'Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service' [‎40r] (79/156)

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south of India. So seriously was the possibility of the Japanese invasion of Southern
India taken, that I well remember seeing a series of highly secret directives addres
sed to the Provincial Government and the Residents in Southern India setting out the
role of District Officers and Political Officers as to how they should deal with the
commanders of victorious Japanese forces as they overran the interior. We were told
that we were to be responsible for keeping the essential services, including the rail
ways, running to safeguard the proper distribution of food and provisions to the
population. It did not seem to occur to the authorities in New Delhi that experience
in the Philippines, Malaya and Burma had shown that, in no circumstances whatever,,
would the Japanese High Command permit expatriate enemy officials to continue to carry
out their administrative functions even under the direction of their own military
officers. On the contrary, the Japanese policy envisaged no sort of mutual co-operation.
Any enemy official they came across, whether British or Indian, was destined for
immediate arrest and internment. They had already dealt in this way with the British
Indian Administrations in the Andaman Islands and in Burma.
Nor had the threat of aerial bombardment directed against cities and civilian targets
escaped the attention of the Government of India. Experts on the handling of air
raid precautions had been summoned from the United Kingdom and quickly set about the
organisation of civil defence in the threatened areas of southern India. Secunderabad,
being a large city surrounded by major military installations and training areas, was
one of the first to be called upon to put itself on a war footing. As District Magi
strate, I was appointed ARP Controller for the 'Leased Area'. With the help of the
cantenement authorities, we enrolled from civilian sources, a number of ex-soldiers
and returned officials, whom we trained to head the various organisations which
experience in the United Kingdom had shown were necessary to cope with the aerial
bombardment of civilian targets. Gradually from these beginnings, we created the
necessary services - Air Raid Wardens, Fire Service personnel, First Aid detachments,
Heavy Damage Repair Units, etc. The Police Forces were also expanded. We were much
indebted for the supply of materials and technical advice to the management of the
Nizam's State Railways whose headquarters and railway workshops were situated in
Secunderabad.
What, however, greatly hampered the operation of the civil defence services was the
shortage of petrol and oil. Severe rationing restrictions of these commodities had
already been imposed, but priority had to be given to the maintenance of supplies uo
the military units who were busy training for war in the neighbouring districts of the
Hyderabad State. Here again the task of rationing supplies to maintain essential
civilian services fell on the District Magistrate. When the situation was getting really
bad, the local British Manager of Shell and I concocted what we thought was one way