The monsoon rain had lost its fury, but not its persistence.
Outside Government House, Lahore lay under a soft, steady drizzle; tram bells rang dully along The Mall, tongas splashed through puddles, and the dense canopy of trees dripped in slow, rhythmic taps. Inside the great building, however, the weather might have been a rumour.
The long council chamber on the first floor was lit as if for a ritual. A chandelier hung over the polished mahogany table, its crystal droplets catching the lamplight, casting small points of brightness over ink pots, file covers, and the neat brass nameplates of the men who would sit there. The air carried a faint mixture of polish, damp wool, and cigar smoke—an odour that belonged more to club rooms in Pall Mall than to a city beside the Ravi.
The Governor of Punjab did not often summon his full Executive Council at short notice. When he did, people noticed.
Tonight, they came.
The Finance Secretary arrived first, a solid, careful man with a receding hairline and the air of someone who weighed both words and numbers before spending either. He took his place, adjusted his pens, and glanced at the empty chair at the head of the table.
The Law Member came next, thin and fastidious, moustache trimmed with legal precision. Behind him, the Home Secretary—shorter, with sharp, intelligent eyes that seemed to notice everything and trust very little. Two ICS commissioners from major districts followed—men whose sun-darkened faces and stiff backs still carried the shape of the plains and canals they administered.
The Intelligence Chief came quietly, almost blandly, as if he had wandered into the wrong room by mistake. No one believed that for a moment.
Last of all, a little flushed from travel, came Edward Harrington, Deputy Commissioner of Montgomery. His boots were still dust-marked from district roads; his suit had the look of something worn too long in the field and not long enough in a tailor's shop. He carried a leather bag under his arm as if it contained something heavier than paper.
When everyone had taken their seats, the aide at the door straightened.
"His Excellency, the Governor."
They rose.
Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency entered without ceremony, but the air shifted around him all the same. He wore a dark suit rather than full dress; the only decoration was the small, exact line of his tie and the signet ring on his right hand. His expression was composed, but there was a certain tightness around his mouth that those who knew him recognized as the sign of a matter he did not yet entirely like—or understand.
He took his place at the head of the table.
"Gentlemen," he said, without preamble, "Sandalbar has become… an anomaly."
He signalled to his orderly.
"Bring it."
The Exhibit
The orderly stepped forward carrying a flat, velvet-wrapped bundle with both hands, as if it were fragile or important—or both. He laid it ceremonially in the centre of the table and stepped back.
For a moment, no one spoke. Rain pattered softly against the high windows. Somewhere in the building a clock chimed the quarter hour.
Then the Governor folded back the velvet cloth.
What lay beneath was not a file, or a report, or a map. It was a shawl.
The councillors leaned in despite themselves.
It was khaddar, yes, but not the rough, defiant homespun they were accustomed to seeing in Congress processions and boycott meetings. The fabric was fine, tightly woven, with a smooth hand. Its body was a gentle ivory, neither dull nor ostentatious. Along its borders ran embroidery—rows of small roses and vines, rendered with an almost European delicacy of stitch. At the very edge, a whisper of silk threads caught the chandelier's glow.
A faint scent rose as the shawl unfolded—sweet but not cloying.
"Jasmine," murmured the Finance Secretary, surprised.
The Home Secretary reached forward, then stopped his hand a fraction short of the cloth, as if touching it might accept some unspoken argument.
"This," he said, incredulous, "is not village work. Impossible. The finesse alone—"
"It is village work," the Governor said quietly.
He did not raise his voice, but the quiet certainty cut through the murmurs.
"And that," he added, "is why we are meeting."
They bent closer now, not simply as men appraising a textile, but as officials inspecting evidence.
The Law Member turned one corner of the shawl over between finger and thumb—and froze.
On the reverse, stitched neatly into the silk border in miniature were two emblems.
On one end: the Sandalbar seal, stylized tree and star.
On the other: the Imperial Crown.
Side by side. Equal in size.
A ripple passed around the table—a mix of sharp intakes of breath, low mutters, and one barely contained snort of disbelief.
"The Crown," the Home Secretary said slowly, "placed as if it were a merchant's mark. Beside a private estate emblem."
"Presumptuous," the Intelligence Chief observed. "Or very confident."
"Or very deliberate," the Governor said.
He lifted his hand.
"Let us hear from Harrington."
Harrington's Testimony
Edward Harrington rose, cleared his throat, and removed his spectacles to polish them—a small, unconscious stalling tactic that every man in the room recognized and pretended not to see.
"Your Excellency, gentlemen," he began, "what you see before you is one product of Sandalbar Estate."
He set his leather bag on the table, opened it, and, with a certain quiet theatricality, brought out three more items.
First, a glass jar filled with golden honey, sealed with a square of cloth tied in place by string. The cloth bore the same pattern of small embroidered roses as the shawl.
Second, a small basket packed with clean straw, in which twelve eggs lay in a careful row. Each egg had a tiny, neat mark in ink near its broader end: a minuscule tree-and-star.
Third, a squat metal tin, well-scrubbed, wrapped around the lid with yet another band of embroidered cloth. A faint, rich smell of clarified butter drifted into the air.
"These," Harrington said, touching each in turn, "are also Sandalbar products. Honey, eggs, ghee—collected, processed, and packed on the estate."
He straightened slightly.
"In the last six months," he said, "that patch of land in Montgomery—once notable only for its bickering Zaildars and canal disputes—has been turned into a small economic engine."
The Finance Secretary leaned in, professional instincts roused.
"By whom?" he asked. "The Farabis? Some cooperative?"
"By Muhammad Ali Jinnah," Harrington said. "Through the Farabis, with the villagers. I have watched every stage myself."
Evidence of Transformation
The Home Secretary, who had been turning the corner of the shawl between his fingers with growing irritation, set it down.
"Spare us the romance, Harrington," he said. "What does your data say? Crime, revenue, order."
Harrington did not take offence. He had expected this.
"In the villages now under Sandalbar's effective supervision," he said, "reported crime has dropped by nearly sixty percent. Petty theft, grain pilfering, highway robbery—down. The old Zaildari network that used to play your officers against one another has, for the moment, been pacified. Market disputes have decreased. The weekly bazaars run on time. Supply chains to Montgomery are stable, even after the flood."
He let the numbers sink in for a moment.
"The Farabis," he went on, "maintain discipline. They patrol, they intervene, and notably, they do so without the usual vices—no widespread extortion, no unofficial 'fees' for protection. My liaison officer has been with Jinnah since day one, ostensibly as an agricultural assistant."
The Intelligence Chief's eyes glinted.
"And unofficially?" he asked.
"As your man," Harrington said bluntly. "We sent mukhbirs as well. Some posed as patients; some as traders; a few as would-be troublemakers trying to bribe guards or provoke them into excess."
The room leaned forward.
"And?" the Law Member asked.
"Nothing," Harrington answered. "No bribes taken. No extractions. No beating of prisoners for fun. No political meetings at night. Jinnah's policies leave no loose ends—just as his legal arguments did before the Privy Council. Everything is documented, disciplined, dull in the best possible way."
The Intelligence Chief exhaled through his nose, half-resentful, half-impressed.
"So," he said, "he is attempting to build a rival administrative structure?"
"Absolutely not," Harrington replied instantly. "He is building efficient administration within your structure. Under your law. He insists on it."