Awakening of India - 1947

[A/N: Extra chapter since we hit the 50 Power stones milestone, 1 extra chapter for every 50 power stones]

London, 30th November, 1947

The encrypted dispatch from Delhi arrived at Whitehall in the pre-dawn hours, its red classification marking cutting through the morning fog of routine correspondence like a blade.

Lord Mountbatten's report, seven pages of dense, urgent prose, would shatter the fragile calm of Clement Attlee's breakfast and reshape Britain's understanding of its former jewel in the crown.

Attlee read it twice in his private study, the grandfather clock's steady tick punctuating each damning paragraph.

The Prime Minister who had overseen the dismantling of an empire now faced something unprecedented: the empire striking back, not with violence, but with the cold calculus of economic warfare and political maneuvering that would have impressed Machiavelli himself.

The facts laid bare by Mountbatten were stark and deeply troubling.

Nehru and the many of the Congress leadership had been placed under what could only be described as luxurious house arrest, ostensibly for "national security during critical wartime operations."

The veneer of democratic process remained intact, Parliament(Dominion Legislature at that time) still met, debates still occurred, but the real power had been carefully extracted and concentrated in the hands of Arjun Mehra and his carefully selected cabinet.

More alarming still was the systematic isolation of British military advisors. Indian officers, many of them graduates of Sandhurst and Cranwell, had quietly assumed operational control of their respective services with a precision that spoke of careful planning rather than spontaneous uprising.

The British advisors found themselves relegated to "consultative roles" or dispatched on spurious inspection tours of remote installations, effectively neutered without overt confrontation.

"Margaret," Attlee called to his secretary, his voice betraying none of the turmoil churning in his chest, "summon Bevin. Tell him it's urgent."

Ernest Bevin arrived within the hour, his perpetual scowl deepening as he absorbed Mountbatten's revelations.

The Foreign Secretary, a man who had clawed his way from the Bristol docks to the corridors of power, understood leverage better than most. What he read in the report made his blood run cold, not from anger, but from recognition of a masterfully played hand.

"Christ almighty, Clem," Bevin muttered, his rough accent thickening with grudging admiration and deep concern. "This Mehra character, he's not just playing politics. He's playing us like a bloody violin."

The masterstroke, both men realized, lay in Mehra's delicate threading of India's crushing £1.5 billion sterling debt through his diplomatic overtures.

The new Prime Minister had made no crude threats, issued no ultimatums. Instead, he had simply noted that India's "cooperative approach" to debt restructuring would naturally depend on the "mutual respect and support" demonstrated by its former colonial master.

The implicit connection to Britain's potential backing of India's UN Security Council ambitions was never stated directly, it didn't need to be.

"It's blackmail," Attlee said quietly, setting down Mountbatten's report with deliberate care, "but blackmail with a velvet glove and a scholar's vocabulary."

By noon, the crisis had consumed Whitehall like wildfire.

Chancellor Stafford Cripps arrived at Number 10 clutching actuarial projections that painted a devastating picture of Britain's financial vulnerability. His ascetic features were drawn with exhaustion, he had clearly spent the morning war-gaming scenarios with his Treasury team.

"Prime Minister," Cripps began without preamble, "the sterling balances represent our single greatest economic vulnerability. If India chooses to demand immediate repayment, or even unfavorable restructuring terms, though we have the final say, India can potentially use this matter to give more firepower to the Soviets. We're talking about a potential spread of communist-aligned ideology in the region we're trying so hard to safeguard."

The hastily assembled cabinet meeting that followed was a study in British political theater at its most restrained and deadly serious.

Around the mahogany table sat men who had weathered the Blitz, managed a global war, and overseen the peaceful dissolution of history's largest empire. Now they found themselves confronting a crisis that threatened to undo years of careful efforts.

The Foreign Office's reaction was predictably apoplectic.

Sir Archibald Kerr, recently returned from his ambassadorship to Moscow and still adjusting to his new role as permanent under-secretary, embodied the old imperial mindset in full flower.

His jowls quivered with indignation as he spoke of "teaching these upstarts their proper place" and "reminding them of their obligations to the Crown."

Bevin's response was withering in its simplicity. "Teach them with what?" he demanded, his docker's pragmatism cutting through aristocratic bluster like a knife cutting through butter.

"We can barely keep the lights on in London. Our fleet's stretched thin across three continents, our treasury makes a church mouse look wealthy, and our army's demobilizing as fast as we can ship the lads home. This isn't the nineteenth century, Archie, and we're not the power we once were."

The King's reaction was no better. When briefed privately by Attlee later that afternoon, it captured the deep melancholy of an empire's twilight.

George VI, who had watched his dominions evolve into independent nations with a mixture of pride and loss, saw something in Mehra's maneuvers that was more than just mere diplomatic maneuvering.

"One had rather hoped," the King said softly, gazing out at the palace gardens where autumn was painting the leaves in shades of gold and rust, "that the transition might preserve some... fellowship. Some sense of shared purpose and mutual respect. This feels like the end of something precious, something that bound us together despite our differences."

"Perhaps it is, Your Majesty," Attlee replied, his voice heavy with the weight of historical inevitability.

"But we must deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it were. And the world that's emerging is one where India sees itself as Britain's equal, not as its grateful junior partner."

The debate that followed in subsequent cabinet meetings was fierce but necessarily brief.

Churchill, had he been present, would have thundered about British honor and the insolence of colonial upstarts demanding seats at civilization's high table.

But Churchill languished in opposition, and his voice reduced to newspaper columns and parliamentary speeches that seemed increasingly irrelevant to the new realities of power.

The men who actually governed Britain in 1947 were pragmatists shaped by depression, war, and the harsh mathematics of national decline. They understood that moral authority without material power was merely an elegant form of irrelevance.

"Our options," Bevin summarized with characteristic bluntness during the final strategy session, "are painfully limited. We can protest loudly about democratic norms and proper procedure, then watch as Mehra systematically dismantle ours and the Western powers efforts in a wider scenario. Or we can swallow our pride, acknowledge the new reality, and find a way to work with him that preserves what we can of our interests."

When The decision finally came, it reflected both Britain's weakness and its hard-earned wisdom.

A carefully crafted response was dispatched to Delhi, expressing grave concern for democratic institutions and the welfare of British nationals, requesting detailed clarification on military command arrangements, but stopping well short of ultimatums or threats that might provoke the very confrontation they desperately sought to avoid.

More significantly, quiet instructions went out to Britain's UN delegation in New York - listen carefully to whatever India proposed regarding Security Council reform in future meetings.

No commitments would be made, but no doors would be slammed shut either. The possibility of supporting India's bid would remain tantalizingly open, a diplomatic card to be played when the moment was right.

As the encrypted cables hummed across the Empire's vast communication networks, carrying Britain's measured retreat from confrontation to every corner of the Commonwealth, Attlee stood at his office window watching London rebuild itself from the rubble of war.

This proud city had endured, adapted and survived, perhaps that was Britain's role now in this new world order. Not to command from imperial heights, but to endure with dignity and find new forms of influence suited to diminished circumstances, regardless of how much it hurts their ego.

In Delhi, when word of London's restrained response reached him through the labyrinthine channels of diplomatic communication, Arjun permitted himself a moment of quiet satisfaction.

The former masters had chosen discretion over valor, careful calculation over wounded pride. They had read the balance of power correctly, recognizing that the age of gunboat diplomacy had died somewhere in the trenches of the Somme.

The first move in this new great game was complete, the opening gambit was successful beyond his most optimistic projections.

Now came the harder part, winning the war that would determine whether his impudent political revolution would remake the subcontinent according to his vision, or destroy it entirely in the attempt.

Outside his office window in South Block, the monsoon clouds gathered over the Red Fort like an omen, and Mehra could hear the distant rumble of artillery being moved into position for the real battle ahead.

The diplomatic chess match was concluded, for now. The shooting war was about to begin.