In a recorded interview to Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, authors of Freedom At Midnight, later, Mountbatten could boast: "I had as great a control over the (British) cabinet as I had over the leaders in India at that time, and I had the most frightful, not so much conceit, but a complete and absolute belief that it all depended on me, and they had to do what I said or else...." He recalled Jawaharlal Nehru crying on his shoulder and Vallabhbhai Patel with tears in his eyes at his departure.
Gandhi remained the only obstacle until he was forced to concede defeat. But in the last...

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