I recently discovered this mini-series and greatly enjoyed it. It's too bad the DVD collection doesn't appear to have any additional features such as interviews with the director or producer. The series must have cost a fortune to make. All the costumes, the wide lapels on the mens' suits, the sets, the crowds of people, the marching horses, the elephants, the palaces. It's certainly a big budget series. Of course you can pull this off when the British government is helping to foot the bill. And let's face it, this is the BBC at its best. Mountbatten comes across as a decent man. Everyone does in fact, except Jinnah. He's the villain in the piece, and in my opinion the historical record supports this view of him. Mountbatten was faced with the problem of how to get the British out of India while trying to salvage the image of the empire. A review of Wikipedia shows that Hindu-Moslem violence predated the Raj and still continues to this day, so it's somewhat unfair to blame the violence following partition as Mountbatten's fault. Mountbatten's problem in India was a lot like the U.S. in Vietnam. He hoped to create a decent interval between the British exit and whatever happened next. In this regard he failed by trying to move too fast. For example India and Pakistan both declared independence before anyone knew where the exact borders were. A slower approach might have resulted in fewer deaths, but not that many fewer. Both before and after this series was made in the mid 1980s Hindus and Moslems have continued to kill each other in the subcontinent. So a more careful approach to partition would have merely mitigated the violence, not prevented it. Like I said, the BBC helped fund this series in part to burnish Britain's image. Edwina Mountbatten's promiscuity is greatly toned down in the series. Her affair with Nehru is merely hinted at. (They make a lot of eyes at each other.) Given that Nehru spent six years in British jails prior to independence, nailing the Viceroy's wife must have been sweet revenge indeed. What's also fascinating about this series is how it still resonates. References to Abbottabad, where bin Laden was killed, or a scene showing a woman getting raped are right out of today's headlines. Unfortunately some things never change.
