Some Indian history for the queen

Queen Elizabeth, who turned 80 this month, once took a lesson in subcontinental history from her far less diplomatic husband,
says H Y Sharada Prasad

Britain has a woman foreign secretary. This development did not evoke much notice in our press. Queen Elizabeth turned 80 earlier this month. This event, too, was barely mentioned. Both are pointers to the rapid evaporation of a pro-British sentiment from the minds of our newspaper-reading public.

But the news of the birthday did bring back

personal recollections of an encounter I had with the Queen. It happened this way. After Jawaharlal Nehru's death, the Government of India organised an exhibition which would serve as a definitive statement on his life and work. Its creation was entrusted to the noted American designer, Charles Eames.

The exhibition was opened in New York in November 1964 by US vice-president Hubert Humphrey. Jacqueline Kennedy was also in attendance. It became an instant hit and was hailed as a masterpiece of the art of biographical exhibitions. It was a matter of intense personal satisfaction to me that I worked with Eames as editorial consultant for the project.

The exhibition was then moved to London where it opened in June 1965 at the RoyalFestival Hall. The Queen and Prince Philip visited it. Dr Jivraj Mehta was our High Commissioner in London at the time. He and I were assigned the task of taking the royal couple around. They spent nearly an hour-and-a-half and their comments showed that although India was not terra incognita to them, there were several aspects of our freedom movement that they were learning for the first time.

One of the most evocative sections of the exhibition was the one depicting the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. Prince Philip spent considerable time going through the narrative, especially the replies given by General Dyer to the questions put to him by the commission of inquiry. The panels had reproduced these excerpts:

Q:  After the firing took place did you take any measures for the relief of the wounded? Dyer: No, certainly not. It was not my job.

Q: When you went into the Jallianwala Bagh, what did you do?
Dyer: I opened fire.

Q: At once?
Dyer: Immediately. I had thought about the matter and it did not take me 30 seconds to make up my mind.

Q: You did not open fire with the machine guns simply by the accident of the armoured cars not being able to get in?
Dyer: If they had been there the possibility is that I would have opened fire with them. The display boards prominently featured the fact that the official inquiry by the Hunter Committee placed the death toll at 379 and the number of injured at more than 2,000. It also said that after the inquiry, Dyer was retired on half pay “for an error of judgement” but a London newspaper had raised a fund of 20,000 pounds for “the Saviour of India”!

After carefully studying the legend, Prince Philip wanted his wife to read it, too. She was in another section of the exhibition and he called out to her: "Sausage, come over and see this." Sausage came over and studied the text. Then the Prince asked her, "Do you remember George, George Dyer, who was with me in the Navy?" The Queen nodded. And the Prince added, "That George is this bastard's son."

Lord Mountbatten was standing by. Needless to say I kept a grave face when hearing the unroyal endearment and the unprincely vocabulary.