THE%20SINDH%20STORY

Napier had written off all the pre-1843 dues of the peasantry. He set up Sindh
Police, which became a model for all other provinces.
Napier was particularly good in the administration of justice. His instructions
were: “Take what the people call justice, not what the laws call justice.” He once
heard the case of the Manchhar lake fishermen for three days and then decided
that they shall give only three per cent of the catch as tax. He once recalled:
“Kardars and policemen, I smash by dozens. Against all evidence, I decide in
favour of the poor.”
The only two discontented sections in the new set-up were the former Talpur
rulers and their Hindu Amil (Kayasth) employees. The Talpurs had lost their
power and the Amils, their top administrative jobs to the British. However, the
Talpurs soon reconciled themselves to their jagirs and their pensions. And with
the expansion of the administration and the economy, the Amils soon more than
came into their own. (After Partition, Sir Patrick Cadell, a former Commissioner
of Sindh, wrote to Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi, the Pakistan, Minister of
Information and Broadcasting that he considered the Amils of Sindh the best of
administrators, who shone in all fields. No wonder, of the fourteen Sindhis --- all
Hindus --- who entered the ICS, twelve were Amils.)
All this impressed --- and was meant to impress --- the Punjab, which was now
going to piece under “Sikha-shahi” --- and getting ripe to fall into the British lap.
However, Napier was much more than the first British ruler of Sindh. He was an
empire-builder with a great vision. “What the Kohinoor is among diamonds,
India is among nations Were I emperor of India for twelve years, she should be
traversed by railroads and have her rivers bridged; her seat of government at
Delhi or Meerut or Simla or Allahabad. No Indian Prince should exist. The
Nizam should be no more heard of. Nepaul should be ours and an ague fit
should become the courtly imperial (Turkish) sickness at Constantinople, while
the emperor of Russia and he of China should never get their pulses below 100 !
“Would that I were King of India, I should make Muscowa and Pekin shake.
Were I King of England, T would, from the Palace of Delhi, thrust forth a
clenched fist in the teeth of Russia and France. England’s fleet should be all in the
West and the Indian Army all in the East.”
However, with all his qualities, Napier was more a warrior than an administrator
or a builder. After he left in 1850, Sindh was attached to the Bombay Presidency,
with Sir Bartle Frere as its first Commissioner. Frere was shocked to find “not a
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