The Governor set the shawl down on the desk, carefully, as one might set down an object that could as easily explode as decorate a room.
He circled around the desk and took his chair, but his posture did not soften.
"My intelligence officers," he began, "tell me you have turned ten villages into a camp under your rules. They say your Farabis patrol like constables, that your doctors run clinics cleaner than most district hospitals, that your school beneath a tree runs more regularly than many government schools under roofs. They say the people speak of Sandalbar as a refuge, safer than their own homes."
He steepled his fingers.
"They say, in short, that you have built a functioning mini-government without any formal authority from mine."
He held Jinnah's gaze.
"Why," he asked, "should I not interpret this as the beginnings of a parallel state?"
"That depends," Jinnah replied, "on whether you wish to see me as your rival or as your contractor."
The Proposal, Laid Bare
"You have concerns," Jinnah continued, his tone level. "I would, in your place, have them too. You see a barrister with a private militia, a wireless station, medical staff, textile production, and ten villages who obey his orders. You picture 1857 with better bookkeeping."
Sir Geoffrey did not smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched once.
"So," Jinnah went on, "let me be explicit: I do not aspire to be a prince. I have no interest in ruling a state—large or small. I am an administrator by temperament, a lawyer by training, and now, against my expectations, an estate-manager by necessity."
He gestured briefly toward the shawl.
"What I am building is not a throne," he said. "It is a factory. A network of dignity. Men who earn are less inclined to burn. Villages that can sell cloth are less inclined to loot grain."
He paused.
"I offer you this," he said.
"Allow Sandalbar to operate as an industrial and administrative experiment under your overall authority. You send supplies—grain, medical stores—with the Crown's seal. Your ICS officers stand on the carts, distribute the sacks, give the speeches. The appearance of relief belongs to you."
He spread his hands slightly.
"My Farabis do the dull work that never makes it into reports—keeping queues straight, recording names, settling small disputes, making sure no one double-collects. I get healthy, fed villagers who can work."
You trade them prestige for logistics, Bilal said, approval warm. You keep the spine; you give them the skin.
"You propose," Sir Geoffrey said slowly, "that I let you continue your… experiment, while we act as its public face."
"Yes," Jinnah answered. "In exchange, I ask only that you do not smother Sandalbar under a mat of petty regulations. Send observers if you like; send liaison officers. But let us use the one advantage we possess: speed. The Empire is a great machine, Governor—but even great machines must occasionally hire a small workshop to fix a broken part."
He inclined his head slightly.
"Let us be your workshop."
The Question of Trust
Sir Geoffrey took off his spectacles and began to clean them with a piece of velvet cloth—a small, habitual motion that gave him a few extra seconds to think.
"Why," he asked at last, "should the Crown trust you?"
Jinnah did not answer immediately. The room had gone very quiet; even the rain against the windows had faded to a distant hiss.
"Because everything I do," he said finally, "is visible."
He spoke the word as if it were a legal principle.
"You have my ledgers," he said. "You have my letters. Harrington has walked my fields. Your own men have inspected my camp and failed to find a single hidden cache of arms or a single seditious pamphlet. You know how many sacks of wheat I bought, and at what loss. You know how many patients passed through my clinic. I hide nothing because I intend to be judged."
He held the Governor's gaze steadily.
"If you charge me under your laws, I will argue my case under those same laws," he said. "And I have yet to lose an argument I believed in."
There was no boast in his tone, only a statement of record.
"Trust me," he added, "not because I am sentimental about your flag, but because I am predictable under your statute book."
Sir Geoffrey studied him for a long, unbroken moment.
"You are," he said at last, "the only Indian I have met who speaks of the Empire's legal system as if it were a personal shield."
"Better that," Jinnah replied quietly, "than a personal enemy. Law is at least obliged to pretend to fairness."
What He Wants in Return
"And what, precisely, do you want?" the Governor insisted. "Not in poetry. In inventory."
Jinnah answered without hesitation.
"Medical supplies enough to handle another cholera flare, if it comes," he said. "Rations to keep the ten villages stable for the next planting season. Formal recognition that my lodge clinic will be treated as a licensed hospital once the necessary adjustments are made. Agricultural guidance—your best experts to help improve cotton yields. Access to better seed stock, ideally the newer American varieties being tested in other colonies."
He paused only to take a breath.
"A small wireless relay set, if any of your depots still hold surplus from the War," he added. "Nothing experimental. Field-tested equipment. The Farabis can operate it. It will shorten response times dramatically if there is another canal breach or a bandit attack along the railway."
"You forgot one thing," Bilal said gently in his mind.
"And," Jinnah concluded, "leave me the right to recruit and train my own men—understanding that you will vet them as you see fit. I will take those who might otherwise end up as someone else's thugs and make them into eyes and ears for order."
He allowed himself the smallest edge of pragmatism in his tone.
"They are displaced families, Governor. Desperate men do desperate things. Under my system, they will do useful things. The choice is not between my control and your control. It is between my discipline and no discipline at all."
The Governor's Dilemma
Silence settled again, heavier this time.
Sir Geoffrey rose and walked to the French window, shawl in hand. He stood looking out at the drizzle, the soft jasmine scent in the air a strange counterpoint to the smell of damp earth and old furniture.
From here, the lawns looked perfect. The pebbled paths curved just so. The flag above the portico hung in the mist, colours muted but clear.
"This puts me in a difficult position, Muhammad," he said at last, without turning around.
Jinnah remained by the table, hands lightly resting on the back of a chair he had not taken.
"Why is that, Your Excellency?" he asked.
"Because," Sir Geoffrey replied, turning back, "you may be the only man in this province who has managed to align our interests with those of the peasants without shouting a slogan or throwing a bomb. The Empire is not accustomed to being… cooperated with. It is accustomed to being obeyed or opposed."
He returned to the desk and laid the shawl out flat, smoothing its edge with his palm. His thumb rested for a moment on the tiny embroidered Crown.
"If I shut Sandalbar down," he said, "I destroy the single best-managed relief operation I have on record and prove to every officer in Punjab that initiative is a punishable offence."
He lifted his eyes.
"If I leave you alone, I will someday have to explain to the Viceroy why there is a barrister running a semi-autonomous enclave with his own militia, his own industrial base, and a population that speaks of him before they speak of us."
He picked up his pen.
"So," he said, "I shall do what we British do when we are confused: I will write a very careful letter."
Terms Agreed
He began to draft, speaking as he wrote.
"To: Commissioner Harrington, Montgomery. From: Governor, Lahore. Your reports concerning Sandalbar Estate and Mr. M. A. Jinnah's management of flood relief duly received and noted with appreciation…"
He glanced up once.
"You shall have your supplies," he said. "Grain, medicine, seed. My officers will distribute them, with as much fanfare as they can muster. Your Farabis will keep order in the background. Officially, this will be Crown relief. Unofficially…"
He let the sentence trail off.
"Unofficially," Jinnah supplied, "it will be Sandalbar efficiency."
Sir Geoffrey's mouth flickered in something like reluctant amusement.
"Yes," he said. "But do not grow too comfortable with that phrase."
He finished the note and set the pen aside.
"As for this," he added, touching the edge of the shawl, "I will need it."
Jinnah tilted his head slightly. "To wear?"
"To send," the Governor replied. "When I inform the Viceroy that I am permitting a very clever Indian to run what might appear to be a private fiefdom in the canal colonies, I will require evidence that he is a man of industry, not conspiracy. A scented, well-made, Crown-branded shawl will do very nicely as an exhibit."
Jinnah considered that for a moment, then inclined his head.
"As you wish, Your Excellency."
He closed the wooden case, now empty, and latched it with a soft click.
The sound was small, but in that room, at that moment, it carried a different weight.
A compact had been made.
As Jinnah left the study, the scent of jasmine lingered, hovering over the map of Punjab and the piles of files like a quiet, persistent reminder that somewhere, out beyond the manicured lawns and the red lines of railways, there was a patch of battered earth where an experiment was underway—one that, for the first time, had both the Sandalbar seal and the Crown's tacit consent stitched into its hem.