Mrs Indira is here

‘Half an hour after lock up yesterday there was a tremendous knocking at the outer gate and the matron came in excitedly announcing “Mrs Indira is here.” A minute later Indu followed by five other women came in. [. . .] It appears that the women intended to have a meeting but before it could commence the police arrived and made an attempt to arrest Indu and some others who were there.’ This is from a short diary kept by Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit during her third term of imprisonment by the British. Pandit, born 120 years ago today, was a key figure in the movement seeking to gain independence for India. She served her new country as an ambassador for many years, and was the first woman President of the United Nations General Assembly. Indira Gandhi was, in fact, Pandit’s niece, and later on, after independence, they would become political opponents.

Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru was born on 18 August 1900 in Allahabad (now in Uttar Pradesh but then in North-Western Provinces, British India). Her father was a wealthy barrister who served twice as President of the Indian National Congress, and her brother Jawaharlal Nehru, 11 years older, would go on to become the first Prime Minister of independent India. Vijaya was educated privately at home but also in Switzerland. After being forced to abandon a secret liaison with a Muslim journalist, she was married to Ranjit Sitaram Pandit, a successful barrister, in 1921, and they had three daughters. They both became active in the Indian nationalist movement. She was first elected to a local political post in 1934, but rose quickly to be appointed a minister in 1937 - the first woman to become a cabinet minister.

She was imprisoned by the British authorities in 1932-1933, again in 1940 (after resigning with other cabinet ministers in protest against the British including India as a participant in the Second World War), and finally in 1942-1943. Her husband died in Lucknow prison in 1944.

After being widowed, Pandit travelled in the US, lecturing, before retuning to India in early 1946 and resuming her portfolio as minister of local self-government and public health in the United Provinces. Following India’s freedom from British occupation in 1947, she joined the foreign service becoming India’s ambassador to the Soviet Union (1947-1949), the US and Mexico (1949-1951), Ireland (1955-1961) during which time she was also the Indian High Commissioner in the UK, and Spain (1958 to 1961). Between 1946 and 1968, she headed the Indian delegation to the United Nations, and in 1953 she became the first woman President of the United Nations General Assembly. 

In India, Pandit served as Governor of Maharashtra from 1962 to 1964, after which she was elected to the Indian parliament’s lower house, Lok Sabha, for Phulpur, her brother’s former constituency (Jawaharlal Nehru had died in 1964). Pandit was a harsh critic of Indira Gandhi’s years as Prime Minister. She retired from active politics, but came out of retirement in 1977 to campaign against Indira Gandhi, thus helping the Janata Party win the election that year. In 1979, she was appointed the Indian representative to the UN Human Rights Commission, after which she retired from public life. She died in 1990. Further information is available at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and in her memoir: The scope of happiness (see Internet Archive).

During her third and final term of imprisonment, Pandit kept a diary. This was first published in 1945 by The Signet Press (Calcutta) as Prison Days. Her preface in the book reads: ‘This little diary does not attempt to record all the events which took place during my last term of imprisonment. It was not written regularly and is of no special importance. But since the period from August 1942 onwards was enveloped in darkness and many people still have no idea what prison life means, this may help in giving a picture of the conditions prevailing in one of the better run jails of the United Provinces. The treatment given to me and to those who shared the barrack with me was, according to the prison standards, very lenient - the reader must not imagine that others were equally well treated. When the truth about that unhappy period is made known many grim stories will come to light, but that time is still far off. A few pages of the diary and some incidents have had to be omitted for obvious reasons. I offer this little book to those who are interested in understanding something of what goes on behind the prison gates.’ A copy of the original publication can be read online here. More recently, the diary has been reprinted by Speaking Tiger.

Here are several extracts (the first three available on the Speaking Tiger website, and the last two taken from the original Signet Press edition).

12 August 1942
‘I woke up with a start and switched on the light. Binda was standing at the foot of my bed. He told me the police had arrived and wished to see me. It was 2 a.m. My mind was a confused jumble of the events of the preceding twenty-four hours. The shots fired on the students’ procession were still ringing in my ears and before my eyes I could only see the faces of those young men whom I had helped to pick up and remove to hospital. I was utterly weary in mind and body and more than a little dazed.

The girls were asleep on the veranda and I did not wish to disturb them. Both Lekha and Tara had gone to bed exhausted after what they had been through the day before. They had seen sights which would not easily be effaced from their memory and were bewildered and unhappy.

I went out to the porch. The City Magistrate, the Deputy Superintendent of Police, and half a dozen armed policemen were standing waiting for me in the darkness. I switched on the light and was amazed to find the grounds full of plain-clothes men some of whom had actually come up on to the veranda. This annoyed me and very curtly I ordered them off into the garden before speaking to the City Magistrate. He was ill at ease and said he had a warrant for my arrest. ‘Why is it necessary for so many armed men to come to arrest one unarmed woman at this amazing hour?’ I asked. A search was also to take place, I was informed. I told them to go ahead with the search while I got ready for prison.’

15 August 1942
‘Food is an overrated subject. One realizes this most forcibly in jail. It is all right if one is in pleasant surroundings with the right people and the food is well cooked and well served. It is certainly possible to enjoy a meal in such a setting. But when one has to cook in the most primitive fashion and the heat is making one ill and the rations are mildewed, it is really a doubtful pleasure. I have decided to give it up and shall try to confine myself to bread and tea.

Prison tea has to be seen to be believed! My experience of tea is fairly varied, ranging from the exquisitely perfumed and delicate varieties that Madam Chiang sends me to the nondescript syrupy stuff one is obliged to swallow during election campaigns—but never have I seen or tasted anything like jail tea. I am convinced it is some special and very deadly variety of leaf grown for the poor unfortunates who are in prison. Not having any tea of my own I took this decoction once and nearly passed out. It would give me a tremendous thrill if I could make all jail officials live for one week on jail rations.’

18 August 1942
‘There is a new rule for political prisoners. We will not be permitted newspapers, letters, interviews or any article from home. Jail clothes will be provided. Our allowance will be reduced from twelve annas to nine annas per day.’

25 August 1942
‘Last night was very sultry and hot, but the yard was bathed in silver light all night. It is still hot and very muggy this morning and we seem to be in for a bad day. My head has ached ever since I got up and the throbbing is increasing inspite of the Aspro that I have taken. It is not going to be a very cheerful day for me, I’m afraid!’

11 September 1942
‘Half an hour after lock up yesterday there was a tremendous knocking at the outer gate and the matron came in excitedly announcing “Mrs Indira is here.” A minute later Indu followed by five other women came in. The others are Ram Kali Devi, Mahadevi Chaube, Lakshmibai Bapat and two young girls: Vidyavati and Govindi Devi. It appears that the women intended to have a meeting but before it could commence the police arrived and made an attempt to arrest Indu and some others who were there. There was a scuffle between the crowd and police. Indu was pulled about and bruised and had her clothes torn. Finally they were brought here. Feroz has also been arrested. There was great excitement in our barrack. Indu was put in here and the others in the barrack opposite. They talked excitedly for a long time after we had composed ourselves. Indu has no news of Bhai which is very disturbing. Bapu’s news, the little she had, was also not good.

Ranjit has been very unwell and could not leave Bombay He plans to spend ten days in Khali before returning to Allahabad. I am terribly worried about Ranjit. He wants such careful looking after.’

Wastebasket of War

‘It’s true that I don’t know any cardinal state secrets, now that I’m serving at sea far from the center of government, but I’m sure it will be necessary to record frankly in my diary about matters of official business that won’t appear on official records, my opinions, my impressions, my speeches and actions, and my private matters, without regard to distinction, as they come into my mind day by day. This will be of some use to someone else in the future, because of my past guilt in bringing events to the state they’re in today, and because of my present post as chief of staff of the Combined Fleet that carries the burden of the welfare of the state. Accordingly, it will be appropriate to give this diary the name “Wastebasket of War” or, rather, “Seaweeds of War”. This is Matamo Ugaki - a Japanese admiral who died 75 years ago today in a kamikaze mission - writing about his reasons for starting a diary just two months before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour.

Ugaki was born in 1890 into a farming family in rural area of Okayama, western Japan. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1912, was commissioned as ensign in 1913 and promoted to lieutenant in 1918. After graduating from the Naval Staff College he was promoted to lieutenant commander. He was a staff member of the Naval Gunnery School for three years, and was then appointed as a resident officer in Germany from 1928-1930 with the rank of commander. After promotion to captain, he was employed as an instructor at the Naval Staff College. In 1935, under Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, he was assigned as a staff officer to the Combined Fleet for a year before being given his first command: the cruiser Yakumo. The following year, he was given command of battleship Hyūga.

As the Pacific War broke out, Uhgaki became a key figure in the Japanese Navy as the Chief of Staff to Yamamoto. In April 1943, he was flying with Yamamoto in separate bombers but both got shot down. Yamamoto died while Ugaki survived, thereafter, though, blaming himself for Yamamoto’s death. The following year, he commanded the First Battleship Division in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea. Near the end of the war, he was the commanding officer of the 5th Air Fleet, directing the kamikaze special attacks against Allied ships off Okinawa. 

On 15 August 1945, only hours after Emperor Hirohito had formally acknowledged defeat, and against the protest of his lieutenants, he donned a simple uniform without any rank insignia and flew a kamikaze mission. The Americans reported no successful kamikaze attacks that day, and thus it was assumed that Ugaki’s suicide mission ended in the sea. Ugaki was posthumously awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. Further biographical information on Ugaki can be found at Wikipedia, World War II Database, Military History, Pacific Wrecks, and in Admirals of the World: A Biographical Dictionary, 1500 to the Present (Googlebooks).

1n 1991, the University of Pittsburgh Press published Ugaki’s diary: Fading Victory: The Diary of Ugaki Matome, 1941-1945, as translated by Masataka Chihaya, a former officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy. The title was re-issued in 2008 by the Naval Institute Press (see Amazon). The publisher says: ‘[The diary is] invaluable for its details of the Japanese navy at war, [. . .] augmented by editorial commentary that proves especially useful to American readers eager to see the war from the other side. When first published . . .  this diary was hailed as a major contribution to World War II literature as the only firsthand account of strategic planning for the entire war by a Japanese commander.’

It is explained in the book that members of Ugaki’s family preserved the diary after the war. The Etajima Museum of Naval History holds 13 of the original 15 volumes (always, apparently, written by Ugaki in a room dedicated to the Kamikaze Special Attack Forces). The volume covering the first three months of 1943 was lost after the war, and permission to use the diary entries for April 1943 to February 1944 (when Ugaki was convalescing after being shot down) was refused by his son Hiromitsu.

As a preface to his diary Matome wrote: ‘It’s true that I don’t know any cardinal state secrets, now that I’m serving at sea far from the center of government, but I’m sure it will be necessary to record frankly in my diary about matters of official business that won’t appear on official records, my opinions, my impressions, my speeches and actions, and my private matters, without regard to distinction, as they come into my mind day by day. This will be of some use to someone else in the future, because of my past guilt in bringing events to the state they’re in today, and because of my present post as chief of staff of the Combined Fleet that carries the burden of the welfare of the state. Accordingly, it will be appropriate to give this diary the name “Wastebasket of War” or, rather, “Seaweeds of War”.

Pacific Wrecks has one review of the diary, and the Kamikaze Images website another. The author of the latter explains that, generally, Matome focuses on the course of the war - with many entries summarising battle details. The website provides the following as a typical example of an uneventful day:

13 May 1944
‘Partly fair. We crossed toward the Shinnan islands and the north of Borneo. At 1830 we entered Balabac Channel. We sailed in a long line of columns. On the first day, two reconnaissance seaplanes cooperated with us in guarding from Singapore. Yesterday we didn’t dispatch any of our own aircraft. Apart from the extent to which it could help us, I was pleased to see they have come to cooperate with us at sea. After passing through the Balabac main channel, we took the northerly course, avoiding shoals. Fleet training wasn’t executed today. The sensitivity of enemy submarines' telephones has become stronger after entering the Sulu Sea.’

However, Matamo does, sometimes, include personal details in his diary, and the author of the Kamikaze Images review provides a summary of this personal content:

‘Although his wife Tomoko passed away in 1940, he remembers her fondly, especially on each anniversary of her death. On April 26, 1944, Ugaki writes (p. 364), “Today is the day on which four years ago the death of Tomoko, my wife, took place. Early in the morning I prayed for her happiness and told her spirit of my determination. It’s my firm belief that I owe her soul a great deal for my being able to do my duty today like this.” Ugaki also writes as a proud father about his son Hiromitsu, who was appointed as a naval medical officer in January 1945. Some diary entries briefly mention Ugaki’s pastimes, mainly hunting and poetry writing. Many poems he wrote in his original diary have not been included in this English translation, but a translated poem about special attack forces poignantly expresses Ugaki’s feelings toward the young men who died in suicide attacks. A few comments mention his personal health, including continuing problems with his teeth that sometimes cause him great pain. Just one week prior to the end of the war, he visits the hospital to get a crown for a tooth.’

Finally, it is worth noting that one of Ugaki’s diary entries - his last - is widely referred to in biographies. Wikipedia, for example, mentions it: ‘Ugaki made a last entry in his diary noting that he had not yet received an official cease-fire order, and that as he alone was to blame for the failure of his valiant aviators to stop the enemy, he would fly one last mission himself to show the true spirit of bushido [Samurai moral values]. HistoryNet has more on the diary and Ugaki’s final kamikaze mission.

The pithy diary of a saint

John Henry Newman, born 130 years ago today, was a key figure in the Oxford movement, and is a recently canonised saint in the Catholic Church. His collected letters and diaries have been published in 33 volumes, but his letters - voluminous and literary - are the stars of these tomes, not his diary entries which are rarely longer than a word or two.

Newman was born in London in 1801, the eldest of six children. He was educated at Great Ealing School where he converted to evangelical Christianity, and Trinity College, Oxford. After graduating, he took on private pupils while reading for a fellowship at Oriel College - being elected a fellow in 1822. He was ordained a priest in 1825, and became curate at St Clement’s Church, Oxford. The following year, he returned to tutor at Oriel, the same year as Richard Hurrell Froude. It was under the influence of Robert Froude (Richard’s father) and the clergyman John Keble that Newman became a committed High Churchman. In 1833, he was one of the main figures in the new Oxford movement, writing tracts and publishing books, aimed at promoting High Church elements within the Church of England.

As Newman’s influence in Oxford and within the Church of England was peaking, he encountered significant opposition. When his Tract 90 was denounced, doubts set in, and he lost confidence. In particular he retracted previously published criticisms of Catholicism. In 1843, he resigned his living at St Mary’s and retired to a village, Littlemore, outside Oxford. There, with a number of followers, he lived in a quasi monastic way. In autumn 1845, he was received into the Catholic Church, a move which led to breaks with friends and family alike. The following year, he went to Rome where he was ordained priest and awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Pope Pius IX. In late 1847, he returned to England as an Oratorian (member of a select society of Catholic priests). He founded the Oratory at Birmingham in 1848. After living in various places, he eventually settled at Edgbaston, where spacious premises were built for the community, and where he would live a relatively secluded life for most of the next forty years.

Although celibate, Newman had intense life-long relationships, especially with Froude and Ambrose St John. Some biographers consider these may have been homosexual, at least emotionally if not physically. In 1854, at the request of Irish Catholic bishops, Newman went to Dublin as rector of the newly established Catholic University of Ireland, now University College, Dublin. There, he founded the Literary and Historical Society. After four years, he retired, and published a volume of lectures entitled The Idea of a University, explaining his philosophy of education. In the mid-1860s, Newman published an autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (freely available online at Internet Archive). A number of projects he was asked to lead or support seemed to come to nothing, and at one stage he was suspected of doctrinal unorthodoxy. However, in 1879, he was created a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in recognition of his services to the cause of the Catholic Church in England. He died on 11 August 1890. 

Nearly 130 years later, in October 2019, Newman was canonised by Pope Francis. Further information on Newman is available from The Oratories of England, The London Oratory, The Oxford Oratory, the BBC, Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Newman Reader.

Newman kept a diary more or less continuously from 1824 to 1879, however most entries are pithy, consisting of a few words, and lack punctuation. Over half a century, they have been published by Oxford University Press in 33 volumes as The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman. Personally, I have only examined a handful of volumes, but in these it is Newman’s letters that take up the bulk of the space, 95% or more. Some volumes can be previewed at Googlebooks, and some borrowed for an hour from Internet Archive. The following extracts are taken Volume XXVI - Aftermaths (January 1872 to December 1873) with notes and an introduction by Charles Stephen Dessain and Thomas Gornall (1974). 

21 February 1872 
‘Ambrose sang Mass - went over with him to Rednall and planted Mulberry and Nuts.’

18 June 1872
‘bad thunderstorm and profuse rain’

19 June 1872
‘dark - rain - thunder’

20 January 1873
‘Snow    went to Derby    heavy snow’

21 January 1873
‘thawing    returned to Oratory’

22 January 1873
‘much rain    Pusey ill’

24 January 1873
‘Hurrell Froude came’

16 February 1873
‘a bad cold at this time’

10 September 1873 
‘returned to the Oratory’

11 September 1873
‘Aubrey de Vere came’

12 September 1873
‘de Vere went’

2 October 1873 
‘went with Ambrose and preached at the opening of the Olton Seminary’

See also Descended from a bishop.