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FREEDOM AT MIDNIGHT
INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
VICEROY’S HOUSE
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This ebook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017
Copyright © Larry Collins and Pressinter S.A. 1975, 1997
The Authors assert the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
Cover artwork: Pathé Productions Limited
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Source ISBN: 9780008247782
Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780007381296 Version: 2017-03-06
‘The responsibility for governing India has been placed by the inscrutable design of providence upon the shoulders of the British race.’
RUDYARD KIPLING
‘The loss of India would be final and fatal to us. It could not fail to be part of a process that would reduce us to the scale of a minor power.’
WINSTON CHURCHILL
to the House of Commons,
February 1931
‘Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge … At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance …’
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU
to the Indian Constituent Assembly,
New Delhi, August 14, 1947
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
EPIGRAPH
1 ‘A Race Destined to Govern and Subdue’
4 A Last Tattoo for the Dying Raj
5 An Old Man and his Shattered Dream
7 Palaces and Tigers, Elephants and Jewels
9 The Most Complex Divorce in History
10 ‘We Will Always Remain Brothers’
12 ‘Oh Lovely Dawn of Freedom’
14 The Greatest Migration in History
18 The Vengeance of Madanlal Pahwa
19 ‘We Must Get Gandhi Before the Police Get Us’
ALSO BY THE AUTHORS