Kaldeep Naer writes in his book "Beyond The Lines" that he was interested in knowing the type of romance between Edwina Mountbatten and Nehru (1901-1960) from the very beginning. He wrote that when he was appointed as Indian Ambassador to Britain, he started trying to solve the puzzle. It was known to me he said that Air India brought the letter of Neru daily to London, the Indian Embassy was responsible to deliver it to Lady Mountbatten who used to reply the same day and through Air India it was received by Nehru the next day.
In Britain , I met with the grandson lord Ramsay of lady Batten, he was the head of Nehru Trust. The trust was established in the memory of Nehru by Lord Mountbatten. As an ambassador, I became the unofficial member of the trust. So, I had several meetings with lord Ramsay regarding the matters of the trust.
After some meetings when we got free I had been asking questions about his grand mother and realized that he did not feel it bad. One day I said, "Nehru's hand writing was very nice" Lord Ramsay said that handwriting of his grandma was also beautiful. Now it was the chance to request lord I wanted to see at least one letter of the lady because I have already seen letters of Nehru. Then lord told that Adwina letters had two sets, one was saved with Batten family while other set was in the custody of Gandhi family. I realized that to see the letters was a difficult task.
One day I got the courage and asked Lord Ramsay whether Nehru and Lady loved each other. First he laughed and said ," yes, but their love was spiritual. That type of love was understood and accepted in that age. Today when we talk about love,it mean physical contact but their love had relation of soul with soul. Nehru was a respectable personality and it was not expected from him that he will trap friend's wife."
When I returned back to Delhi, it was known to me that Nehru-Edwina letters were in the Nehru Memorial Library, but permission of Sonia Gandhi was necessary to see the letters.
I wrote letter to Sonia Gandhi that I was writing a book about Mountbatten couple and wanted to see Nehru's letters. Though she did not reply but I received a letter from foreign minister Nator Singh that you can see the letters in the library.
When I got the collection of letters from the librarian I was very happy but my happiness soon turned into dismay because the letters were were written from Nehru too different ministers including Krishna Manon.
I again met the librarian but he told that those letters were catagorised as " A class" leters and needed special permission of Sonia Gandhi. I again wrote to her and received a reply from Natore Singh that I could not see the letters because those were the property of Madam and only she could personally allow. But Kaldeep says these letters are the property of the nation and should be revealed.
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