to the Indian Independence movement and he was instrumental in the transition from Empire to Commonwealth

Clement Attlee, Britain’s post-war Prime Minister and the man who saw through the final days of India's fight for Independence

Clement Attlee, Britain’s post-war Prime Minister and the man who saw through the final days of Indian Independence, was once described by Winston Churchill as 'a sheep in sheep’s clothing'.

Churchill would also claim that his Labour rival was, ‘a modest man with much to be modest about’, and once he quipped, ‘An empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street, and when the door was opened, Clement Attlee got out’.

In terms of his physical appearance Attlee, and again in sharp contrast to Churchill, was more Patterdale Terrier than British Bulldog.

However, an appearance that might once have suggested timidity, Indira Gandhi described Attlee’s slightly unimpressive bearing as ‘the non-imperial face of Britain, a reassuring counterweight to the haughty mien of the Raj in India’.

Gandhi went on to add that, ‘Lord Attlee was a good example…(of the) understatement which characterises the best in Britain’.

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Clement Attlee (right), the man who was once described as 'a sheep in sheep’s clothing' by Churchill (left)

In a new biography titled, Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee, historian John Bew looks at Attlee, but not as an ‘understated’ politician, but as a British patriot, albeit in the form of a mild-mannered, political giant.

Known best for the NHS and Britain’s post war social reform, which ensured that those who had suffered most during the war would not return to the squalor of life before the war in Britain, Attlee also played a crucial role in India’s journey to winning its Independence.

The book captures Attlee’s career in its entirety, but alongside the ups and downs of his career so too runs the India question.

Historian and author John Bew talks to MailOnline India about a number of seminal moments in Attlee’s career that helped shape history.

In terms of his physical appearance, Attlee was more Patterdale Terrier, than British Bulldog

Attlee the Patriot: The journey from Empire to Commonwealth, that begins in the East End of London

Attlee was born in 1883 in Putney, London, the seventh of eight children.

His father was a solicitor and his mother a secretary at The Art Union of London.

He did all the things expected of a young, privileged man of the age - he went to prep school in Kent, then onto Haileybury, followed by University College, Oxford, where in 1904 he graduated BA with second-class honours in Modern History.

He then trained as a barrister at the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in 1906.

As Bew suggests, ‘It is the upbringing of someone trained for imperial service. Attlee was from the classic British establishment, and was trained to serve the British Empire in its various forms’.

However, 1906 would be an important year for Attlee, Britain, and eventually India.

Attlee comes to political consciousness in a world in which Britain is the greatest, most powerful nation on the earth, he has been trained for service in what was seen at the time as ‘the modern Roman Empire’.

But after University, between the years 1906 and 1909, Attlee worked as manager of Haileybury House, a club run by his old public school for working-class boys in the East End of London.

And it is here, according to historian Bew, that we first see Attlee’s particular brand of patriotism.

When Attlee goes to the East End of London in 1906, he asks himself, 'How can the world's greatest nation be so ugly in the heart of its own metropolis? And so unfair'.

According to Bew, 'It's frankly embarrassing to someone who has been grown brought up and taught that Britain is this wonderful place, to then see how ugly and poverty stricken the East End was at the time.

'So this patriotism is actually at the core of everything he does. It's this shock that makes him less complacent about what Britain should be. This is seen in domestic and foreign policy, and this patriotism drives him on.

'It's not a lazy flag-waving patriotism, it's a genuine love of his country and a desire to improve life for those living in it, and also those associated with it abroad'.

The Simon Commission: How Attlee went from Mr Disposable, to become Britain’s most respected voice on India

Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald in 1931 at work preparing speeches for his election campaign

Zooming forwards, past Attlee’s service in the First World War, and past the early days of the Labour party and Attlee’s seat in Parliament for Limehouse, East London and we arrive in 1929 where Labour’s Ramsey MacDonald finds himself as Britain’s Prime Minister for the second time.

Needless to say, at the height of America’s Great Depression, it was a difficult time to be in government.

The political grammar of the UK's left had shifted from Liberal to Labour but Attlee, although there from the beginning, was not exactly at the spear-tip of the Labour leadership.

Thanks to the momentum of the Congress leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel, Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru and Gandhi, the India question was back on the agenda and the Indian Statutory Commission (or Simon Commission) was put together to further investigate the feasibility of Indian self rule.

Attlee was sent to India, according to Bew, not because of any obvious brilliance, or talent on foreign issues. But rather, Attlee the man who would do so much for the Indian cause was sent to India because he was dispensable. No one in the Labour party at the time would even notice he’d gone!

Attlee was sent to India, according to Bew, not because of any obvious brilliance, or talent on foreign issues. But rather, Attlee the man who would do so much for the Indian cause was sent to India because he was dispensable.

However, if history is indeed merely a cluster of coincidences, what was at first considered something of a political exile for Attlee, according to Bew, became the second pillar of his interest in India and its journey towards winning Independence.

As Bew suggests: ‘It was really just a case of, 'off you go Clem, frankly we can do without you’. Ramsey MacDonald knew that he would decide India policy when it came to the crunch, but right now we just need a Labour voice on a Conservative dominated commission.

There was another problem in the typically British idea of sending British politicians to India to talk about India but only amongst themselves - no Indian people were permitted to contribute by being on the commission that would test the idea of Indian self rule.

The Simon Commission might well have been seen as a slur for any other aspiring politician, but as Bew describes,‘What was really a political exile, ended up becoming the second pillar of Attlee’s interest in India’.

The first pillar, says Bew, was Attlee’s fascination and love for India from childhood, conveyed in his fondness for Rudyard Kipling's poems and stories.

While the second pillar in upholding his Indian foreign policy, is was his experience in on the Simon Commission:

‘He travelled around, got to see much of India in these two trips. And he also got the sense of how complex and difficult an issue this is.

‘At this point he's quite conservative on the imperial issue, and he's criticised by those on the left of the Labour party for not going far enough.

‘But he is basically the first to understand how complex the India issue is and that there is no quick fix, or easy solution here.’

Attlee, Labour, War and India after MacDonald’s betrayal

With the decimation of the Labour party after what was dubbed, ‘Ramsey MacDonald's betrayal’, by 1935 Attlee, Bew says, had become more important within the Labour party, really just by default.

Still quite a limited politician on foreign policy, India is one of the issues on which Attlee can speak with absolute authority.

‘By this point’, according to Bew, 'he becomes the Labour party's "India guy".'

Betrayal: Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald pictured leaving Number 10 Downing Street

As such, another important character on the British side of the India story was Labour MP for Bristol South East, Stafford Cripps.

Although they would often deem his efforts to be overly conservative, Cripps knew the Indian Nationalist leaders well, and would host them regularly. Attlee, would also attend and this would further strengthen his authority on the issue.

Stafford Cripps

Before the Second World War, ‘India is one of the issues on which Attlee can stand and speak with absolute authority and genuine expertise, and others would listen to as a leading voice’.

But how then did Attlee manage to throw the Indian Nationalist Leaders - Gandhi, Nehru et al - in prison if he understood their struggle and wanted, perhaps more than any other British leader, to help India win their Independence and fulfil the final promise of Empire?

‘Once the Second World War started, two things are happening in relation to India’, Bew says.

‘One is Attlee is pushing the case for Indian Independence internally and quite assertively. It's the one issue over which he falls out with Churchill. They have thunderous arguments.

Stafford Cripps, on a special mission to India, conversing with Mr Gandhi on the steps of Birla House, Delhi

‘Simultaneously, the most important thing at this point for Attlee is beating Hitler and winning the war.

‘And when the Indian Nationalist leaders begin to act in a way that threatens the war effort, Attlee, although continuing to push for independence with one hand, doesn't hesitate to give the order for their imprisonment.

‘He has absolutely no doubt that it's the right thing to do at that critical moment.

‘Attlee still has this capacity to act in an essentially imperialist way. There's no ambiguity at all that imprisoning Gandhi is the right thing to do’.

Interestingly, Gandhi himself was believed to have said that India's self-rule should not rise from the ashes of a destroyed Britain, and as Bew confirms, ‘India played a huge part in the defence of Britain’.

‘India's contribution to Allied efforts during the Second World War was hugely significant, and has never really been fully acknowledged.'

Lord and lady Mountbatten with Indian children on the eve of Indian Independence

Muhammed Ali Jinnah, president of the Muslim League,in the study of his home in New Delhi

Victory against Churchill on India

The ‘Cripps mission’ was something of a success and also a failure for Attlee.

The very fact that, with no one having much of an idea as to what Indian Independence might actually look like, sending over his colleague Stanley Cripps to begin negotiations was a sign that both Conservative and Labour MPs were warming to Attlee’s ideas on India, and perhaps even more importantly - largely ignoring Prime Minister Churchill on the issue.

The Indian demands were, in short, full independence in exchange for support during the war.

The ‘Cripps mission’ was something of a success and also a failure for Attlee

The idea of imposing an 'Anglo-Saxon face on a Mogul system of government’ was problematic to say the least. As such, the dialogue was muddled and the Cripps mission failed miserably.

Seen as too radical for Churchill, and too conservative for Gandhi, it led to the arrest of the Indian leaders, with the exception of Jinnah (leader of All-India Muslim League and founder of Pakistan) who rejected the quit India movement and encouraged Indian Muslims to fight for Britain against Hitler and Japan.

Although one might think that having the leaders of an independence movement locked up in prison might be something of a set back, actually back in Britain an important change of opinion was underway.

As Bew says: ‘Although we can never really underestimate the sophistication of (Prime Minister) Churchill's thinking, the feeling at the time was that he wasn’t particularly fleet-of-foot on the India issue.

‘Attlee however, when it comes to India is given a lot of credit by those on the Conservative benches.

‘When Churchill spoke on India, he never really had his party with him. He alienates his party in the 1930s over India by being too extreme.

‘This allows Attlee to take enough of the Conservative party with him to make Churchill look out of date and even rather cantankerous on the issue.’

Sir Stafford Cripps and Pandit Nehru: The Cripps mission failed because the dialogue was muddled and no one knew how much influence Cripps actually had.

Queen Victoria’s ghost and her great-grandson’s appointment

Churchill and Attlee had completely contrasting views on India. Unlike Churchill, who saw India as the centrepiece in the British Imperial project, Attlee saw Independence as an achievement and merely the next chapter in the journey from Empire to Commonwealth.

Attlee genuinely believed in the Commonwealth. And when Labour won the 1945 election with a 12.0% national swing (still the largest ever) from the Conservative Party to the Labour Party, Attlee had a clear mandate to create a tax-funded universal National Health Service, to embrace Keynesian economic policies, and to create a cradle-to-grave welfare state.

National opinion had followed Attlee and it was said that after the war that the British people preferred aspirin to Empire.

As Bew says: ‘Although we can never really underestimate the sophistication of (Prime Minister) Churchill's thinking, the feeling at the time was that he wasn’t particularly fleet-of-foot on the India issue'. (pictured - Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill with HM King George VI in the grounds of Buckingham Palace).

According to Bew, ‘Attlee sees the transition to Commonwealth as crucial. Because, in his mind and going right back to his earliest days, what he's doing is completing the promise always implicit in the Empire.

‘There was always a vague promise held out of self-government: "This is trusteeship and you'll govern your own affairs eventually". This is never delivered upon of course.

‘And Attlee very much sees Indian Independence in the Commonwealth as the fulfilment of that original promise. He says, Queen Victoria would have been proud’.

In 1946, Attlee put in a call to Prince Louis of Battenberg, known to his friends as Lord Mountbatten.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr Radhakrishnan welcoming Viscount Louis Mountbatten and his wife to India at New Delhi Airport

Mountbatten was an aristocrat, a royal, but had also distinguished himself as a very capable soldier and military commander.

Mountbatten oversaw, with General Slim under him, the recapture of Burma from the Japanese. It was the stuff of Boy’s Own novels when British troops returned to the island Singapore and forced the surrender of General Itagaki Seishiroto.

Not to mention, Mountbatten's great-grandmother was Queen Victoria, and Bew believes that Attlee rather liked the connection between the first Empress of India, on one hand, and the man who would become the last Viceroy of India, on the other.

Attlee offers him the job and announces it to be a critical moment in India's timetable for independence. 'I feel sure that the first Empress of India would be glad to see a descendent complete the last part of a century's work’, he wrote.

Mountbatten: Attlee rather liked the connection between the first Empress of India, and the man who would become the last Viceroy of India.

Bew believes that Attlee saw the royal connection, ‘and it mattered to him. There's an odd sentimentality with Clem. He saw Mountbatten to be a certain moral authority on India.

‘He also had the ability to act swiftly - and take control. He was very impressed by this soldierly mentality: (he had) a vital combination of great urgency, and moral authority’.

‘Attlee asks Mountbatten to secure, “the closest and most friendly cooperation between India and the UK”, while writing the last chapter, by 'completing the work of Empire, and not just jettisoning England's imperial past’.

History doesn’t often credit the guy who hires the best guy for the job in hand, but in a country only just coming to terms with its age of Empire is coming to an end, the wrong appointment to the position of Viceroy could have greatly prolonged India’s journey toward independence and potentially cost thousands of lives even before a bloody partition.

And, according to Bew, 'Mountbatten, like King George VI, was deeply sympathetic to the Labour party and had a great respect for the working classes'.

Mountbatten praised Attlee, saying: ‘The man who made it possible was yourself. Without your guidance and unwavering support, nothing could have been accomplished here’.

First Independence Day of India celebration in Mumbai

Academics argue on the nature of Indian Independence: Was India begrudgingly relinquished by Britain after posting too many troops abroad, and being financially impoverished after two World Wars? Was it won by the brilliance, intelligence, patience and persistence of the Indian Nationalist leaders of the time?

One thing we know for sure is that India’s Independence wasn’t gifted by Attlee.

Bew’s biography shows how Attlee, after many years of deep thought and deed, became like a schoolboy hall monitor, ushering the final important people, safely to their rightful place in history.

History’s heavyweights during the final days of India’s Independence struggle were Attlee and Queen Victoria’s ghost, the ‘great’ Pandit Nehru, and Mountbatten the ‘moral authority’.