Vice-Admiral Rustom Ghandhi, the Indian naval officer who was an aide-de-camp to Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, died on December 23, 2014, aged 90. Rustom Ghandhi was with him at Viceroy’s House when India’s independence from Britain was formally declared on August 15, 1947. Ghandhi subsequently escorted Mountbatten’s wife Edwina to many of the refugee camps that sprang up in the wake of the bloody scenes that followed Partition, and remained a warm friend of the Mountbattens thereafter. Whenever he was in England, he made sure to visit the family home, Broadlands, in Hampshire.
Ghandhi was fond of telling the story of how, after Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, had made his “tryst with destiny” speech close to midnight on August 14, Nehru and Dr Rajendra Prasad (soon to become the first president of India) arrived at Viceroy’s House to invite Mountbatten to be the first governor-general of the newly independent nation. On his acceptance, Nehru proposed a toast to the king of England, and three glasses of nimbu paani (Indian lemonade) promptly arrived. Nehru would have none of it and insisted that the occasion demanded port. It took all of Ghandhi’s resourcefulness to find the drink and appropriate glasses at that hour. Nehru was delighted.
Such was the esteem in which “Rusi” was held on naval matters that he was appointed technical adviser to the war film “The Sea Wolves” on the recommendation of Mountbatten, who convinced the film’s producer, Euan Lloyd, of his merit. Ghandhi ending up appearing in the film after the actor scheduled to play the governor of Goa was taken ill. Rather than risk delaying shooting, Lloyd adjudged that Ghandhi looked suitably gubernatorial. Not only that, but the clothes fitted. Thus it was that Ghandhi ended up appearing twice in the credits, as technical adviser and actor; his beloved wife “Bubbles” was also glimpsed fleetingly as the governor’s wife. During filming he spent much time at Martin’s Beach Hut in Goa, sinking pink gins with cast members, including Gregory Peck, David Niven, Trevor Howard and Roger Moore.
Ghandhi had joined the Royal Indian Navy as a cadet in 1943, training at Dartmouth, and saw action against the Japanese in the heavy cruiser HMS Suffolk as she pounded shore targets in the Andamans and Malaya and supported carrier strikes against positions in Sumatra. Transferring to the destroyer HMS Wakeful, he helped to protect the fleet carriers of the British Pacific Fleet in their attacks on the Japanese mainland in 1945. He was present at the formal Japanese surrender on September 2.
After Independence in 1947, Ghandhi helped to guide and shape the Indian Navy. Before the Second World War the latter had amounted to very little, but by 1960 it included one aircraft carrier, two cruisers, nine frigates, six destroyers and a number of minesweepers, landing craft and other vessels, all British-built. Ghandhi took command of INS Betwa - one of three Leopard-class anti-aircraft frigates and the last to be built by the British for the Indian Navy - and brought her back from Newcastle to Bombay; the high point of the voyage home was the ship’s stopover in Monte Carlo, where Prince Rainier and Princess Grace entertained the officers royally. Fittingly, Ghandhi was buried at sea with full naval honours at his favourite fishing grounds.
Vice-Admiral Rustom Ghandhi, C in C Western Naval Command, Indian Navy (1977-79) and governor, Himachal Pradesh (1986-90), was born on July 1, 1924.
