The cholera did not care who governed Punjab.
It did not care that the province had a Unionist ministry – a carefully balanced alliance of Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh landlords who prided themselves on being "practical men," above communal shouting. It did not care about their speeches on peasant welfare, canal expansion, or cooperative credit.
It cared only about water, filth, and human habit.
Those, as it turned out, were stronger than any ministry.
The Unionist Meeting
The conference room in the Secretariat at Lahore was crowded and hot, despite the fans creaking overhead.
At the head of the table sat the Premier – a broad-shouldered landlord with sharp eyes and a reputation for brokering impossible compromises between communities. Around him clustered his ministers and senior officers: the Health Member, the Revenue Secretary, the Director of Public Instruction, and a handful of legislators invited to listen and report back to their constituencies.
Maps of Punjab and Lahore lay spread out under their elbows. Red pencil marks bled across them.
"The reports are worse every day," the Health Member said, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. "We are over capacity in every major hospital. The municipal boards have spent what they can on lime and carbolic. The press is already asking why Lahore, of all places, cannot keep its drains clean."
A Sikh legislator from Amritsar, turban neatly tied, jabbed a finger at the map.
"And Shahdara?" he demanded. "We have a tomb of an emperor there, and people dying in the lanes outside. You cannot keep saying 'we are trying' forever."
The Premier lifted a hand.
"We are trying," he said evenly. "The municipal councils are run by elected men – many of you sit on them. Wells have been closed. Notices posted. Prayers offered. Vaccination and cholera camps set up."
"And yet," muttered a Muslim member from Sheikhupura, "people still defecate where they please and drink from the same puddles."
The Health Member grimaced.
"We are fighting centuries of habit with posters and overworked sanitary inspectors," he said. "And too few of those. The budget—"
The Premier cut him off.
"Leave the budget," he said. "The Governor has made his views clear. We must be seen to act, not to calculate."
He nodded toward a corner of the table where, among the Government of India files, one slender folder lay with a different sort of neatness.
"Sandalbar," the Premier said. "The Governor could not stop speaking of it in our last audience. Ten villages, barely any cholera deaths. Women going house to house. Latrines used. Water boiled. Rules obeyed."
A murmur went around the table – half admiration, half resentment.
"He has the advantage of being a barrister, not a politician," one member said. "He does not answer to voters."
"He also has a private militia," another pointed out. "He can threaten to cut off work. We cannot tell people in Lahore, 'Obey or lose your job.' They will riot. And the Congress will dance on our heads."
"Still," the Premier said, tapping the folder, "we cannot ignore a working model simply because it was not ours. The Governor was blunt – he wants us to take 'all feasible inspiration' from Sandalbar."
The phrase made several faces tighten. Being told to imitate an individual landlord – even one like Jinnah – did not sit comfortably with men who were used to seeing themselves as the natural guardians of the countryside.
"What exactly do they do there?" a Sikh zamindar asked. "In detail."
The Health Member opened the folder and read from a summary Harrington had sent.
"Female health workers, recruited from local girls. Daily household inspections. Ash and soap distribution. Strict hand-washing rules. Isolation mats outside houses. Farabi guards backing them, with wireless sets to alert the central clinic. And this…" He cleared his throat. "Any household that hides a suspected cholera case is removed from the estate's khaddar work lists. No more cloth orders. No wages."
A small silence followed.
"That is not sanitation," one landlord said faintly. "That is blackmail."
"It is enforcement," another muttered.
The Premier drummed his fingers on the table.
"Can we replicate this?" he asked. "In principle."
The Health Member hesitated.
"In principle, yes," he said. "In practice…"
"In practice?"
"We have no standing militia," he said. "Our sanitary staff cannot threaten anyone's livelihood. If they do, the councillors will intervene. The councillors are elected by the same men defecating in the fields. And we cannot send young women into every house in the city – many families will not allow a stranger to enter, let alone inspect their latrines."
"Then adapt it," the Premier said impatiently. "We are not children. Take what works. Adjust what doesn't. But do something more than posting notices."
He turned to the table as a whole.
"We will launch a 'Sandalbar Scheme' in Lahore and Montgomery," he declared. "House-to-house health visits, community latrine projects, stricter well supervision. Use Evelyn's training notes. Bring in the civil surgeons. We cannot let one private estate show we are incompetent in our own districts."
The words sounded brave in the room.
On the streets, they dissolved like lime in water.
The Scheme That Would Not Bite
The orders went out.
Lahore's municipal board announced the formation of "Neighbourhood Health Teams": each team a sanitary inspector, a volunteer nurse, and two male "health volunteers" from the mohalla.
They were tasked with:
Visiting houses daily.
Advising on boiling water and latrine use.
Reporting suspected cholera cases.
Persuading local elders to approve new public latrines and the closure of dangerous wells.
In Montgomery town and a few nearby villages, similar teams were ordered into existence. Posters appeared, bearing earnest slogans:
CLEAN WATER, CLEAN STREETS, STRONG PUNJAB
CHOLERA FEARS SOPE AND BOILING WATER
The paint barely dried before the reality began to nibble at the scheme.
In Lahore, the first health team assigned to a dense Muslim neighbourhood in the old city found half the doors closed when they knocked.
"Why are you here?" a bearded shopkeeper demanded suspiciously. "We have lived here for fifty years. We have never had some babu asking where we relieve ourselves."
"We are here to help," the sanitary inspector said, patience already strained by the day's heat. "Cholera spreads through dirty water. You must stop washing near the drain, stop defecating—"
"We wash where there is space," the man snapped. "If you want clean drains, fix the drains. Do not tell us our fathers were animals."
Behind him, a few men nodding, arms crossed.
The volunteer nurse tried a gentler tone.
"Brother," she said, "look at the hospital. Look at the children dying. We only ask that you pour some earth after you—"
He slammed the door.
In another lane, a Hindu family refused to let the team enter beyond the courtyard.
"Our women are parda-nashin," the elder said. "No strangers will inspect our washing places."
"But your well is close to the drain," the inspector protested. "We must test it."
"Test your own well," the elder replied, and walked away.
In Shahdara, the local committee agreed on a plan to build a set of public latrines near the ghat – close enough to be convenient, far enough from the wells.
The next day, a group of residents came to the tahsildar's office to object.
"You want our women to go to one place?" one man demanded. "All using the same latrine? What modesty is that?"
"And who will clean it?" another asked. "Us? We are not sweepers."
The tahsildar, already tired from mediating disputes over grain hoarding, nodded hastily.
"Of course, of course," he said. "We will reconsider the location."
The location was never agreed.
The latrines never got built.
Soft Hands, Soft Orders
In Montgomery, the Unionist ministry's "Sandalbar Scheme" fared no better.
Unlike Jinnah's Farabis, the district's health volunteers had no authority beyond their voices. They could knock on doors, plead, lecture, but not compel.
The first time a volunteer tried to scold a weaver for washing his sick child's bedding in the canal, the man's brother shoved him.
"Do you feed my child?" he snarled. "No? Then do not tell me how to wash his clothes."
The volunteer retreated, dust on his kurta, humiliation curdling his good intentions.
He went back to the office and wrote in his daily report: "Visited fifteen houses. Gave advice. Many people unwilling. Need more police support."
The police, already stretched, had little interest in accompanying sanitary workers to argue about latrine use.
Meanwhile, the municipal councillors – many of them local notables who prided themselves on being close to "the people" – balked at supporting any measure that looked like compulsion.
"We cannot threaten them," one councillor said in a meeting. "Election is next year. If we become the men who stopped them from using the fields, they will vote us out."
"So let them die?" the Medical Officer burst out.
The councillor looked genuinely torn.
"We will appeal to their conscience," he said weakly. "We will ask the imams and pundits to speak. But no fines. No cutting rations. We are not savages."
Appeals were made from pulpits and platforms. Some listened. Many nodded, went home, and did exactly what they had always done.
Because nothing real had changed.
Sanitation remained advice. Death remained familiar. Habit remained king.
Numbers That Would Not Lie
The cholera toll in Lahore flattened, then rose, then lurched sideways, as if mocking the neatness of any graph the Health Member tried to draw.
In Shahdara, some days brought hope. Others brought news of entire courtyards emptied.
In Montgomery, the reports formed an ugly pattern: clusters of deaths around particular wells, lanes, and ghats where the new "Sandalbar scheme" had never gained a foothold.
On Harrington's wall map, the red crosses multiplied.
Within the Sandalbar cluster, they remained few.