Axis of Evil

Chapter Twenty: Chapatti And Chips

Chamber of Indian Princes

New Delhi, India

13^th May 1941

The room was ornate, decorated to a taste that only the very wealthy and the jaded could possibly stand. Gold and jewels, enough money to buy an entire fleet of battleships, were merged into the walls of the room, which was a sleeping bedroom. The owner of the room, His Most Gracious Highness Yadavindrah Singh, 8th Maharajah of the Indian State of Patiala, had other rooms for activities other than sleep.

The door opened soundlessly and a servant, a single turbaned Sikh, tiptoed into the room. Bowing once towards his master’s bed, where Yadavindrah Singh lay sleeping, he carried his single silver tray towards his master and set it down on the table. He stood up and glanced around the room, ensuring that everything was in place, from the row of tiger heads to the new mobile phone from Britain, and knelt beside his master’s sleeping head.

“Bed tea,” he whispered, with obsequious softness. Yadavindrah Singh’s eyes opened and he stared at the ceiling, decorated with golden leaf. The scent of the finest tea drifted across his nostrils and he sniffed once, loudly.

“Thank you,” he muttered. The servant bowed and left. Yadavindrah Singh sat up and picked up the single china cup, sipping the tea appreciatively. It was perfection itself; the drink was warm and arousing. Slipping out of bed, Yadavindrah Singh stood up and clicked the button on the laptop.

“You have thirty news messages in your inbox,” the tinny computer voice announced. “You have fifty-two messages from people you have added to your ‘block’ list.”

Yadavindrah Singh allowed himself a smile. He’d programmed the computer to speak in the voice of his favourite wife, a task it could do with ease. Some of the videos it carried were home movies, some recorded by his wives and mistresses. Other videos were Bollywood movies, an institution that might never exist now. Finally, there were videos that appealed to tastes that were truly degraded; Yadavindrah Singh disliked them on principle.

Still, he had to admit that the little machine was one of the blessings of the Transition. It helped him to remain in touch with his advisors, even as he travelled to New Delhi to represent his people. Not the common people; not even the folk he ruled in his state, which was one of the smaller princely states, but the Princes themselves. The 565 Princes collectively ruled over one third of India’s surface and a quarter of its population. Those Indian leaders who had been quick to bend the knee to the haphazard British conquerors, or had proven worthy foes, had been permitted to continue to rule in their own states. Some of them ruled lands greater than a European state; some commanded only a few square miles. All of them, without exception, had expected their rule to last forever.

And then they had gained the deadly power of foresight. In seven years from the Transition, nearly six years now, almost all of them would vanish into the ash heap of history. Yadavindrah Singh had been one of the Princes who had repressed both the Communist and the Nationalist movements; to know that the British would have, or had, abandoned them was… frustrating, to say the least.

The china cup, worth nearly a thousand pounds in 1940, shattered in his hand. The wave of pure anger that had gripped him was the same as the wave that had gripped the other Princes, from the largest to the smallest. Their first response had been defiance, defiance, only to discover that the future British hardly understood the issues at hand. They were used to dealing with a united India – almost all of them were apologetic about the Empire – and the Princes were regarded as a bothersome nuisance.

Yadavindrah Singh smiled darkly. His state might not be the largest – that honour was reserved for Rajputana – but he had a powerful army. Still, after reading the reports of battles in the Middle East and the Far East, he was no longer certain that he could defend his rights. The Princes were united as never before; they could fragment the country – and the future British seemed not to care. If the Provisional Government refused to honour their claims to power – and make a reasonable accommodation – India would dissolve into civil war.

He glanced down at the report. His recruiters had not only managed to expand his personal army, but to recruit a number of European – mainly British – officers from the Indian Army, which was supposed to be under the command of the Provisional Government. In reality, it was under the command of Sir Archibald Wavell, a Contemporary Briton, who was the only man everyone trusted. Wavell was a known factor and he had the respect of his men, particularly the reequipped Indian Divisions.

He shook his head. Wavell could be relied upon; the future British could not be, for the history books made that very certain. Carefully avoiding the crushed cup – a servant would clear the mess up later and replace the expensive carpet – Yadavindrah Singh began to lay his plans. The Princes would have a role in governing India – or they would tear it apart.

“All those lovely ladies, you must lay them all aside,

“I am the little gypsy girl that is to be your bride.”

When he had been younger, and first served as an Ambassador, Ambassador Homchoudhury had heard those lines in Britain, retelling a story of a gypsy fortune-teller who’d manipulated the local squire’s son into marrying her. Being imaginative, he’d created a whole mythology around the story; the girl had indeed foreseen her marriage, but she hadn’t seen that her husband was abusive. It had foreshadowed events ever since the Transition that he’d allowed himself to wonder, in his few private moments, if he had genuinely foreseen something.

Of course, he thought wryly, if I had foreseen the Transition, I would have made certain not to have accompanied Britain.

He scowled. He’d been taught in Calcutta, and the teachers had glossed over the period when India had been a restless state in the British Empire. There was something… unsporting about the British simply giving up and abandoning the nation, no glorious wars of independence, just the tired British lion slinking away. The single map had marked India as a simple pink spot on the map… and missed altogether the sheer mind-boggling complexity of British India. He’d known very little about the Princes, and still less about the seven-way arguments between the various Indian factions… and now he was expected to act as a neutral arbiter between the three major factions.

“We must proceed at once to full elections and democratic majority rule,” Jawaharlal Nehru said. His statement would have been more impressive if he hadn’t made it every second day for four months. “If we are to be a modern country, then we must be completely democratic.”

Mohammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, coughed. His body was damaged; the medical treatment he was undergoing to avoid the tuberculoses that would have killed him seven years later was ongoing. Homchoudhury sighed; in many ways the Indian National Congress could threaten to create Pakistan, which Jinnah wanted to avoid at all costs.

Homchoudhury felt a flicker of sympathy. It could hardly be easy steering a course between radicals on both sides of the divide. Jinnah’s life was a target for radicals of all strips; someone had already killed the Maharaja of Kashmir when news of his deal with Nehru, in the future, had reached the largely Muslim population of the state. Two regiments of the Contemporary British forces, units that could hardly be spared from the Burma Line near Imphal, were now tied down keeping the peace; Muslim unrest was a powerful force.

“We need, require, guarantees that the rights of the Muslim citizens will be honoured,” Jinnah replied, in his slow precise voice. Homchoudhury was unwillingly impressed; Jinnah had been a lawyer before returning to the independence movement and he knew how to make his points. “We have not suffered to create Hindustan.”

“Nor have we suffered to become a minority in both states,” Baldev Singh proclaimed in his booming voice. The Sikh would have become the first Minister of Defence in India, but there would not be a Sikh state, at least not in the original history.

Homchoudhury took a breath. The Princes had finally organised themselves – in between arguing over their course of action, panicking over the Kashmiri Crisis, and threatening civil war – and their delegation had finally arrived in New Delhi. Time had run out for the Provisional Government, and he thanked God for Governor-General Wavell. The unimaginative British officer might just have prevented an immediate bloodbath, but he wasn’t the type of man to save India now.

“Perhaps there is an intermediate solution,” he said, and noticed how all of the delegates looked desperately at him. All of them wanted an agreement, they just couldn’t decide on the terms. “I have been watching very carefully the attempts to draw up a single constitution for the Commonwealth, one that will reflect the new realities.”

There were some gasps, from people who had hoped to work on the constitution themselves, but mainly the room was quiet. “Partition didn’t work in my era and won’t work here, particularly given the knowledge of the future.” He noticed how the Muslim delegation glared at one another; the western Muslims and the eastern Muslims, Pakistan and Bangladesh. “We need a compromise that all sides can live with.”

He paused for a moment. “We have a Bill of Rights for the Commonwealth now, one that concedes the legal equality of all, provided they agree to live under the constitution and respect its provisions for others. My proposal is that we use the Bill of Rights as a template; we must become blind to the religion or colour or even sex of a person.”

“That would be an excellent step,” Gandhi said. The little man was bouncing up and down delightedly. Unlike many, Gandhi had been galvanised to learn of his future mistakes. “I would have no problem with accepting that as a basis of a unified India.”

The other delegates exchanged glances. Gandhi’s power was in his personality; he led and inspired while others did the hard work of building a power base that could rule India.

“Subject to the guarantees, we would accept,” Jinnah said slowly.

“The Commonwealth would be happy, I suspect, to appoint a neutral court to arbitrate such matters,” Homchoudhury said.

“Then we have an agreement,” Nehru pronounced. “We can move on to…”

“The matter of promises made,” a dark-bearded man said. Homchoudhury scowled; Yadavindrah Singh stood there, watching them all. “Promises were made to us and we will see them kept.”

Yadavindrah Singh swept his eyes across the council and dismissed them all with a single aristocratic sniff. He found them all wanting, from the ridiculous Gandhi to the man from the future. Small petty man, lawyers and politicians, men who knew nothing of making wealth, but would be quite happy to steal it. He bowed once to Wavell – the Governor-General was due some respect – and he stalked to the table.

“Ever since your people came to this land, you made promises and agreements with the Chamber of Princes,” Yadavindrah Singh said, addressing Wavell directly. The reaction from the other delegates would have been priceless under other circumstances. He glared at Wavell’s aide, a Foreign Office diplomat. “Now you are telling us that you will abandon us to these…”

Words failed him. He allowed his glare and shuddering long look of disgust to display his feelings. “These people will take the jewel in the King-Emperor’s crown and rip it to shreds. None of them had any glory; none of them have any higher purpose in mind, but power. They have done nothing to earn it; they only want to steal it from those who have worked and worked to earn it. We demand that the promises made to us when we allied ourselves with the Raj be honoured, or we will be forced to crease our support of the Raj and its improvements to India.”

There was a long pause as minds ticked over the threat. The Indian railroads ran through the princely states; the entire system could be brought to a halt if the princes refused to allow the trains to pass. There were army bases and airports, farms and resources – and there would be a famine in two years unless steps were taken – and many other things, all essential to running India in reasonable order.

Yadavindrah Singh allowed himself a smile as the silence lengthened. If Wavell joined him, with his control over the Army and the Indian Civil Service, which remained loyal to the Raj, the nationalists could be destroyed with ease.

Wavell met his eyes. “There remains a Japanese presence in Burma,” he said. Both men knew that it would have been far worse in the original history. “Distracting the army could be considered… treasonous.”

“Am I a loyal servant of the British Crown, who will be treated according to the terms with which he made his submission, or a Head of State in my own right?” Yadavindrah Singh asked coldly. The silence lengthened again.

The grey-suited Foreign Office diplomat – Mr Harriman Grey – spoke into the silence. “I have orders not to discuss this unless the council – and the Provisional Government – reached an impasse. I believe that that moment has now come.”

He looked around the room. “The British Government would prefer to avoid issuing an ultimation or a similar statement,” he said. “However, we are running out of time; the Japanese are knocking at the door. Historically, turmoil here nearly lost the war – and we don’t want to risk any repeats of that. Therefore, we have a solution to put forward.

“We propose the formation of a two-tied government,” Grey said. “One tier will be the civilian government, elected along the lines of the House of Commons, which will be the main centre of government. The second tier will be the House of Princes, one that will possess comparable authority to the House of Lords in Britain, and serve as a second chamber of government. It would be easy, but…

“Quite frankly, a war of independence won’t work,” he said, and noticed Wavell’s nod. “India is an integrated nation, it would be like the Lake District trying to declare independence. If you’ll pardon the analogy, all of you pulling in different directions will simply tear the country apart.”

He waited for the commotion to die down. “Ambassador Homchoudhury suggested using the Commonwealth Constitution as a framework for India,” he said. “I am authorised to offer you, on behalf of the government, major technology transfer and independence, which would boost India’s position within the Commonwealth. If you come to an agreement soon, along those lines, we will ensure that India becomes one of the most powerful Commonwealth states.”

“We might end up ruling the Commonwealth,” Homchoudhury injected. “If everything was stable here, we could easily attract immigrants from Britain to aid the development. Think what we could do with total literacy and no need to keep a watch on all of the borders!”

“Indeed,” Grey said. “However, there is one other point I have to make. Quite frankly, and I trust that you’ll forgive me speaking bluntly, the British Government does not wish to risk involvement in a Balkan-style morass. If you fail to come to an agreement, then I must inform you that Britain has decided that there will be no further involvement in India.”

Eastern Iran

Iran

13^th May 1941

The man stood on a horse, looking up into the east, towards India. The horse, a good-tempered beast, didn’t seem to mind the indignity, choosing instead to crop at the ground. The oasis wasn’t such a bad place for the Russian cavalry and they had been happy to help the Indian party on their way.

“Good luck, Comrade,” Commissioner Petrovich said. Subhas Chandra Bose, the leader of the Indian National Army, nodded in return. “Bring the Indians to the glories of communism.”

Bose carefully didn’t show any of his real feelings. Defeating the British yoke was important, but his regime was going to be based more on Hitler’s, than Stalin’s. India wasn’t ready for communism yet – even the Moscow theoreticians agreed on that. For the Netaji of India, the entire situation provided a possible gain; would all of the Indians accept their place in a new British Empire?

“It’s a long hard ride,” he said, and shuddered despite himself. Not even the most dashing British officer, confident in his superiority and his special relationship to the natives, could control the tribesmen for long. They viewed their land as being in Purdah, like their women, and all interlopers must die. Their respect for the British was grudging at best, born of a series of battles in which they had been roundly thrashed. Unlike the Afghanis, they had never been able to convince the British to give up and leave them alone.

Bose shuddered. He’d heard rumours of what was happening in Afghanistan, and suspected he knew the cause. The Russians were driving south, building up their transportation network and military, and forcing the natives to work for them or die. His friends in Berlin, the Fuhrer’s lackeys, had warned him; the Soviets were unlikely to smile upon a fascist state in India.

“Let’s go,” he said, and made a mental note to have his words rewritten into something more heroic in the future. Himmler, the leader of the SS, had shown him just how the past could be rewritten. His companions, men captured in France during 1940, wheeled their horses around and prepared to start the long ride into India. Bose smiled; Kipling himself couldn’t have done better.

“The Army of Liberation will be coming soon,” Petrovich said. Bose knew that it was meant to be reassuring, but it was anything, but. The last thing he wanted was a Soviet Army in India, even on such a shoestring of logistics. The Russians might come as liberators, but they would never leave again.

“They won’t be necessary,” he said, and wheeled his horse to the east. “Onwards to India!”