Forgotten Wars_ Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia - Christopher Bayly [137]
The RAF seemed particularly radical in this respect. Dorman-Smith called it the ‘Red Air Force’. His judgement seemed to be borne out by an incident that took place in April. The previous December Aung San had told Reuters that he was planning an Asiatic ‘Potsdam Conference’ at which ‘Asiatic liberties’ would be discussed and guaranteed by a small group of senior nationalist leaders. He added that the plans for this would be discussed with Pandit Nehru during his ‘forthcoming visit’ to Burma. Dorman-Smith immediately dashed off a telegram to the external affairs department of the government of India, insisting that they should give no facilities for a visit to Burma by Nehru. There was too much loose tinder lying around, not least a thousand increasingly restive INA men still held in Rangoon. Yet Nehru did fly to Singapore at the end of March 1946 to meet Mountbatten. En route his RAF plane developed ‘engine trouble’ and had to land at Rangoon just at a time when the governor was absent in Mandalay. As Dorman-Smith later described it, Nehru was greeted ecstatically by 300 Indians at the Strand Hotel ‘who Jai-ed him Hind and anything else they could Jai’.98 (‘ Jai Hind!’ – ‘Victory to India!’ – was a standard nationalist slogan.) He also met Aung San for two and a half hours and planned with him an East Asian ‘subject nations’ conference. This was eventually to take place in March and April 1947. All this confirmed Dorman-Smith in the view that the ‘engine trouble’ had been a put-up job. The ‘good old RAF have rather too many red gentlemen within their ranks for my liking’, he asserted. What was more, why was Nehru ferried to Singapore in the first place and fêted by Mountbatten? ‘Yet, damme, Dickie put him up at Government House and drove with him plus Mrs Dickie to show him the Town, etc.’
In fact it was Wavell who told Mountbatten that Nehru was to be treated as a future prime minister of India. When the BMA could find no transport for him, Mountbatten lent his own, and travelled with him. The sight of Nehru by Mountbatten’s side was a political sensation. Nehru’s first engagement was a visit to a welfare centre for Indian troops in Singapore in the company of the Mountbattens. They were mobbed together with Nehru and had to escape. A vital political friendship was born. Nehru was fêted by representatives of all communities. A crowd of 100,000 people gathered outside the Adelphi Hotel where he was staying.99 Tan Kah Kee led a delegation of Chinese and they feasted him at their ‘millionaires’ club’, the Ee Hoe Hean Club. Wherever he stopped, the local MCP representatives came to see him. When confronted by MPAJA veterans, he retorted: ‘Army? You have not come here armed have you?’
Nehru had agreed not to intervene in local politics, but made twenty speeches in eight days to around 60,000 people. His themes were pacific and pan-Asian rather than the specifics of the struggle in Malaya.100 The police were worried that support for the INA would resurface. Guards of honour were provided, and it was agreed that they would not wear INA badges, although many wore their old uniforms: they had no other decent clothes. One of his first acts was to visit the Indian political detainees in jail, dispensing good advice on how to keep body and soul together in prison.101 Congress sent a medical mission under an ex-INA officer that during a ten-week period treated over 17,000 labourers. But there were complaints that some of Nehru’s gifts of clothing did not reach the poor people, for whom they were intended.102 This was one of the last interventions of Congress nationalism in Malayan politics and many local Indians were disappointed by the statesmanlike moderation of