pandit Mountbatten ki Jai". India had, indeed, stepped out of the old into the new.