n a fuzzy picture shrouded with the euphoric and triumphant march of the nationalist discourse of history, popular on both sides of the border between India and Pakistan, one seldom ponders over the past to understand the social and political milieu that existed when dominant nationalism was territorial and inclusive in religious terms. It was only at the close of the final decade of British rule that religious nationalism became fashionable and forced the British to withdraw from India after dividing the subcontinent into two religiously defined nationalist states.

Romila Thapar argues in her book, The Past as Present (2014), that we tend generally to think and understand the past in light of the present. This means that our present is reflected in our interpretation of the past. It makes people of South Asia particularly myopic about their past because their worldview has been made in a political environment where India and Pakistan have become ‘the other’ for each other. Hence, the national communities have also been rendered into oppositional relationships of ‘enmity’. Ironically, history has been used selectively to portray and popularise such a vision of the South Asian past. This selective use has rendered into oblivion all those who genuinely believed in communal harmony.

Lord Dalhousie, a British governor-general of India, was an aggressive empire builder, comparable to none other than Robert Clive. The Punjab was annexed in 1949 during his tenure, and he cobbled together the Punjab Board of Administration to govern the ‘restive’ province. The board included two brothers, Henry Lawrence and John Lawrence, who developed serious differences regarding how the Punjab should be governed. Henry Lawrence, who had already served as ‘resident’ in the Punjab under the Sikhs, favoured the creation of a class of intermediaries or ‘collaborators’ of the Raj among the notable landlords of the province. His younger brother, John Lawrence, however, argued that the landed elite of the subcontinent had become servile, self-serving and parasitic in nature due to historic conditioning based on foreign invasions and instability.

John Lawrence wrote to Dalhousie that the local landlord elite was unable to take care of its people. He argued for massive reforms to be carried out and lands to be redistributed, making landholdings smaller. Both the brothers corresponded with the governor-general in detail, but Dalhousie agreed with John Lawrence. Interestingly, and shockingly for John, the tables were turned due to the outspread of the War of Independence in 1857-58. The onset of the Government of India Act of 1858 smashed the intentions of John Lawrence and Dalhousie because it proclaimed that there would be no more annexations and confiscations of lands. The princely states and landlords of the Punjab were the main beneficiaries of this Act as their holdings remained intact.

The loyalty of the Muslim and Sikh landowners of the newly annexed Punjab confirmed the veracity of the school of thought associated with Henry Lawrence during 1857-58. “The British richly rewarded those who have stood by them in their darkest hour,” says Ian Talbot in his book Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India (1996). An important family of note that perpetuated their influence in the post-1857 scenario was the Tiwanas of Shahpur (district headquarters before the establishment of Sargodha as an agricultural market town). The Tiwanas were the most successful, but they were by no means the only, rural family set for at this time on a lengthy and lucrative loyalist career. The Noons and Hayats were their partners who also charted similar paths to glory.

Within five years of the untimely death of Sikandar Hayat, Khizr assumed leadership of both the Unionist Party and the government. He became premier of the Punjab in 1942… rising to the challenge of his new situation and brought courage and grace to the office.

Aitchison College was established in 1886 to educate and ‘enlighten’ the scions of princely houses and Punjab chiefs. Its other counterpart institutions were Mayo College at Ajmer and Rajkumar College at Rajkot. Two towering figures of the Tiwana clan Umar Hayat and Khizr Hayat, were enrolled at Aitchison. Umar was at Aitchison during 1888-93, whereas Khizr attended between 1908-16. Umar was one of the earliest pupils of the elite school. Khizr succeeded him as a member of the school’s Management Committee. Even when he became a minister, he continued to attend to Aitchison’s affairs. In 1935, the father and the son attended together the Silver Jubilee Celebrations in London of King George V and Queen Mary.

Despite their common educational and military background, the father and the son differed dramatically. Talbot opines that “Umar was a much more forceful and ambitious person. He, in fact, set himself the goal of a princely lifestyle and status. Where Umar was generous and self-indulgent, Khizr was parsimonious and modest.” Umar’s ambitions were fostered by his mixing with the members of ruling households both at Aitchison and in subsequent years. In 1912, Lord Hardinge visited his Kalra stud farm. A visit by a viceroy was then a privilege available only to a handful of princes. He extended patronage to Shahpur’s de Montmorency College (later Government College and now the University of Sargodha). The annual horse show in Sargodha was another recipient of his largesse and munificence.

Khizr inherited the paternalistic outlook and trappings of power, but his fortunes were catapulted extraordinarily by the Unionist Party that emerged as a formal group in the Punjab Legislative Council in 1923. Prior to that, various landlord parties had existed in a number of provinces. The Unionist party differed with those in that it cut across ‘class’ and ‘communal’ interests. Its Jat leader Chaudhary Chhotu Ram and Mian Fazl-i-Husain played a leading role in the party’s development. Surprisingly, from a humble beginning, the Unionist Party emerged to become a dominant political force in the Punjab. Khizr, in 1937, received an instantaneous promotion to ministerial rank in the Unionist government of Sikandar Hayat Khan.

Within five years, following the untimely death of Sikandar Hayat, Khizr assumed leadership of both the Unionist Party and the government. He became premier of the Punjab in 1942. The elevation was an outcome of the circumstances, but he rose to the challenge and brought courage and grace to the office.

The 1946 elections terminated the Unionist Party’s twenty years of dominance of the Punjab politics. Nonetheless, Khizr remained in office at the head of a coalition government with his erstwhile Akali and Congress opponents. The Muslim League denounced the ministry as illegitimate and lacking moral authority. In an environment of growing communal strife, Khizr Tiwana resigned on March 2, 1947. From then on, the Punjab was bogged in communal carnage.

The writer has a PhD in History from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He heads the History Department at the University of Sargodha and has worked as a research fellow at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He can be reached at abrar.zahoor@hotmail.com. He tweets @AbrarZahoor