It is barely six months ago that Mr Attlee invited me to accept the appointment of last Viceroy. He made it clear that this would be no easy task — since His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom had decided to transfer power to Indian hands by June 1948. At that time it seemed to many that H.M.G. had set a date far too early...

However, I had not been more than a week in India before I realised that this date of June 1948 for the transfer of power was too late rather than too early: Communal tension and rioting had assumed proportions of which I had had no conception when I left England. It seemed to me that a decision had to be taken at the earliest possible moment unless there was to be risk of general conflagration throughout the whole sub-continent.

I entered into discussions with the leaders of all the parties at once — and the result was the plan of June 3. Its acceptance has been hailed as an example of fine statesmanship throughout the world. The plan was evolved at every stage by a process of open diplomacy with the leaders. Its success is chiefly attributable to them.

I believe that this system of open diplomacy was the only one which suited the situation in which the problems were so complex and the tension so high...

At the very meeting at which the plan of June 3 was accepted, the leaders agreed to discuss a paper which I had laid before them on the administrative consequences of partition: and then and there we set up the machinery which was to carry out one of the greatest administrative operations in history — the partition of a sub-continent of 400 million inhabitants and the transfer of power to two independent Governments in less than two and a half months. My reason for hastening these processes was that, once the principle of division had been accepted, it was in the interest of all parties that it should be carried out with the utmost speed. We set a pace faster in fact than many at the time thought possible. To the Ministers and officials who have laboured day and night to produce this astonishing result, the greatest credit is due...