The Second Summons
Jinnah returned to Government House two days later.
He arrived in the same immaculate fashion—dark suit, precise tie, cane touching the floor with a rhythm that spoke of self-control rather than frailty. But his eyes, framed by the familiar lines of fatigue and iron will, were narrowed a shade more than usual. Twice in one week to the Governor's study was not an ordinary pattern.
Something shifted in the hills, Bilal murmured within. They do not call you back to congratulate you alone.
The servants withdrew as the Governor waved them out. Doors shut, muffling corridor noise, leaving only the tick of the mantle clock and the muted hiss of rain.
"Muhammad," Sir Geoffrey began, not yet inviting him to sit, "His Excellency the Viceroy has personally reviewed your proposal."
Jinnah's reply was dry.
"I trust," he said, "that he found the jasmine agreeable."
The Governor allowed himself the ghost of a smile.
"He found the jasmines agreeable," he said. "It was the implications that disturbed his sleep."
He moved behind his desk and drew open the central drawer. From it he took a stiff, cream-coloured document bearing a heavy Lion-and-Unicorn seal, the embossing catching the light like a quiet roar.
"The result," he said, "is cautious approval. We will support the expansion of your work at Sandalbar—industrially, administratively, medically. But the Crown wishes to formalize your role."
He slid the document across the desk.
"An honorary civil appointment," Sir Geoffrey said. "Special Administrator to the Crown for Rural Rehabilitation, Canal Colonies."
Jinnah did not reach for it.
The words on the paper were clear enough even at a distance. Honorary. Special. Administrator. The kind of phrase that came wrapped in velvet and steel both.
Title unlocked, Bilal murmured, tone half-amused, half-warning. Golden handcuffs, Sir. They want you branded as theirs.
"It binds you to us," the Governor explained. "On paper. Politically. Legally. With this, your Farabis cease to be a suspicious private force. They become recognized auxiliaries, falling under the umbrella of Crown authority."
"In other words," Jinnah said quietly, "every order I give them becomes, in some measure, endorsed by you."
"And protected by us," Sir Geoffrey added. "In equal measure."
Jinnah walked to the window and clasped his hands behind his back. The garden outside was a neat geometry of hedges and gravel paths, ending in a statue of Queen Victoria that looked perpetually disapproving of everything within sight.
If I take it, he thought, I become a servant.
If you do not take it, Bilal countered, you become a convenient target the moment someone decides you are too successful. Take the shield. Use it to enlarge the field. Then decide later who truly serves whom.
He turned back.
"Very well," Jinnah said. "I will accept this—on several conditions."
The Governor's hand paused near his pen.
"Conditions?" he repeated.
"Terms," Jinnah corrected, tone professional rather than defiant. "You are, in effect, asking me to design and operate a model of rural governance under your name. That is not a casual undertaking. It requires scope, tools, and clarity."
"Name them," Sir Geoffrey said warily.
Jinnah did not hurry. He approached them as he approached a brief—one point at a time, each tied to a concrete need.
"First," he said, "administrative scope. Ten villages were an emergency bandage. To build something stable, I require fifty. Not political control—I have no desire to collect land revenue or play tahsildar. But for sanitation, education, production and security, I must have a clearly defined cluster that answers to one coherent system."
"Fifty," the Governor repeated. "You realize that is the size of a small sub-district."
"Yes," Jinnah said. "That is precisely why anything less would be cosmetic."
He lifted a second finger.
"Second: seed stock. I want the latest American cotton varieties your agricultural departments are quietly testing elsewhere in the Empire. Mississippi strains, Egyptian hybrids—anything that yields better than our local Desi cotton. If we are to produce cloth worthy of your emblem and cheap enough to compete with Gandhi's slogans, we need superior fibre at the root."
Sir Geoffrey scribbled a note, partly to keep up, partly to buy thinking time.
"Third," Jinnah continued, "my lodge maternity cottages must be regularized as a hospital. Licensed, recognized. I want access to surgical instruments and drugs that your regulations currently reserve for government institutions. No estate can call itself civilized if its women die on charpoys while we argue about classification."
A faint line around the Governor's mouth eased despite himself. There was something in that demand that even Whitehall could not easily sneer at.
"Fourth," Jinnah said, "I want your best agricultural experts—not to lecture peasants, but to survey soil, optimize irrigation, and plan rotations. If Sandalbar succeeds, it must be because it stands on demonstrable science, not just personal will."
"Fifth," he said, and here his tone shifted slightly, acquiring a new layer of intent, "I require permission to establish a small radio station."
The Governor's pen actually stopped.
"A radio station," he repeated. "What would you broadcast, Mr. Jinnah?"
"Sanitation instructions," Jinnah replied smoothly. "Work rosters. Weather bulletins based on whatever data your meteorological office can spare. Reading lessons. Health advice. And, on occasion, music to keep men listening long enough to absorb an announcement."
And when the time comes, Bilal added inside his mind, ideas—though not yet the kind they fear.
"No politics?" Sir Geoffrey asked pointedly.
"No incitement," Jinnah said. "No slogans. I would be a fool to ask for this much rope and then short-circuit it with reckless words. Besides," he added, "I am more interested in convincing mothers to boil water and children to wash their hands than in shouting about Swaraj over the airwaves."
The Governor made a noncommittal noise, but his pen resumed movement.
"Sixth," Jinnah said, "I will need receivers. Sixty sets, to begin with. Tuned only to our frequency, distributed across the fifty villages—chaks, schools, guard posts. There is no point in a transmitter that speaks to empty fields."
"And seventh," he concluded, "I ask for surplus wireless equipment from your war depots. Field sets, signal gear, nothing experimental. The Great War produced enough stock to rust in warehouses for a century. Let some of it rust usefully in Sandalbar instead. With it, I can coordinate between far-flung posts, clinics, and strongholds without waiting on runners."
"And weapons?" the Governor asked, because someone in Simla would.
"Appropriate arms for estate guards," Jinnah said. "Rifles, limited ammunition. Enough to deter bandits and protect grain stores, not enough to march on Lahore. You know the terrain, Governor. The danger is not theoretical."
Sir Geoffrey sat back at last, the page before him crowded with notes. It looked less like the minutes of a polite conversation and more like the outline of a small, self-contained system.
"Ambitious," he said.
"Necessary," Jinnah replied. "You cannot ask me to build a model village cluster and then hand me a broom and a sermon. I will take responsibility—but I will also need tools."
7. The Bargain Sealed
For a long moment, only the clock dared make a sound.
The Governor's mind ran through layers of consequence. Fifty villages meant tens of thousands of people. Radio meant a voice that did not pass through a District Office first. Better cotton meant better profits—for Sandalbar and for any British investor clever enough to attach himself to the scheme.
It was risk. It was also, he could not deny, opportunity.
"Muhammad," Sir Geoffrey said at last, "you are asking for a small dominion in all but name."
Jinnah's reply was very quiet.
"I am asking for the space to demonstrate what can be done," he said, "when law, administration, and conscience pull in the same direction."
He held the Governor's gaze.
"I will not fly a flag against you," he added. "Not if you keep your word. The Crown's emblem will sit where you saw it—beside Sandalbar's, not beneath it, not above it. If history one day judges this experiment kindly, you will have your line: that under British rule, at least somewhere, order came before chaos."
Sir Geoffrey looked down at the embossed document bearing the Lion-and-Unicorn, then back at the man standing before him—precise, unsentimental, dangerous in a way that made the Empire stronger before it made it weaker.
"Very well," he said.
He picked up his pen and signed with a firm, practiced stroke.
"We will endorse your appointment," he said. "We will extend your remit to fifty villages. We will arrange seed, medical supplies, expert advisors. I will write personally to Simla for the wireless sets and receivers. You will, in return, keep politics out of your broadcasts, law at the centre of your actions, and my office informed of any… structural change to your ambitions."
He stood and held out his hand across the desk.
"Special Administrator to the Crown," he said. "For whatever that is worth to you."
Jinnah stepped forward and clasped the hand.
The shake was brief, neither man pretending friendship. It was a contract, nothing more, nothing less.
"Worth enough," Jinnah said quietly, "to keep my people fed and my work alive. That is all I require."
He released the hand, took up the signed document, and slipped it into his leather folder without ceremony.
As he walked out of the study, the polished corridors of Government House reflecting his measured steps, Bilal's voice returned—low, almost amused.
Fifty villages, it said. A title. Radios. Cotton. Guns. That's not an estate anymore, Sir. That's the skeleton of a district.
It is a beginning, Jinnah thought back, buttoning his coat. And beginnings, properly managed, have a way of rewriting endings.