Monday, March 18, 2013

1926: Jinnah in Canada and the USA

Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah of Pakistan (1984), page 88:
Jinnah had been appointed to the assembly's Sandhurst Committee in 1925, chaired by then army chief of staff Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Skeen, to study the feasibility of establishing a military college like Sandhurst in India.  He was one of three Indian subcommittee members invited to undertake the grand tour of inspection of military colleges and installations overseas, leaving Bombay early in April and returning home in August.
Report of the Indian Sandhurst Committee, dated 14th November 1926, published 1927 (found via the State Library of Victoria, Australia) tells us that a sub-committee was constituted that
...consisted of Mr. Jinnah, Sir Phiroze Sethna, and Major Zorawar Singh.  Leaving India about the beginning of April 1926, the members first met in London at the end of April.  They visited educational institutions of all kinds in England and also toured in France, Canada and the United States...They returned to India on August 13th, 1926.
Traces of the visit to North America have been hard to come by.




In the Annual Report of the Superintendent, United States Military Academy, 1926,  (available here)  we find only this, under Visitors,
June 9 — Indian Sandhurst Committee
For Canada,

Dominion of Canada Annual Departmental Reports 1926 Volume 2
National Defence (Militia and Air Services) page 65

The text reads (under Visits):
During the month of June the College (Royal Military College of Canada) was visited by representatives of the Indian Sandhurst Committee, who have also visited the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. 
The gentlemen comprising the committee were:- 
Mr Mohammed Ali Jinnah
The Hon. Mr. Pherose C. Sethna, O.B.E.
Major Thakur Zorawar Singh, M.C.
Major Lumby (Secretary)


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