In July of 1974, on the day of our medical exam, I had stood in front of the administrative building, reading on it’s frontispiece the name Glancy Medical College. . My father standing next to me had remarked,” The environment here is very rough. So long you live with respectability things will work out well.” Nothing else was indoctrinated in me as some parents are wont to do. Then I had fleetingly read a plaque that mentioned the name Khizer Hayat khan Tiwana .I tried saying his name aloud pronouncing hayat as hay- at. Here was a man standing next to me– who could read, write and speak Urdu effortlessly as most his generation did, and here was a girl of seventeen whose knowledge about Urdu was dismal. The contrast was too much. My father corrected me and said,” Hayaat. Lt. Col. Nawab Sir Khizer Hayat Khan Tiwana had laid the foundation stone of our college in 1944.
After one month, when I went home for the first time, my mom asked during our routine dinner table conversations. “Tell me how have you liked your college? I rattled off like a third grader making short sentences.
I said,” Its name is Glancy Medical College.
It is situated on Majitha road.
It has a book shop in front of it called Rajat Corner”..
Then she asked,” Do you know who Sir Bertrand Glancy was?
I said,” No, some Britisher.”
” Tenu pata hay eh undivided Punjab da last governor si”.she said.
She then embellished further details and said,” When I was in 8th grade, in an all girls school in Rawalpindi ,Lady Grace Steele Glancy, who was the wife of Sir Bertrand Glancy, the then Governor of undivided Punjab came to my school for an inspection and we prepared like this- We starched our Salwars and Kameezes and pleated our chunnis and pinned it on our shoulders and we welcomed her at our very best. The narrative died there over some delicious dish that was being savored by all of us. Lt. Col .Sir Khizer Hayat Khan Tiwana and Sir Bertrand Glancy totally faded out of my memory for fifty years resting somewhere in the spaces between.
Khizer Hayat Khan Tiwana was the premier of undivided Punjab from 1942 to 1945.under governor Glancy. His predecessor Sikander Hayat had died unexpectedly and he became the premier of Punjab. Both belonged to the unionist party that opposed the partition of Punjab. Khizer Hayat Khan was a statesman, a politician, an army man and above all a very wealthy landlord who owned around 1 lakh acres of land. The ruins of his haveli survive in district Sargodha of Pakistan formerly Shahpur. Khizer, like his father had attended Aitchison College( Chief’s college) at Lahore. He owned a cavalry of 1200 lancers known as Tiwana lancers whose magnificent uniform had made King George the V wear this attire during the Delhi Darbar of 1911.A man of great character and integrity , generosity and fairness he had vehemently opposed the partition of Punjab. Had this not happened, I too, would have seen my paternal grandparents. He was above party politics and wanted the good of Punjab. He was unassuming and fair, just and kind, popular with Hindus, Sikhs and Christians. His unionist party was all inclusive of members from all communities and different religious back grounds. He opposed the two nation theory. He demitted office in 1945 when the Muslim league won.and partition became inevitable. .He was ridiculed by his own country men for not supporting Muslim league.
Khizer died in 1975 in Butte County California just as we might have finished upper limb in first professional. None of us knew that the man who had laid the foundation stone of our college had died. The New York Times published a twenty four page article on 25th January ,1975 to pay tribute to him. At our end, there was no conversation about this man from any quarter although prime minister Indira Gandhi and Lord Mountbatten did send a note of condolence. For most of us, he remained just a name inscribed on a plaque eclipsed in the annals of history. a banished hero who was resurrected 96 years after his birth when a British professor Ian Talbot wrote his first biography in 1996, and in 2017,The Tribune India published an article on him extolling his virtues..
For most of us our own world view was colored by our peers, our family belief systems and by our own ignorance. The interpretation of History was seen as something other and divorced from our professional education whereas we too were history in the making of an era where these notables were disregarded as vestiges of a colonial past.
Somewhere, opening the spaces in between has completed a circle for me, as I reminisce the day when I had awaited my turn for my medical exam. Fifty years since that day but never too late. I pay a tribute to both my parents and gratitude to these two men who made it possible for me to be part of this institution.
Harmeet Bhatia
