'Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service' [‎67r] (133/156)

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CHAPTER 13: KARACHI. THE START OF A NEW CAREER
I flew to Karachi on the 1st July 1947, leaving my family in Simla with a very hazy
idea about the new life upon which I had embarked. The only assistance with which I
was provided was the temporary loan of an official with engineering qualifications
belonging to the British Ministry of Works, who was to help me to find the requisite
office and residential accommodation. It was just as well that it was the British Govern
ment to whom it had first occurred that diplomatic representation was concomitant with
the emergence of a new sovereign independent country. Later on there was to be an
invasion of newly accredited foreign Ambassadors and High Commissioners to Karachi:
Karachi was in those days a comparatively small city port, and the capital and head
quarters of the Province of Sind. It was infinitely smaller and less important than
say Bombay or Calcutta, and possessed few of the grandiose public buildings, hotels
and other amenities which had always been the birthright of the great Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. Capitals.
It boasted only one large European-style hotel (The Palace), and it was there that my
colleague, Browne, and I established ourselves. Our first task was to ascertain to what
extent the British officials of the Sind Government would assist us. We called on the
Governor and his Chief Secretary. They received us kindly, but made it very quickly
clear that the Provincial Government were powerless to help us. The position was that on
the 15th of August when the State of Pakistan would come into existence, all official
buildings, public properties and possessions in Karachi and elsewhere up country, owned
or controlled by the Sind Government, automatically passed into the ownership of
new Dominion Government. Government House was to be the residence of Mr. Mohd Ali .lallrah,
the Governor General of the new nation. This is what we had feared all along.
We next turned our attention to the British Companies and communities established in
Karachi. The former were in most cases branches of the All India firms, many of which,
particularly the shipping firms and the banks and the oil companies, took their orders
from their own head offices in Calcutta or New Delhi. Browne and I interviewed numerous
local managers and directors of British firms. But the prevailing mood was not helpful.
The 'Box-wallahs’ of the great maritime cities of India (old style), had never taken
kindly to authority. They and their predecessors dating from the early days of Clive,
Warren Hastings and the East India Company, had lived out their lives in the great
cities wielding formidable powers over their industries and employees (eg: tea, jute,
shipping, insurance, banking, textiles, etc.) and incidentally, making handsome profits
for their shareholders and themselves. They saw no reason to change their ideas or their
way of life now that the official British connection was about to be severed. They felt
that they could manage quite adequately on their own as they had always done in the past,
without the help and without the interference of British High Commissioners. If the
British members of the I.C.S. and the All India Services now had to go - and even the
British Regiments which had hitherto garrisoned the up-country cantonements - well and
good. Their own lives would, they felt, continue very much as before.