The Governor's office in Lahore felt colder than the rain outside.
The ceiling fan turned lazily, stirring paper and tobacco smoke but not the knot in Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency's stomach. On his desk lay a single file marked in red pencil: SANDALBAR ESTATE – CONFIDENTIAL. Beside it, folded with incongruous tenderness, rested a jasmine-scented shawl.
The telegraph officer stood at attention near the side table, hands hovering over the brass keys.
"Once more," the Governor said, eyes on the draft sheet. "No embellishment."
The officer nodded.
Sir Geoffrey dictated slowly, each word weighed:
"VICEROY SIMLA. URGENT. REQUIRE PRIVATE CONSULTATION RE JINNAH'S ESTATE EXPERIMENT AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PROVINCIAL POLICY. MATTER CANNOT BE DECIDED LOCALLY. – GOVERNOR PUNJAB."
The telegraphist's fingers rattled the message into code. The sharp, metallic clicks sliced through the quiet like insect chatter.
Then the sound died, leaving only the faint patter of monsoon drizzle against the tall windows.
The Governor exhaled.
In a few minutes, that pattern of dots and dashes would be rushing northward, up the line through Ambala and Kalka, climbing into the hills toward Simla where the air was thin and the Empire pretended to breathe more easily.
Now we see, he thought, whether London's man would rather strangle a good idea than risk losing control of it.
1. The Hill Station Summit
By the next week, the Governor was no longer in Lahore's flat humidity but in Simla's mountain chill.
The Viceroy's study overlooked a sea of cedar and mist. Clouds drifted low, brushing the hilltops; distant ridges faded in layers of blue-grey, like watercolor strokes forgotten at the edges of the world. A fire cracked softly in the grate, fighting back the thin cold that seeped through stone.
Lord Irwin sat in a high-backed leather chair, long legs stretched slightly toward the hearth. He had the pale, drawn look of a man who was always half-tired, not from lack of sleep, but from the weight of too many decisions that felt provisional in a world that refused to stay still.
"You have traveled a long way, Geoffrey," he said, his voice mild but not warm. "The wire said 'cannot be decided locally.' That's not a phrase you use lightly. Is Montgomery truly that troublesome?"
"It is not Montgomery that troubles me, Excellency," Sir Geoffrey replied. "It is one man in the middle of it."
He placed his leather satchel on the low table and withdrew the velvet-wrapped bundle. As he unfolded it, the faint scent of jasmine drifted into the room, mixing oddly with cedar smoke.
Inside lay the shawl.
The Viceroy leaned forward, curiosity cutting through fatigue.
He ran his fingers along the cloth, testing the weave. It was fine, dense, machine-like in its regularity. The embroidery along the borders—small roses, looping vines—was tasteful, almost understated. At the very edge, silk threads caught the firelight in a narrow band of quiet luxury.
"This," Lord Irwin said, almost to himself, "is not bazaar trash."
"No," the Governor agreed. "It is not."
The Viceroy's thumb paused at the corner where two emblems sat side by side in miniature. One: the stylized tree and star of Sandalbar. The other: a carefully executed Imperial Crown.
His eye sharpened.
"Whose notion was this?" he asked softly. "To place us as… co-signatory?"
"Jinnah's," Sir Geoffrey replied. "He calls it a Sandalbar product with the Crown's blessing."
The Viceroy's head came up.
"Jinnah," he repeated. "Muhammad Ali Jinnah? The barrister from Bombay?"
"The same," the Governor nodded. "Savile Row suits, impeccable manners, Privy Council practice. That Jinnah. He has been—how shall I put it—experimenting with administration."
Lord Irwin sat back, spreading the shawl over his knees.
"Explain," he said.
So Sir Geoffrey did.
2. The Governor's Report
He began with the flood—how the monsoon had broken the canals and drowned half of Montgomery, how the district machinery had sunk in its own paperwork while villagers fled with nothing but wet clothes and superstition.
He described, in clipped, precise sentences, how Sandalbar Estate had done the opposite.
"While my officers argued about which tahsil boundary owned which breach," he said, "Jinnah had already cleared his high ground, marked out living quarters, and turned his headquarters into a camp that would put some of our cantonments to shame."
He spoke of communal taps and ash bowls for hand-washing. Of children being scolded away from puddles. Of isolation huts for suspected cholera cases. Of Nurse Mary and Dr Evelyn shouting at peasants and Farabis alike with equal ferocity.
"Disease," he said quietly, "barely got a foothold. We've had more cholera and dysentery in towns with municipal boards than at Sandalbar."
He moved on to crime.
"Reported theft, dacoity, grain pilfering—down significantly in the ten villages now effectively under his supervision," Sir Geoffrey said. "The Zaildari cartel that used to set our local officers against one another has, for the moment, gone quiet. They fear him more than they fear us."
He opened the file and laid out the numbers: recorded incidents, arrests, grain stock tallies, attendance sheets from open-air classrooms.
The Viceroy listened in near-stillness, only his index finger moving occasionally along a margin or figure.
"And then," the Governor continued, "there is what he has done with work."
He pointed to the shawl.
"Within six months," he said, "he has taken a flooded estate and turned it into a small industrial hive. Honey, ghee, eggs, cloth. All with that same quiet mark: Sandalbar—and us."
Lord Irwin lifted the edge of the shawl again, as if confirming that the Crown emblem had not moved.
"He proposes more?" the Viceroy asked.
"Oh yes," Sir Geoffrey replied. "He wants to expand. Fifty villages under his 'rural rehabilitation' framework. Textile production using British machines, trained weavers, disciplined labour. He claims he can undercut homespun without challenging Manchester—as he puts it, by moving the factory to the field."
The Viceroy's eyes narrowed, thoughtful.
"Local industry," he said, almost to himself, "usually threatens imports. Gandhi spins charkha and demands boycott. Mills in Lancashire grumble. But Jinnah…"
He tapped the shawl.
"Jinnah," he murmured, "wants to use British looms on Indian soil to strangle Gandhi's narrative instead."
3. Two Visions of India
He rose and walked to the tall window. Outside, the mist shifted, revealing a sliver of valley far below—a green depth that belonged as much to myth as to geography.
"On one side," Lord Irwin said softly, more to the glass than to the Governor, "we have the Mahatma. A man in homespun, preaching renunciation. He offers the village of the past—spinning wheels, symbolic poverty, moral theatre. On the other, we have Jinnah—angular, modern, clinical. He offers the village of the future—latrines, clinics, looms, ledgers."
He let the contrast hang in the cold air.
"One relies on soul-force," he said, a faint note of irony in the term. "The other on hygiene and accounting."
Sir Geoffrey said nothing. It was not his place to rescue either man's reputation.
"The first is easy for Whitehall to romanticize and condemn," the Viceroy continued. "The second is harder. If we oppose Jinnah, we look like enemies of progress. If we support him, we may one day find that peasants trust Sandalbar more than they trust the Sarkar."
He turned back, studying the Governor's lined face.
"What do you propose?" Lord Irwin asked. "You know Punjab. You know your man. Shall we crush this in the name of uniform policy, or feed it and hope it grows the way we want?"
Sir Geoffrey took a breath.
"A middle path," he said. "Cautious affirmation. We support him, bind him, and keep him under glass. Give him what he asks for—within limits. Let him build his model estate with our emblem stitched to every corner. If we do not validate him, Congress eventually will. Or he will drift to them of his own accord when we frustrate him. Better to keep his loyalty by making us indispensable to his experiment."
Lord Irwin's expression did not change, but something eased around his mouth.
"Co-opt what you cannot comfortably crush," he said. "Yes. It has ever been our way."
He walked back to the fire and stood with his back to it, arms loosely folded, the shawl over one forearm like a question.
"Very well," the Viceroy said. "You may proceed. Give him rope—good rope, Crown-spun. But keep the other end firmly in your hands. Supplies, experts, perhaps even a decorative title. And surveillance."
He looked up.
"I want every expansion step reported. If Jinnah ever begins to speak not of drains and looms, but of flags and frontiers, you will cut that rope quickly."
Sir Geoffrey bowed his head slightly.
"Understood, Excellency."
The Viceroy placed the folded shawl gently on his desk, like a rare specimen.
"Let us see," he said, "if this particular Indian can be made into proof that we were right to meddle here."