It was Ruskin Bond who got one interested in the writings of ICS men through the book he edited on ghost stories of the Raj days. Some of the officers had served in Delhi and taken the trouble of producing the Delhi Gazetteer of 1883-1884 while another one, H. R. Nevill went on to complete the Agra district gazetteer in 1900. Among these men were such luminaries as C.A. Kincaid, whose “Tales told by the Tulsi Plant” is still popular. J. S. Lall, who came to Delhi as a Secretary in the Central Government after being Commissioner of the vast Agra Division, belonged to a distinguished family of the Walled City whose ancestor Chandu Lal migrated to Lahore after the First War of Independence in 1857. He claimed descent from Raja Todar Mal, Akbar’s Revenue Minister. A great friend of Khushwant Singh’s, Lall never mentioned his full name, John Stanley Lall till he retired and started writing books. The book on Begum Samru dedicated to Jamila, he wrote (or rewrote) after his friend Attia Hosain’s daughter Shama angrily tore up the first draft. It is the most well-researched account of the Begum whom Shah Alam started calling his “dear daughter” after she saved Delhi from an invasion by the Sikhs under Baghel Singh. The area where the troops from Punjab encamped is known as Tees Hazari. John Lall’s brother, Arthur Lall who became India’s Permanent Representative at the UN, wrote his well-known book “The House at Adampur” on the family history.
Senior to Lall was J.M. Lobo Prabhu, who had a memorable tenure in Rajasthan and to whom Maxwell Pereira Prabhu, former Deputy Delhi Police Commissioner was related. Lobo was a “pucca sahib” like R.K. Nehru and B.K. Nehru and his wife (40-odd years younger), Louella Lobo Prabhu was an attraction whenever she came to Delhi. The couple stayed after retirement at their Chateau de Lou in Mangalore. The suave E.N. Mangatrai also drew a crowd of admirers whenever he visited the Capital. His personality was such that one felt instinctively drawn to the man. It was said of him, like R.L.S., that the style was the man. Pran Nevile, 92, ex-diplomat remembers him from Lahore days and his close relationship with Vijaylakshmi Pandit’s daughter Nayantara. B. D. Sanwal wrote the well-illustrated “Agra and its Monuments” in the 1960s. He was Commissioner after Lall and an ardent student of history, surprising the Japanese Crown Prince (now Emperor Akihito) and his wife with a comparative account of Japanese and Indian rulers.
Going into earlier times, A. C. Renny, District Magistrate, found the time to write and study life in India and to come out with a story like “The Fire Jogi”. The Jogi (sic) not only commanded tigers and elephants but also predicted the future, like the death of his friend. Renny was in the same class of writers as the non-ICS Lafcadio Hearn, John Lang, who defended the Rani of Jhansi at the Calcutta and London courts, Hilton Brown, F. R. Corson and F.W. Bain. But one sahib went one better by weaving a tale of the Roshanara Gardens with its weird midnight bearded, treetop hookah smoker. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru said in 1946 that he had come across several European members of the Indian Civil Service who wrote graceful Persian and Urdu verse and also spoke with great facility. About Thomas Conlan, who once appeared in a case of divorce and dower, Sapru says, “I have never heard in my life in court a better Urdu speech and one could hardly believe that the speaker was a genuine Irishman and not a man from Lucknow or Delhi… and as he warmed up, he quoted Ghalib and Momin on several occasions…”
H. J. Evans, Deputy Commissioner of Delhi just before Partition, too delivered a high-class speech at a mushaira and some couldn’t believe their ears that an Englishman could speak such eloquent Urdu. The heritage of these ICS men is one that will never fade. Surprisingly few IAS officials do such creative writing now.
