Why BJP is asking Gandhi family to return Nehru’s letters to Edwina Mountbatten

A Prime Ministers Museum & Library (PMML) member has written to the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi to help in getting back “donated” papers related to Jawaharlal Nehru, which were allegedly removed at the behest of Sonia Gandhi in 2008.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is using the issue of these letters, which reportedly include Nehru’s correspondence with Edwina Mountbatten, Albert Einstein, Aruna Asaf Ali and Jayaprakash Narayan, among others, to target the Gandhi family.

Let’s take a closer look.

PMML member writes to Rahul Gandhi

Rizwan Kadri, an Ahmedabad-based historian, has shot off a letter to Rahul Gandhi, seeking his help for the return of these crucial papers pertaining to Nehru, India’s first prime minister.

As per an Indian Express report, Kadri said the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) Society, now known as PMML, had discussed the matter during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in February this year.

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In September, Kadri had written to Sonia Gandhi asking for the return of the papers.

Speaking to CNN-News18, the historian said, “On September 9, I wrote to Sonia Gandhi and now again I have written to Rahul Gandhi."

“In the letter, I have requested Rahul Gandhi and mentioned that whatever collection has been withdrawn in 2008 on the behest of Sonia Gandhi, which has around 51 cartons, should be returned."

Kadri wrote to the LoP that 51 cartons identified as “personal papers” were sent to Sonia Gandhi over a decade back. “These included the letters relating to personalities, such as Jayaprakash Narayan, Padmaja Naidu, Edwina Mountbatten, Albert Einstein, Aruna Asaf Ali, Vijaya Laxmi Pandit, Babu Jagjivan Ram and Govind Ballabh Pant,” Indian Express cited the letter as saying.

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Kadri told ANI that in the September letter to the former Congress president, he urged her to return the papers or give access to their scanned copies. “This would allow us to study them and facilitate research by various scholars," he said.

BJP hits out at Congress

The BJP has asked the Gandhi family to return Nehru’s papers to the PMML.

BJP MP Sambit Patra wrote in a tweet, “From what’s today the Prime Minister’s Museum and Library and formerly Nehru Museum and Library, the then UPA [United Progressive Alliance]
Chairperson Sonia Gandhi took away 51 cartoons of letters written by Nehru to various personalities including “EDWINA MOUNTBATTEN”! In the recently concluded AGM of the PMML one of the members, Rizwan Kadri has written to LoP Rahul Gandhi and sought his help in getting back the letters from his mother Sonia Gandhi!”

#WATCH | BJP MP Sambit Patra says, "Prime Minister's Museum and Library (PMML) Society member, Rizwan Qadri has written a letter to the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi requesting that 51 boxes (collection of letters written by Jawaharlal Nehru) taken by Congress… pic.twitter.com/nMmIFJ87Sb

— ANI (@ANI) December 16, 2024

BJP’s Amit Malviya made similar remarks, raising questions about Nehru’s correspondence with Edwina Mountbatten that “warranted such censorship”.

Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat told the Lok Sabha on Monday (December 16) that “action can be taken” on the demand that letters be returned.

Nehru’s relationship with Edwina Mountbatten

Jawaharlal Nehru shared a personal bond with Lady Edwina Mountbatten and her husband Lord Louis Mountbatten, India’s last viceroy.

Pamela Hicks, the daughter of Edwina and Mountbatten, wrote in her book titled Daughter of Empire: Life as a Mountbatten that her mother and Nehru shared a “profound relationship”.

In May 1947, Nehru was invited by Viceroy Mountbatten and Edwina to Mashobra in Simla for an ‘informal weekend’.

As Alex von Tunzelmann wrote in his 2007 book Indian Summer, “Jawahar walked with Dickie [Lord Mountbatten] and Edwina around the orchard terraces and up mountain paths, which wound up the hill from which Lord Kitchener’s former mansion, Wildflower Hall, could be glimpsed atop the next peak. Though once a flamboyant youth, Nehru had become a man of simpler tastes. Yet there were two pleasures he could never resist: the vitality of mountain scenery, and the company of an interesting woman. At Mashobra, he had both. Soon he was happily teaching Dickie and Edwina to walk backwards up slopes to rest their muscles…”

But it was not just an informal meeting between the two leaders. This was the first time that Mountbatten showed Nehru the transfer of power plan, which enraged the Indian leader, as per Indian Express.

Tunzelmann wrote in his book about the incident, “So well had things been going with Jawahar that, on a whim Dickie broke protocol and ignored the advice of his staff to show his new chum a copy of the secret plan in the study after dinner that very night. But when Jawahar read through the top secret papers his disposition turned from affable to shocked, and from shocked to furious.”

Mountbatten paid heed to Nehru’s views and gave the plan an “acceptable shape”, where Edwina “extracted a concession” from Nehru to compensate for some revisions to the proposal.

Nehru and Edwina formed a closer bond after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.
“Edwina was a huge emotional support to Jawahar after Gandhi’s assassination. I am not sure that he had enjoyed this kind of companionship with his wife. For his part, Jawahar gave Edwina an emotional response that, I suspect, had been lacking in her marriage,” The Last Vicereine’s author Rhiannon Jenkins Tsang told The New Indian Express (TNIE) in 2017.

In her 2012 book Daughter of Empire, Lady Pamela Hicks, the Mountbattens’ daughter, mentioned that Nehru and her mother’s relationship was based on “equality of spirit and intellect”.

As per PTI, she said in the book that after reading Nehru’s letters to her mother, the author realised “how deeply he and my mother loved and respected each other".

When Edwina died in 1960 in Borneo, a stack of letters was found at her bedside table – all from Jawaharlal Nehru, reported Indian Express.

“When Edwina died, she was buried at sea. Jawahar sent the Indian frigate to accompany the ship that carried her, and to cast his wreath of marigolds on the sea,” Tsang told TNIE.

With inputs from agencies