Even after surviving six attempted assassinations, Sir Charles Tegart continued to drive about in an open-top vehicle with his Staffordshire Bull Terrier on the bonnet. This colonial police officer kept a defused bomb as a paperweight to remind him of the assassination attempts. He reportedly threw the bomb in a fit of rage, making the bomb explode against the wall of his office. Tegart found it hilarious.
Born in Londonderry, Ireland, before partition, he devoted his life to the British Empire and the preservation of its glory. His reputation in India, a “metaphorical jewel” of the British crown, was that of the hated enemy of the nationalists.
Tegart was 20 years old — in his first year at Trinity College — when he saw a recruitment announcement for Colonial Police in India. He was one of seventeen people who passed the recruiting and horsemanship tests out of one hundred and fifty. Tegart and the other recruits travelled to Bengal, India, via boat.
He attended Bhagalpur’s Police Training College, where he learned local languages and criminal law. After completing his training, Tegart was placed in command of the police in Patna City. Over the following four years, he rose to the ranks of acting deputy commissioner of Calcutta.
Tegart, who resided in Calcutta with other bachelors, remembered how they spent their time shooting bats at night. He had also shattered one of his roommates’ jaws during a fistfight. The male “colonial camaraderie” also prompted him to ride a bicycle down the stairs of their bachelor pad the night before his close friend’s wedding. In the process, he fractured his ankle.
Charles Tegart was notorious and full of youthful notions of masculinity. He was a private person, not one to show his emotions. His diary entries only included appointment dates with no details of the purpose of the meetings. Tegart’s image we create of colonial masculinity perfectly fits the criteria for Colonial police officers: muscle over brains, quiet and intimidating demeanour, and bullheaded loyalty.
During his day, police were not about suspect profiling, forensic evidence, and human rights; Tegart was just unimaginable. He employed abrasive tactics against his foes, often resorting to violence and a ruthless approach to prisoners. Regardless, Tegart was highly reputed for his methods and techniques, for India was seen as the “trouble spot” during its struggle for independence.
As the Indian struggle for independence from British colonial authority grew in strength and popularity after the First World War, unrest and acts of resistance in Bengal became stronger.
Tegart and the British colonialists considered the leaders of the freedom movement to be “revolutionaries”, and their methods were labelled as “terrorism.” Tegart was particularly interested in fighting such acts of violence and gained a reputation for successfully suppressing “terrorists” and “revolutionaries.”
Tegart was involved in many skirmishes with the Indian revolutionaries and was loathed by the nationalists. Hence, the attempts of assassinations.
On a cold January morning in 1924, a businessman named Mr. Earnest Day was gazing at a store window with his back to the street. He resembled Tegart. So, a young Bengali who assumed him to be Tegart shot Mr Day several times. The victim died from his injuries, and Tegart apprehended the culprit.
Tegart’s widow subsequently spoke of her husband’s ability to “convert” young revolutionaries away from violence and recruit these “converts” as police informants. Her naïve and friendly narrative contrasted with accounts of police violence and coercion in India at the time; if anything, it reveals a startling British imperialist self-perception. Tegart’s writings show that he thought of himself and his methods as enlightened.
Many deceased Indian males appear in Tegart’s photos, which he took during his years in India and brought back to England. He scribbled their names on the backs of the photographs, often mentioning the crime for which they were hunted.
The Arab people of Palestine rebelled in 1936, partially in protest of Britain’s decision to allow Jewish immigration from Europe into the Holy Land. Palestine was the “hinge of empire.” It controlled access to the Suez Canal and provided the quickest and cheapest route for soldiers and commerce to and from India.
The Colonial Office contacted Tegart to offer him the post of Inspector-General of Police in Palestine as the violence in Palestine continued to escalate. He turned down the job since he was unfamiliar with the nation. He proposed he go to Palestine as a counterterrorism specialist to examine the police force and offer reform suggestions.
In late November 1937, the Tegart set sail for Port Said. To halt the rebellious behaviour, he devised a radical—and dramatic—solution. Within four weeks of his arrival, Tegart had fourteen recommendations for urgent action. They were not the suggestions for reorganising the Palestine Police that Tegart was tasked with; rather, they were urgent actions taken by the government and police to put a stop to the uprising. The high commissioner accepted all of his suggestions within a few days.
Tegart believed that robust border control with Syria and Lebanon was essential. He thought the one-time cost of erecting barriers would save money in the long term. He suggested building barb-wired fences along the border with a line of forts to keep Arab gangs from smuggling guns and weapons south into Palestine from Lebanon and Syria.
Each would be well-constructed to withstand bombardment, siege, and direct attack. Ammunition and supplies would have plenty of room to be stored. British tactics would shift around the new defences.
Tegart had persuaded the high commissioner, the general officer in command, and the Executive Council of the need for his proposal by March 1938. The word broke in early April that an electric fence for the border was being examined. The press speculated that the wall would be thirty feet high, which would electrocute trespassers. The border barrier was dubbed “Tegart’s Wall” among military personnel and in the press.
Tegart expected it to cost £80,000; the military officials estimated £300,000, and the high commissioner sought £150,000 for its construction. The Secretary of State for the Colonies issued a telegraph to the High Commissioner for Palestine on April 6, 1938, mandating “approve[d] expenditure not to exceed £150,000 for frontier fence and re-siting and redesigning of Police Posts.”
David Hacohen, a director of the Jewish construction company Solel Boneh, recounts a discussion with Tegart about his contract to build the wall in his memoirs. He told Tegart that a lack of barbed wire in the UK would hamper the project.
According to Hacohen, Tegart joked that since he did not hold shares in British barbed wire businesses, Solel Boneh was free to purchase it wherever it was available. Soleh Boneh purchased it from Mussolini’s Italy.
The 9-foot barrier was quickly constructed, but rebels destroyed a portion even before completion. Because the fence obstructed legal commerce and crossed fields and private property, Arab tractors and bulldozers continuously tore it down.
When the Arab Revolt ended in 1939, the barbed fence was taken down. However, many concrete police stations and pillboxes built along the wall remain today. Certain authorities considered “Tegart’s Wall” a success.
A farewell cocktail party and numerous dinner parties were held in honour of Sir Charles and Lady Tegart as they prepared to leave Palestine in June 1938. A goodbye supper at the King David Hotel, where a tiny ‘Tegart’s Wall,’ constructed of genuine barbed wire and replete with pillbox guard towers, ran down the middle of the table as a centrepiece. Tegart’s chair used barbed wire for decoration, which was a seat of honour.
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