The legend begins with a daring rescue flight. The archives tell a different story. Between myth and history lies an extraordinary tale of secret diplomacy, wartime intrigue, and one of the least-known chapters in Biju Patnaik’s remarkable life.

On 2 September 1947, barely two weeks after India’s independence, Bijayanda (Biju) Patnaik strode into the office of Stafford Cripps, President of the British Board of Trade in London (and Nehru’s old Fabian friend).

The 31-year-old had a proposal, which the British mandarins later struggled to hack into a defined category. It was described as “wild and rather sinister,” “completely unrealistic,” and “economic bribe and blackmail”.

Patnaik had come, he claimed, as an unofficial representative of Nehru’s government to discuss the matter of Indonesia’s independence. Sukarno-led Indonesia had declared its independence two years previously in August 1945. But the Dutch—evicted by the Japanese during the Second World War—had returned with British support to brazenly reclaim their former colony. After prolonged fighting, in late 1946, the Republic of Indonesia and the Dutch government reached a peace agreement at Linggadjati in West Java, only for the Dutch to repudiate it within a few months. The Indian National Congress and Nehru had come out firmly in support of Indonesia’s struggle for independence. In fact, one of the first decisions of Nehru’s executive had been to recall Indian soldiers fighting on behalf of the British in Indonesia.