'Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service' [‎71r] (141/156)

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to Indians. Their instincts were more inclined to the martial arts, and working in an
office or in a lonely "mofussil" post as an administrator was regarded as work best
fitted for ’Babus' and Banniahs’. The result was that Pakistan in its early days
disposed of very few professional officials with any experience of day-to-day administra
tion in the civilian sphere. On the other hand, once the Indian Army had been divided,
Pakistan was as well served as India in its military capabilities.
To restore in some measure this imbalance, Mohd. Ali Jinnah, the new Governor General of
Pakistan, and its self-styled "Qaid-i-Azam” had authorised the employment on a contract
basis of a large number of British Officers from the All India Services; not just from
the I.C.S. and the I.P.S. but also from the Police, the Forest Service, the Financial
Departments, the Judiciary, engineers, railway executives, etc. In addition, numerous
ex-Indian Army and Indian Navy Officers also joined the armed forces of Pakistan. The
services of these experts proved invaluable in the establishment from scratch of a
reasonably efficient administrative machine. Nor, contrary to the expectations of some
critics, was their presence resented by Pakistanis as a whole, who willingly co-operated
most loyally with these white civil servants amd military officers.
So far I have said nothing of the chaos that reigned along the newly created frontiers
with India - notably in the Punjab. The Radcliffe boundary award had come as a bomb
shell to the millions of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims who lived in the neighbourhood of the
new frontiers. The members of these religious groups had lived for centuries under
British rule alongside each other under conditions of peace and cordiality. There
were hundreds of villages on either side of the line in the Punjab, where these people
were inextricably mingled. Now, and at the very last moment (in fact after the proclam
ation of Independence) these villagers learnt that their ancestral homes lay on the
wrong side of the new border. For weeks before the 15th August, there had been sporadic
outbreaks of communal rioting in districts of the Punjab. People were apprehensive of
the future. Now, suddenly they learnt that their worse fears had come to pass. Once
the terms of the Radcliffe Award were made known, the small-scale rioting developed into
indiscriminate communal massacres. Families living on the wrong side of the new frontier
left their burning homes and farms in terror of their lives and started to migrate on
foot to safety - or so they imagined it - in India or Pakistan as the case was. Armed
gangs of Sikhs ranged the frontier districts evicting and massacring the unfortunate
hordes of Muslims moving in helpless and disorganised columns along the country roads
seeking safety in Pakistan. In the same way on the Pakistan side of the frontier, the
lives of Hindus and Sikhs were in mortal danger as they in their turn attempted to
march eastwards to safety. Those who thought themselves fortunate by securing accommo
dation on the trans-border trains, in many cases never reached their destination alive.
. S
The mobs on each side of the border stopped and attacked the refugee tram, massacring and
violating the unfortunate passengers whom they pulled bodily from the carriages. The