Bahawalpur Amir remembered

Bahawalpur was the first princely state to accede to Pakistan on 3rd October 1947. Sir Sadiq Muhammad Khan Abbasi (V), the direct descendant of the Abbasi Caliphs of Baghdad, was the 13th Amir of Bahawalpur and the last ruler till 13th October 1955.
Born in 1904, he ruled for over three decades. He died on May 24 in London. His accession to throne came on 8 March 1924. He became Major General in 1946, Lieutenant General in 1949, and full honorary General of the Pakistan Army in 1954.
CONTRIBUTIONS: He declared Fez Cap (Turki Topi) as the state head gear, both for army and civil service. His other contributions included the setting up of Sadiq Reading Library, later known as Central Library, a big orphanage at Bahawalpur, which was later shifted to Lahore after the merger of Bahawalpur state into One Unit of West Pakistan, along with about 350 motor vehicles of the State Motor Khana.
The vehicles included Chevrolets, Buicks, Fords, GMCs, Dodges, Plymouths, Stepside pick-ups, lorries, trucks. As many as twenty Norton 500 cc motorcycles of the Bahawalpur State Police (B.S.P) were shifted to Lahore Civil Secretariat.
A list of his accomplishments also shows the construction of three water Head Works, namely Sulemanki, Islam, and Panjnad, as part of Sutlej Valley Project (S.V.P) in 1926 and the setting up of Jamia Abbasia, which later became Islamia University, Bahawalpur. The Senate Hall of Punjab University Lahore and Bahawalpur Block (half of the King Edward Medical College), are the gifts of the Bahawalpur Government to Lahore, besides smaller gifts to the Aitchison College and the zoo of the same city.
When India backed out from making the payment of remaining share of 80 crores out of 100 crores that it owed to Pakistan, the Amir of Bahawalpur came up with a highly significant contribution of 7 crores from the area now comprises Pakistan to help propel the fledgling economy of a newly-born country.
At the time of the merger of the Bahawalpur State Forces into the Pakistan Army, under the new name of 6-B, Div: (The 6th Bahawalpur Division), the Amir helped Pakistan by another huge contribution of 1,25,00,000. Captain Alfred Ramsey Massey, who was dismissed, court marshaled, and later jailed at the Attock Fort for disobeying General Dyer's illegal command to open fire on un-armed civilians, was jobless because he embraced Islam during his confinement.
He was accommodated as a Major in the 1st Bahawalpur Light Infantry, of the Bahawalpur State Force (BSF). Both Colonel and Begum Abdul Rehman Massey are buried in the army graveyard at Dera Nawab Sahib.
Regretting to accept the position of the Governor General after the Quaid's death, His Highness Sir Sadiq stepped aside from the rulership on the merger of 7 princely states and four provinces into the newly created mess of West Pakistan. Nobody gives an acre, he gave 20,000 square miles, an area equal to Denmark, history as old as that of the United States, and the last highly valuable 'nishani' of the Abbasi caliphs of Baghdad.