It was during one of those rare, unguarded evenings that the carefully maintained armor around him seemed to loosen.
The day had been long, burdened by meetings, ceremonial obligations, and the exhausting theater of authority that Aitchison so often demanded of its headmaster. The College had settled into its familiar evening rhythm. The shouts from the playing fields had begun to fade, the old trees cast long shadows across the lawns, and the Lahore sky was slowly surrendering to dusk.
We sat quietly in the corridor, saying very little.
There are moments in life when silence creates a space in which people reveal truths they have carried for years. That evening was one of them.
For the first time since his arrival, he was not the confident expatriate headmaster entrusted with leading one of Pakistan’s most prestigious institutions. He was simply a thoughtful New Zealander, visibly tired, wrestling with questions that seemed to have followed him across continents.
For several minutes he remained silent, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond the old buildings.
Then he spoke.
“You know,” he said quietly, “before we foreigners take up appointments in countries like Pakistan, we are briefed by our embassies.”
I assumed he was referring to routine matters.
Perhaps advice about security.
Political sensitivities.
Local customs.
The usual guidance given to anyone accepting an overseas appointment.
But his expression suggested something altogether different.
“They tell us,” he continued slowly, choosing every word with obvious care, “never to become too familiar with the locals.”
He paused.
“They say that if you become too friendly, you lose authority.”
Another silence followed.
“They advise us to maintain distance. To remain detached. To remember that these societies respect firmness more than friendship.”
He looked away, almost embarrassed by what he was about to admit.
“In plain language,” he said at last, “we are taught to behave as though the people around us are somehow beneath us.”
His words hung heavily between us.
Neither of us spoke for several moments.
In that instant, nearly two centuries of colonial history seemed to compress themselves into a single sentence.
The empire had departed decades earlier.
Yet here was living proof that some of its oldest assumptions continued to travel quietly across oceans, not through armies or governments, but through advice, briefings, and professional culture.
The message had changed its vocabulary but not its spirit.
Superiority had merely become “professional distance.”
Suspicion had become “good management.”
Detachment had become “leadership.”
The language was modern.
The psychology was unmistakably colonial.
He sensed my silence and continued.
“They also tell us not to trust people too easily.”
He smiled sadly.
“Some even say that kindness is interpreted as weakness.”
There was no arrogance in his voice.
If anything, there was discomfort.
Perhaps even shame.
It became increasingly clear that he was not defending these instructions.
He was questioning them.
“I’ve often wondered,” he said thoughtfully, “whether the people who give these briefings have ever really known the countries they speak about.”
That simple observation revealed something important.
He had begun to discover for himself what no briefing document could teach.
The Pakistan he encountered bore little resemblance to the one he had been warned about.
Instead of finding people eager to exploit kindness, he found colleagues whose generosity frequently exceeded his expectations.
Instead of discovering hostility, he encountered warmth.
Instead of suspicion, he found hospitality.
Slowly, experience was dismantling prejudice.
Unlearning an Empire
As I listened, I realized that he too had become a prisoner of history.
Not history as dates and battles recorded in textbooks, but history embedded in habits of thinking.
He had inherited assumptions that neither he nor those who briefed him had consciously created.
Generations of imperial administration had taught British and Commonwealth officials that authority required emotional distance.
That respect depended upon hierarchy.
That familiarity weakened command.
Perhaps no one had ever stopped to ask whether those assumptions had been true in the first place.
Empires have an extraordinary ability to convince themselves that their methods are not merely effective but natural.
Over time, prejudice ceases to feel like prejudice.
It becomes common sense.
The most dangerous ideas are often those that appear perfectly ordinary.
Looking at him that evening, I realized that he was quietly unlearning lessons taught long before he was born.
That required courage.
It is easier to defend inherited beliefs than to question them.
Many never do.
He had.
Perhaps that was why I respected him despite our differences.
He possessed something more valuable than certainty.
He possessed the willingness to reconsider.
That conversation remained with me long after it ended because it explained so much that had puzzled me throughout my career.
It explained why certain foreign administrators maintained such careful emotional distance from the very people whose trust they needed.
It explained why some mistook courtesy for submission and disagreement for insubordination.
It explained why consultation was often replaced by instruction.
Above all, it explained why genuine friendship between ruler and ruled had always been viewed with suspicion throughout the history of empire.
Authority, after all, becomes much harder to preserve once people begin treating one another as equals.
The colonial script lives on
As I reflected upon that conversation, memories from different periods of my life began connecting themselves like pieces of a puzzle.
The English principal at Lawrence College.
The Australian principal at Aitchison.
Various expatriate administrators I had encountered over four decades.
They were, of course, individuals with different personalities.
Some were thoughtful.
Some were considerate.
Others were less so.
Yet many seemed to have been following versions of the same unwritten script.
Remain detached.
Project confidence.
Never appear uncertain.
Maintain authority.
Do not become too familiar.
The remarkable thing was not that such advice existed.
The remarkable thing was that it was still being passed from one generation to another long after the Empire itself had ceased to exist.
The colonial office had disappeared.
The briefing survived.
The Viceroy had gone.
The mentality endured.
Yet there was another side to this story that troubled me even more.
Foreign administrators could perhaps be forgiven for arriving with inherited assumptions.
Those assumptions had been handed to them by their own institutions.
What excuse, however, did we have?
Why did so many among our own educated elite continue to reinforce exactly the same attitudes?
Why did they so readily confuse foreignness with competence?
Why did they instinctively attribute greater wisdom to imported leadership than to proven local experience?
The more I reflected upon these questions, the more I realized that colonialism leaves behind two kinds of prisoners.
Those who once ruled.
And those who became accustomed to being ruled.
Both inherit habits that are surprisingly difficult to abandon.
One inherits the habit of commanding.
The other, the habit of deferring.
Neither habit belongs in a truly independent nation.
The consequences of those attitudes would soon become unmistakably visible.
I witnessed them publicly during one unforgettable meeting between the Principal and the parents of Aitchison boys.
It was there that the invisible script of empire was no longer whispered in private conversation.
It was performed before an entire audience.
Sometimes history speaks not through books, but through an honest confession.
With an educational career spanning four decades, Hussain has served as teacher, schoolmaster and acting principal of Aitchison College, Lahore, where he taught English.