Lahore, a week later, moved to a different rhythm than Montgomery.
From the window of his new chambers near the High Court, Jinnah could see a black-and-white tide of advocates flowing along the street: coats and gowns, turbans and fezzes and bowler hats, files under arms, the blended murmur of Urdu, Punjabi, English, Persian rising like the hum of a legal bazaar.
Inside, the room was austere but already stamped with his habits: a large desk, two visitor chairs, a bookcase with volumes in unforgiving order, an inkstand aligned perfectly with the blotter. On the frosted glass downstairs, the newly painted name — M.A. Jinnah, Barrister — had begun pulling in a steady trickle of clients and curious colleagues.
He had spent the morning arguing one case and the early afternoon dictating letters. Now, in the brief gap before another consultation, he sat with his jacket off, waistcoat buttoned, reading through a file, when his clerk knocked.
"Yes?" Jinnah said, without looking up.
"Sir," the clerk said, "there is a gentleman from the Montgomery railway colony. Says he knows you from the estate. He insists it is urgent, but… respectful urgent."
That made him look up.
"Name?" he asked.
"Krishan Chand, Sir. The moneylender from the station colony."
Jinnah closed the file.
"Send him in," he said.
A Railway Man's News
Krishan Chand entered with his cap in both hands, posture half-defiant, half-apologetic: a Punjabi Hindu in his early fifties, neatly trimmed beard streaked with grey, shirt collar a little frayed but clean, a thin red thread at his wrist. His eyes had the quick weighing look of a man who had spent his life calculating interest and reading faces.
"Mr. Jinnah-ji," he said, bowing slightly. "Forgive me for disturbing you in this big city work."
"You are not disturbing me," Jinnah replied, gesturing to the chair. "Sit, Krishan Chand. If you have come all this way, it is not to discuss railway timetables."
Krishan sat, twisted his cap once, then forced his hands to be still.
"I heard," he began, "about what happened to your nurse. Mary. Stabbed. We all heard. I came first to say… I am sorry, Sir. She may be from another world than ours, but she is… tougher than most. People in the colony are talking about her as if she were some devi (goddess) sent for us."
He winced. "Excuse my village talk, Sir."
"They do not offend me," Jinnah said. "She was brave. Foolish in the manner of the brave, perhaps, but brave. She is recovering."
Krishan's shoulders loosened a fraction.
"Bhagwan ka shukr hai, (All Thanks to Almighty)" he muttered in Hindi.
He hesitated, eyes dropping to his cap again.
"But that is not…" He swallowed. "That is not only why I came."
Jinnah leaned back.
"Go on," he said.
"Since the clinic is closed now," Krishan said, "with Dr. Cartwright in Lahore and Mary in hospital, things… have been bad these last days. Two children in the village beyond the canal died yesterday. High fever. Maybe malaria, maybe something else. Their mothers… they kept asking if the doctor would come like last week. But there was no one."
Guilt and anger wrestled in his face.
"I am not blaming you, Sir," he added quickly. "I told them that. I told them: 'He came himself, he brought his own doctor, his own nurse. Who else has done that for you? Not the old zaildar, not the sahibs, not the big landlord.' They know, Sir. They know you care. That's why they are afraid now. You are the first landlord in years who looked at them like people and not numbers on a rent book."
In Jinnah's chest, something tightened.
Two children, Bilal said softly. That's the cost the ledger doesn't show when you write "clinic closed for safety."
"I was told there were fevers," Jinnah said slowly. "I did not know they had claimed lives already. Why were they not brought to the Montgomery hospital?"
He knew the answer even as he asked.
Krishan gave a bitter, half-embarrassed laugh.
"Hospital, Sir? That is for people who can pay, who know the right clerk, who have a relative who can shout at the right babu. These women…" He shook his head. "They barely leave the village. For them, your clinic was the hospital. It was close. It was… human."
Jinnah's fingers laced together tightly on the desk.
"I cannot," he said, "put Dr. Evelyn's life in danger again so soon. Nor Nurse Mary's, even when she recovers. I already bear some responsibility for what happened."
"I told them that too," Krishan said. "That you are not a god, to stop all knives and fevers. But fear doesn't listen to reason. They say: 'When the memsahib was there, our children lived. Now she is gone, our children die.' They talk like that, Sir. You should hear them."
"I would rather they did not have such cause," Jinnah murmured. "These children — what were their names?"
"Razia," Krishan said quietly. "And Baldev. One Muslim, one Hindu. Fever does not care about religion. Nor does it wait for clinics to reopen."
Jinnah repeated the names under his breath once, as if fixing them to an internal ledger he could not yet balance.
"Razia," he said. "Baldev. They will be buried today?"
"By sunset," Krishan said. "Their fathers are digging even now."
Silence stretched for a heartbeat.
"I did not come to twist the knife in your conscience, Sir," Krishan added, suddenly awkward. "Only… you should know. People are saying: 'Maybe he will close the clinic forever now. Maybe the Sahib will decide it is too dangerous for his own.' They are frightened."
Jinnah exhaled, the sound somewhere between irritation and pain.
"I did not come to Sandalbar," he said, "to build a graveyard. The clinic will reopen. Not with the same naivety as before. There will be armed men inside as well as outside. Stricter checking at the door. Clearer paths to the hospital for the worst cases. But it will reopen."
Krishan's eyes shone briefly.
"I will tell them, Sir," he said. "It will give them… something to hold on to."
He hesitated at the edge of the chair, then sat again, as if something else were pressing at him.
"There is one more thing," he said. "About the men who attacked."
Jinnah nodded once. "Yes. Speak."
"I asked around," Krishan said. "We have… ears in the colony. The two inside, who pretended to be patients, they were small fellows. Knives in their hands, but strings tied to their backs. The real question is: who holds the strings?"
"And?" Jinnah prompted.
"There is a gang on the lines between Montgomery and the villages," Krishan said. "They've worked that stretch for years. Small robberies, train thefts, a few kidnappings. Nothing big enough to make Lahore shout, but enough to make villagers whisper. They do not act without protection."
"Protection from whom?" Jinnah asked, though he already had suspects.
Krishan glanced at the closed door, as if the panel might have ears.
"Some zaildars," he said quietly. "Not all. But enough. Men who like to stand with one foot in each boat: your Crown and your criminals. Sometimes they send the gang to 'punish' a tenant, sometimes to remind a rival who has real power in the tahsil. This time, I think, they sent them to you."
"To me?" Jinnah said. "Why?"
"Because you are dangerous, Sir," Krishan replied, surprising himself with his own boldness. "Not with guns. With… reputation. If the villages start saying: 'There is a new malik, and he brings doctors and clean water and doesn't beat us,' then the old ways start to look ugly. Then the Crown may say one day: 'Why do we need this old zaildar if the barrister can keep order and pay revenue without him?'"
A humourless smile ghosted across his face.
"Men who rule by fear," he said, "do not like competition from men who get obedience by respect."
Jinnah was very still.
"And you are certain," he asked, "that all bandits serve such men?"
Krishan shook his head.
"No, Sir," he said. "That is the thing. Not all. Some are pure rogues, born to it, raised in it. But some… some were pushed. A man loses his land in a bad year, the zaildar takes it for a song, the police take the bribe and look the other way, and the man finds he can feed his children only if he… borrows at night from the highway."
He met Jinnah's eyes.
"The British law, Sir, when it comes to our part of the district, many times it comes riding on the same horse as the oppressor. If the zaildar says: 'This man is a nuisance,' the police arrest him. If the zaildar says: 'That bandit group is my group,' the police never seem to see them."
He spread his hands.
"You are lucky in Harrington Sahib," he added. "He asks questions. He walks the fields sometimes. But he is one man. Below him, in the thana and kacheri, there are dozens who take shortcuts. Police, patwaris, petty officers… and the zaildar knows them all."
He hesitated, suddenly aware of the weight of his own words.
"So when a man is beaten, or his crop is taken, or his daughter is harassed," he finished more quietly, "and he sees the police salute the man who did it… what path is left? The law did not come for him. So he goes to the jungle. Or joins the gang on the road. Not because he loves evil, but because he sees no lawful hand to hold."
Jinnah absorbed that, his expression darkening.
"You are telling me," he said, "that some of the men I might be tempted to call 'criminals' are created as much by the state as by their own choices."
Krishan nodded once.
"Yes, Sir," he said simply. "And some of the worst crimes are committed with stamps, not with knives."
He rose, cap in his hands again.
"I did not come to lecture you, Mr. Jinnah," he said, suddenly shy. "Only… you have treated us fairly at the station colony. I thought you should know how it looks from our side. And about the children. They… they will be in the ground by tonight."
Jinnah stood as well.
"I am grateful you came," he said. "For the news, and for the honesty. Tell the villagers this: the clinic will reopen, with more guards and less foolishness. And tell them I have not forgotten their faces just because I am back among lawyers."
Krishan bowed.
"I will tell them, Sir," he said. He hesitated once more at the door. "And Sir… if some of those men from the gang are… more desperate than wicked, and if ever one comes into your hands wanting another path… maybe you will see him with the same eyes you saw us"
"That," Jinnah said, "will depend on what he has done. But I will remember your words."
Krishan bowed again and slipped out, leaving behind him a faint smell of sweat, iron dust, and hot metal from rail-lines — and the echo of two children's names.
The Thin Paint of Law
Silence settled after the door closed. Outside, a tonga rattled past; somewhere a hawker shouted about oranges. The distant rumble of a tram blended with the street's legal hum.
Inside, Jinnah stood by the window, hands behind his back.
You look disturbed, Bilal said quietly.
"I do not understand," Jinnah replied inwardly, "why a government that prides itself on law and order would take the side of men like those zaildars. It is… contrary to the very idea of law."
You're thinking like a textbook, Bilal said. Not like someone looking at how a machine keeps itself running.
"Enlighten me, then, Mr. Game Developer," Jinnah said, with more acid than usual. "Why would the Crown ally itself with bullies if it claims to be civilised?"
Because, Bilal said, the Raj is very thick in some places and very thin in others.
"What does that mean?" Jinnah asked.
"In Delhi, Bombay, Lahore," Bilal replied, "the Raj is thick. Governors, High Courts, ICS men, newspapers, political parties. There, it has to pretend to its own ideals. Too many eyes — British eyes, Indian elite eyes, sometimes London eyes — watching."
He sketched, in their shared mind, a map with a few bright spots and a lot of dimness.
"But out in the villages between your canal and your railway," he went on, "the state is just a few overworked men: one tahsildar, one police inspector, a couple of subordinates trying to cover tens of thousands of people. They can't see everything. They can't be everywhere. So what do they do? They subcontract control."
"Subcontract," Jinnah repeated. "To the zaildars."
Exactly. They say, 'You keep the people quiet. You bring the revenue on time. You stop open rebellion. In return, we will not look too closely at how you do it.' So when a complaint comes about that zaildar beating someone or grabbing land, the officer thinks: 'If I punish him, I lose the man who delivers my peace and my revenue. If I ignore this complaint, my file stays clean and my posting is safe.' He closes one eye. Often both.
"That is cowardice," Jinnah said sharply.
Yes, Bilal agreed. Cowardice, exhaustion, ambition. And the normal instinct of any power structure: it prefers a bad stability over a risky justice. Harrington is an exception. He still believes in fairness. But even he has to choose which fires to put out. If he tries to fight every zaildar and every bandit, the system will spit him out.
Jinnah frowned.
"In your time," he asked slowly, "has this changed?"
Bilal let out a short, humourless breath.
"Sometimes," he said. "Often not. In my Punjab there are still places where police, local leaders, and outlaws drink tea together behind closed doors. The uniforms change — one day khaki, one day white, one day worn trousers with a gun tucked in — but the pattern stays. The law is thick in a few islands, thin paint over most of the map."
He paused, then pressed the point further.
"And that's why, when Partition comes," he said, "what Krishan just described turns into a map of life and death."
"How so?" Jinnah asked.
"Where law and order actually function — even imperfectly," Bilal said, "riots flare, then someone clamps down: curfews, arrests, respected figures step in. Violence is ugly but contained. Later, people say, 'Yes, 1947 was bad here. Some shops burned, some men died, then it stopped.'"
He let the next images come slower, heavier.
"But where the state has been thin for years — where it relied on bullies and looked away from their abuses — when the big power pulls back, there's nothing underneath. No trusted police. No magistrate anyone believes. No habit of fair arbitration. Only men with old grudges and guns."
In Jinnah's mind, Bilal showed him trains under a burning sky, fields left unharvested because their owners were walking in terrified columns along dusty roads.
"That," Bilal said softly, "is where the vultures come. Men like the zaildar's pet gangs. Men who've been half-criminal, half-enforcer for years. Suddenly there's no sahib to report to. So they take the whole feast."
Jinnah's hand tightened on the window frame.
"If what you say is true," he said, "then this experiment of ours in Sandalbar is attempting to do… what, exactly?"
Thicken the law, Bilal said. In one place. Make it real, not just a seal at the bottom of a page. You're trying to build a patch of country where, when something goes wrong, there is a third door. Not the bandits. Not the oppressor. Your strongholds. Your clinic. Your men.
"That is ambitious for one lawyer and one estate," Jinnah said dryly.
Yes, Bilal said. And limited. But that's how systems start. One pocket that actually works. If one strong pocket survives the storm later, it becomes a seed. People tell stories. 'There was a place where the clinic stayed open, and the strongholds doors opened for everyone, not just one community.' Legends like that are building material.
He softened his tone a little.
"And about the children," he added. "You're right to feel responsible. But don't let that guilt make you stupid. If you rush Evelyn back without proper protocols and she dies, you lose years of capacity to save dozens of Razias and Baldevs for the sake of a few days now. We fix the system, then we stretch it. Not the other way round."
Jinnah watched the Lahore street below. A tonga driver yelled at a inattentive cyclist; a junior advocate balanced a tower of files, oblivious to both.
"I do not wish," he said, "to be a little god in one corner while the rest burns."
You're not, Bilal said. You're a prototype. And a prototype has to work somewhere first.
He let that settle, then added:
"And Krishan's point about those 'bandits by necessity' — remember it when we think about recruitment. Some of your best Farabis later will be men who could have gone that way, but didn't, because your door existed."
Jinnah's mouth twitched — not quite a smile, more a grim acknowledgement.
"So now," he said, "you propose to turn my estate into a laboratory, my guards into a hybrid of constabulary and monks, and my own conscience into a permanent critic."
That last part, Bilal said, you managed without me.
There was a knock at the door.
"Sir," the clerk said, peering in, "there is another client waiting. A zamindar with a tenancy dispute."
Jinnah put his jacket back on; the barrister's armour settled into place.
"Very well," he said. "Show him in."
As he sat, he spoke one last line inwardly.
"If, in the days to come," he said to Bilal, "I am tempted to speak of 'criminals' as a class, remind me of Krishan's words."
I will, Bilal replied. And I'll remind you of Razia and Baldev too.
"They will not," Jinnah said quietly, "be the last children this experiment fails to save. But they will, I hope, be the last we lose for the same reason."
Outside, Lahore's legal world flowed on — thick law, loud arguments, neat files.
Inside one rented chamber, the idea of Sandalbar adjusted itself: a little darker, a little more determined, and a little more aware of just how thin the paint of law really was where the canal met the rail.