From The Hindu Archives, March 19, 1976: French author’s reply to critics

Madras, March 18: Mr. Dominique Lapierre, co-author of “Freedom at Midnight”, claimed to-day that the controversial book was objective history and “a hymn of love for India” and did not distort the facts in any way.

“Four years of hard work and research have gone into the book and to dismiss it as fiction is most unjust”, he said at a press conference. In any case, only two pages of the 500-page book contained controversial material, he added.

Turning to the controversial part which maintains that Nehru and Patel, unable to handle the partition riots, secretly requested Mountbatten to take charge of the situation, Mr. Lapierre said this account though never published before was accurate. A memorandum at the U.K. Government archives, which had been dictated contemporaneously by Mountbatten, recorded the conversation among the three. This version was also corroborated by the private papers of Mr. V.P. Menon.

He said that far from denigrating Nehru, the book only brought out his greatness and political courage in having an Englishman as head of State after independence and even entrusting the reins of power to him. “One cannot conceive of Ben Bella, for instance, asking De Gaulle to become head of State in independent Algeria though it might have solved many of their difficulties”, he remarked.

Mr. Lapierre regretted that Indian critics should be harsh on the book and make out that facts were a casualty in it.