Probity in Public Life

Since disclosure of personal financial interest and investments of people in high public office is a subject of so much discussion currently, after the second report of Hindenburg Research in August 2024, it is worth putting in the public domain some archival material that I have had access to while researching and writing the text of a personal biography of Cooverji H Bhabha, independent India’s first commerce minister.

This material shows that probity in public life is not a subject matter of mere legislation or rule-making. It depends on the moral fibre of a society and the ethical values of a person. After all, laws have to be implemented by administration and enforced by a judiciary – if they are bereft of morality and ethics, we can make the best laws in the world, but they will be observed more in their breach. As BR Ambedkar had said: “...however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turnout bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good, if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot.” (Quoted by Meera Emmanuel  in https://www.barandbench.com/columns/dr-ambedkar-1949-constituent-assembly-speech). 

So you can lay down codes of conduct for people in high public office, but if they lack the ethics and morality, it will be an infructuous exercise.

The documents here show that Cooverji Bhabha, on his appointment as a Member of the Interim Government of India under Lord Mountbatten wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru who was then the Vice President of Executive Council of that Government, declaring his financial assets.

The Interim Government was sworn in on 2nd September 1946, Mr Bhabha’s letter, dated 8th September, states "As informed to you the other day, I am connected with several companies either as director or shareholder. I enclose herewith a list of companies in which I am a shareholder in my own rights or as a joint holder or as a beneficiary or as a Trustee. I have resigned as a Director from all the companies where I was a Director. However, I am a Shareholder of these companies as per the list, including private limited companies. You may if you think right, communicate this matter to our other colleagues as well as to H.E. the Viceroy."

The letter had a three page enclosure listing the names of companies in which he had a shareholding and those in which he was a director. We had word-processed the list since it was a copy on flimsy paper - which were used those days as copy sheets of typed documents. These archival documents are in the personal collection of the Bhabha family.

This declaration was made by Mr Bhabha much before India’s independence even before the Representation of the People Act 1951 came into being. and 60 years before the Rules under the Act made it mandatory for Members of Parliament to declare their assets.

Meticulous Lord Mountbatten

In the past few weeks, Lord Mountbatten’s name has been in the media in connection with the sengol that was installed in the new building of the Indian Parliament.

I want to share some archival documents to show how meticulous Lord Mountbatten was and how particular he was about maintaining official records and following procedures to a T.

The records that I refer to are two letters that Lord Mountbatten wrote to Cooverji H Bhabha, independent India’s first commerce minister who had earlier served as a minister in the Interim Government of India headed by Lard Wavell and later Lord Mountbatten. The original letters are available in the personal archives of the Bhabha family. I referred to these while doing the research and writing for Cooverji Bhabha’s biography by his daughter Rati Forbes. 

These are just two letters, a drop in the ocean of the voluminous archival materials available – of Lord Mountbatten as well as of the period. But I would like to share them for people to draw their own conclusions about the fact, or otherwise, of the sengol being presented to him by the priests of the Thiruvavaduthurai Mutt in Tamil Nadu and then to Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first Prime Minister.

Both the letters are written on the 9th of September 1947. The first one places on record the fact of Lord Mountbatten having “spoken with the Prime Minister on the telephone” about the appointment of Cooverji Bhabha as a member of the Emergency Committee of the Cabinet set up to deal with the post-Partition violence and riots. He asks Mr Bhabha to speak to the Prime Minister “before 8.0AM” and attend the Cabinet meeting at 10am.

The full text of the letter is as follows:

"Dear Mr Bhabha,

I have spoken to the Prime Minister on the telephone to-night &obtained his very willing concurrence to your appointment as the Chairman of the Delhi Emergency Committee.

I told him I would ask you to get in touch with him before 8.0AM tomorrow as he was proposing personally to inquire in the morning why the Emergency Committee of the the Cabinet's orders about forming the Delhi Emergency Committee had not been carried out. 

He agreed to consult you before taking further action if you got in touch with him.

Please come to the meeting at Government House at 10.0AM

Yours sincerely

Mountbatten of Burma"

Notice in the documents, that the address Viceroy’s House has been crossed out by pen and Government House has been typed above. This reflects not only the shortage of paper in the country at that time, but also how mindful Lord Mountbatten was about not wasting resources. Notice also that he has written on both sides of the paper. Perhaps he was following Gandhiji who used to pen letters and notes on pieces of scrap paper! Also, notice that Mountbatten records the conversation (and the decision taken) with Nehru in his own handwriting without waiting for it to be dictated and typed.

The second letter is also dated 9th September 1947 and is written after the Cabinet meeting held at 10am. Lord Mountbatten conveys to Mr Bhabha the decision to set up the “Delhi Emergency Committee” at which the Home Minister – Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel – had agreed that Mr Bhabha should be nominated the chairman. He asks Mr Bhabha to “please arrange to preside at the first meeting… which is being held this afternoon."

The full text of the letter is:

Dear Mr Bhabha,

At the meeting of the Emergency Committee of the Cabinet this morning we decided to set up a "Delhi Emergency Committee" to grip the situation in Delhi.

After the meeting, I consulted the Home Minister who agreed that a Cabinet Minister should take the chair and grip the situation and he has agreed that you should be nominated. Will you therefore please arrange to preside at the first meeting with the Chief Commissioner, Sub Area Commander and I.G. of Police, etc., which is being held this afternoon.

Thereafter will you please attend the Emergency Committee Meetings every morning at 10.0AM here -- as the Delhi Committee Representative & arrange future Delhi Committee meetings for each afternoon.

Yours sincerely

Mountbatten of Burma"

Could a person, who recorded the decisions and events so meticulously, have not recorded receiving the sengol from the priests of a well-known Mutt and returned it forthwith for onward transmission to the Prime Minister?

Interpreting Archival Resources

Lord Mountbatten's Letter

The evidence for the selection and appointment of Cooverji Bhabha as the Chairman of the Delhi Emergency Committee (which supervised and coordinated all the tasks of maintaining law & order, crowd control and rehabilitation in the aftermath of the terrible riots that raged in Delhi after the country’s partition) was found as a letter written by Governor-General Mountbatten on September 9, 1947. This letter is a part of the Bhabha family’s archival collection.

As the biographer, one could have used only the information contained in the letter. I chose to reproduce the scanned images of that document in the book, for several reasons. One, the letter showed how meticulously correct the Governor-General was in not only communicating the decision in writing – even in those emergency circumstances, he writes the ‘orders’ down in his own hand without waiting for his personal staff to type it. Two, he has the words Viceroy’s House on his letterhead cancelled and substituted by Government House – using the old stationery and not wasting paper. Three, he uses both sides of the paper to write on (which shows through in the digital image). And, four, he follows correct administrative protocol by consulting the Prime Minister and obtaining his concurrence on Cooverji’s appointment.

These comments, as observations of the biographer, would have marred the narrative – which, in this instance, was the story on Cooverji Bhabha’s life and his work. But, for a social historian, these observations were important. By reproducing the image of the letter, the observations were conveyed – perhaps more effectively – since an image is more effective than a thousand words!

Enhancing Family Archives

This is an example of a historian building a narrative based on archival resources.

While working on the biography of Cooverji Bhabha, independent India’s first Commerce Minister, I had access to the the Bhabha family’s collection of archival materials. It had the degree certificates that Cooverji Bhabha had obtained from the Bombay University. There were three of them, namely, BA in History (Hons) (1930), BCom with Advanced Banking (1932) and MA History by thesis (1933).

These certificates were the archival resources on the basis of which I, as the biographer, built the narrative of the ease with which students of Bombay University were allowed to move from one discipline to another in the pre-Independence era – in this case, from history to commerce and back to history – a facility that has been discontinued since.

I was also able to enhance the family’s archival collection by getting the image of the cover page of Cooverji Bhabha’s thesis and the topic of his dissertation which none of the next generation of family members knew about.

Cooverji Bhabha’s MA dissertation on “Old Fort William and the Black Hole” has been preserved at the Heras Institute at St Xavier’s College.