The Legends of The British Raj

My father at the time was around eight years old and was studying in a local school, when during a fairly usual day at school, it was announced that the school would close prematurely because his father had been fatally shot in a shooting accident. My father returned home and passed on the news to his mother and siblings who were in utter disbelief, soon to follow the other officials arrived confirming the tragic incident. My father’s sister was getting married to a medical doctor serving in the British Army with much fanfare, my grandfather had wanted to present her with a trophy of the great Indian bull, it was during this adventure that the accident had occurred, the official version said that he was dismounting from an elephant using his loaded gun for support that had fired killing him instantly. He was a young man of forty four years of age with much of his life still ahead of him, but such was the fate destiny had ordained for him. My father had to join the Royal Indian Military College in Dehradun, a boarding school. It was here that he grew up to be a man of sterling character qualities, built lifelong friendships and his infinite passion for the cavalry. Having graduated from the college he joined the newly instituted Indian Military Academy, on passing out he was commissioned in a prestigious English armored regiment the Second Royal Lancers at the time fighting in North Africa. My grandfather’s younger brother had come to see him off at the port in Bombay, his parting words to my father were, “Lucky man you are to have this opportunity to prove your courage and worth “. My father was living his dream, leading men into battle as part of a fighting squadron against Rommel’s forces, the war soon came to an end, so he spent his time exploring Cairo and the Egyptian pyramids.

Returning to India he was posted to various peacetime cantonments. Indian independence movement was heating up in which he had little interest and was hoping to wait it out until the dust settled upon which he would decide to make his next move, in the interim he got married and got furlough to live with his mother who was living in Bhopal, where her son in law who had idealized my grandfather, joined the same faith married his eldest daughter and had emerged as one of the leading jurists in India, at the time when India was not only getting independence from British rule was also being partitioned into two countries based on religious beliefs. In this case the Nawab of Bhopal was in a strange quandary, he along with his population were Muslims but unfortunately would have had to abandon their lands as it was not possible to make it contiguous to other Muslim majority land. He was therefore establishing legal rights of possession that the Nawab would be allowed to keep. Soon thereafter he was appointed as a member of the Radcliffe Boundary Commission which was responsible to complete the un cherished task of border delineation. All along my father was observing political wrangles between various factions, eventually it was decided by the family and community that in anticipation of creation of Pakistan they should move westwards with the bare minimum essentials prior to start of the mass exodus. My grandmother bought a house in Model Town Lahore and moved a couple of years before partition. Meanwhile Second Royal Lancers was to return to Britain, while among the regiments allotted to Pakistan my father’s closest association was with Probyn’s Horse which he opted to join as did some of his old school friends. Over the next few years the regiment had moved from Risalpur, Ojri Camp in Rawalpindi, my father got posted to the GHQ and eventually got selected for a course in the USA, on his return he did his staff course and got command of Probyn’s Horse.

From his command of Probyn’s Horse, my father was posted to raise Twentieth Lancers, the only cavalry regiment to get Pakistan’s highest gallantry medal, a testament to the character, leadership and standards of dedication inculcated in the foundation by its first commandant. He was then posted to command Nineteenth Lancers another elite unit that had accompanied Probyn’s Horse from India at the time of partition, there had been a long association between these two units, they were also part of a joint force that was sent to Peking a century earlier to suppress the Boxer Rebellion. It was assumed to be a posting in preparation for his promotion, my father in his warrior persona had commanded three cavalry regiments and was in the run for promotion to rank of brigadier when to everyone’s surprise was superseded by some half baked contender with little comparable credentials. The reason was obvious, it was his faith, in at the time a religious sect considered heretical to the mainstream Muslims, there were others from this sect who had been promoted to general’s rank but president and commander in chief Ayub Khan had a personal axe to grind against our family, in which he had managed to falsely implicate my father’s brother in law General Nazir of conspiracy against the government in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case which had taken place in Pakistan during which Nazir was attending the Royal Defense College in England, given the standards of communication at the time it would have hardly been possible to hatch a secret conspiracy from overseas while at a defense educational institution. The fact that he belonged to an unworthy religious community didn’t help, it was easy to prove the indictment. In doing so Ayub managed to eliminate his major competitor which cleared the way to grab the top job for himself. He continued with his vendetta, his cheap vindictiveness, he had even attended the centenary celebrations of 19th Lancers held during my father’s command a few weeks before, but quite deftly struck another blow against our family by not promoting father, my father to save his honor requested for retirement which he was obliged without much fanfare.