"مذكرات وذكريات مسؤول في الخدمة السياسية الهندية" [و‎‎٤‎٩] (١٥٦/٩٧)

- 49 -
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for weddings and festivals - was no longer there, and this caused genuine hardship.
The fact was that the great cotton mills of Ahmedabad and Bombay had been turned
over to the production of khaki drill cloth to be made up into uniforms or canvas
tentage for the many thousands of soldiers under the arms in the eastern theatres of
the war. As the Government of India had no control over the retail textile outlets in
India's states which were of course outside their jurisdiction, the central authorities
allotted instead bulk quotas of rationed textile cloth to each State Government, based
on the entitlement of each member of the population of that state. Bulk consignments
of cloth for each of the larger Kathiawar States arrived periodically at Viramgam,. and
were delivered to their officials. But the Ruling Prince, whom I have refrained from
naming, saw profit for himself in his state's allocation. He had discovered that the
price of cotton cloth had rocketed in Iraq, Iran and in the Persian Gulf dependencies,
which had little^no indigin$ous textile industr^*of their own. Fortunate in his control
of a sea port, he caused the supplies of cotton cloth allotted to clothe the population
of his state to be clandestinely exported by dhow to Persian Gulf customers. By this
stratagem he made a fortune for himself. Being a determined and heavy-handed Ruler,
he turned a deaf ear to the complaints of the local retail textile merchants and their
customers. However, after some months of this skullduggery, news of the racket came to
the notice of the Chief Collector of Customs in Bombay, who reported the matter to his
own superiors in New Delhi, as well as to the Resident in Rajkot. Eventually we received
orders to assist the Collector in the very secretive enquiries he had been pursuing into
the activities of the Maharaja and his officials. After weeks of research and investi
gation, there was sufficient information at our disposal for me to prepare a draft
report for my Resident, recounting in detail the misdeeds of the Ruler. What made his
actions doubly serious was that trafficking in rationed commodities was fraught with very
heavy penalties under the various ordinances of the Defence of India Regulations. It
was bad enough for the ordinary malefactor, but infinitely worse in the case of a Ruling
Prince. In short, if proved, it could be regarded as amounting to a gross abuse of
power on his part, which might - against the background of war-time conditions - lead
fe© the Viceroy to decide in the last resort to depose the offender. In due course the
Resident made his report to the Political Department and we then waited to see what sort
of explosion would follow. But the war was nearing its end, and no overt action was taken.
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Nevertheless, the Ruler concerned found his name ommitted Per the list of awards made
to those of the Princely Order who had distinguished themselves in assisting the prosecu
tion of the war. He was also disappointed to find that his expected promotion in mili
tary rank, which the Rulers so coveted, was not forthcoming. The Ironic part of all this
was that the Ruler concerned was well aware of the indictment that was being prepared
against him through the spies he and some of his colleagues maintained in the Residency
Secretariat. We also knew that he knew, and in fact my Resident actually visited his
State in the course of his duties during the period in question, but the proprieties
were preserved - no accusations were made and no denials were called for. The Indian