In this interview with Charles Allen from 1976, Evan Charlton discusses his views on Partition and his life in India after 1947. Charlton was a journalist and editor who worked for the Statesman newspaper in Calcutta (now Kolkata) from 1936 to 1967. In 1941 he joined the British Indian Army. After fighting in World War Two, Charlton returned to journalism and once again worked for the Statesman.  

When Allen asks Charlton about his views on Partition, he expresses his bitter disappointment that Partition occurred and that the Army was unable to preserve the safety of the people. Charlton describes the failure of the Army to protect refugees during Partition as a blot on Britain’s time in India. Although he believes that British officials could not have delayed Indian independence much longer, Charlton argues that provisions for the Army should have been made to prevent the massacres that occurred. 

After 1947 Charlton decided to stay in India because of his love for the country, its people and its atmosphere. During his time in India, Charlton made many close friends and enjoyed their company. He also tells Allen that he liked working at the Statesman and saw it as a good career move to stay on in an independent India. Charlton eventually returned to Britain in 1967 and worked for the BBC.

British in India Oral Archive

These interviews were carried out between 1975 and 1976 to supplement the BBC's popular Plain Tales of the Raj radio series. The project was jointly conducted by the National Sound Archive (NSA), the India Office Library & Records (IOLR) and the School of Oriental and African Studies. The NSA and the IOLR became part of the British Library in the early 1980s and are now known as the British Library Sound Archive and the India Office Records respectively. The collection includes interviews conducted in the UK, India and Pakistan with a wide range of people, including Lord Mountbatten, B K Nehru and British civil servants. The interviews cover the role of the Viceroy, the royal family, missionary work, the police force, the Indian Civil Service in Burma, trade and shipping in Calcutta (now Kolkata), the Japanese invasion during the Second World War and the Nehru family. The interviews were conducted almost exclusively with those who had roles in the administration of the British government in India, and this is reflected in their content. The full recordings from the British in India Oral Archive are archived at the British Library Sound Archive, with collection reference C5.

EVAN CHARLTON:

I was very bitterly disappointed that it was necessary to have Partition. I was bitterly disappointed that the army was not able to stand up to the task of preserving safety during Partition. Had this been possible then I think even Partition would have been a tolerable solution. The fact that we were incapable of maintaining an army that would look after these wretched refugees strikes me as being a very serious and sad blot on our whole time in India. But I also think that independence could not really have been delayed much longer and I just think that it is possible as again with hindsight that we could have made provisions to see that an army was there to present the worst kind of massacres that occurred.

CHARLES ALLEN:

Why didn’t you leave in India in 1947?

EVAN CHARLTON:

Well I became very fond of the country and the people in it. I find myself as close friends with Indians as with anyone else in the world and in fact very often much closer. I have liked the atmosphere of Indian life. I have never been someone to put on a dhoti and wandered around with sort of saffron in my hair or anything, but I have found myself able to get on with Indians and enjoy it. I liked the paper I worked for, and thought that it could be really good paper and I thought that it was a useful thing to have a paper there that was like this. And I saw and believed that there would be a prospect for a satisfactory career in an independent India which would be in many ways happier for me than in a subservient India, and so in fact it turned out.