Memoir of the Career of Thomas Edward Rogers [‎8r] (15/118)

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issues in conversation was perhaps dictated by our position of authority and
the constraints of our small social circle of senior officials. I listened a
great deal and talked little in the case of my chief, a post 1914-18 war entry
who kindly put me up for some months for want of other accommodation, and the
absence of his wife in England perhaps made my company acceptable. I learned
much about all aspects of running a district and especially his forte, land
revenue. He brought colour to the seemingly dull subject of the problems of
ownership and assessment raised by the huge and wayward rivers of Bengal as
monsoon floods and even their mere volume and speed forced them to alter course.
Conversation with our gentle Sikh doctor from the Indian Medical Service
was a touch of home: he spoke so perfectly in the refined accent of Edinburgh
that with closed eyes I could think myself in Princes Street. The Muslim
Additional Superintendent of Police was shy and unused to contact with
'Europeans' (the v/ord we often used when we really meant British, as if we were
calling in a whole continent to widen the target we presented at the pinnacle
of power). I believe his lack of assurance in some way exemplified the relatively
late and flagging arrival of Muslims in the Indian services resulting from their
earlier, post-Mutiny attitude of holding themselves aloof from western education
while the Hindus embraced it eagerly.
Our occasional dinner parties saw the same few official faces present. It
was a great exception when three of the first elected ministers under the 1935
Government of India Act dined at the District Magistrate's table. The Chief
ks.
Minister, Mr Fazlul Haq was there and Mr Slvah^ed Suhrawardy, later to be Prime
Minister of Pakistan and clearly an extremely clever man. I was to meet him again
twenty years on when he visited Spain as Prime Minister and his brother H-a-s-ea-n,
Ambassador in Madrid, held a reception for him. I was Counsellor at our Embassy,
but once had worked with Hangan in the Pakistan Public Service Commission in