Tag Archives: LAHORE

Colonial Lahore of Rai Bahadur sir Ganga Ram

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Lahore had been a capital of Mughals and Sikhs long before the East India Company’s annexation of the Punjab. Destabilisation in the region after the death of Ranjit Singh served as an alibi for British Military intervention, which enabled the final annexation of Lahore. Lahore came under direct control of the British East India Company in 1849.During the colonial era Lahore became the centre of a web of religious, cultural and personal connections reaching out to the cities of the Indian sub-continent and to the world. Colonial Lahore featured on the tourist trails eased by railway links and hotel development. 

The city transformed under the colonial state that used it as a symbol of its Majestic power. Lahore became one of the largest cities of the Indian subcontinent. Colonial period laid the foundations of modern Lahore with Indo- Islamic style of architecture. A few miles from the walled city were scattered villages surrounded with landscape. The British were interested in the fertile lands of the Punjab. The Lahore Canal was built to open up barren lands between Lahore and Ferozepur. In 1861 the British, with the experience of the 1837 famine in the sub-continent in mind, decided to build a series of canals to open up fertile lands to ensure that future famines were avoided. 

Sir John Lawrence, Governor of Punjab laid the foundation stone of Lahore Railway station in 1959, it was one of the earliest purpose built structure in Lahore, which was completed in three years. The British built Mall roads in most of the cities they ruled. The origin of Mall roads is known as Pall Mall in London. To connect Anarkali with the new British administrative area known as Mian Mir Cantonment, a public road was built that was named Mall Road, which is a classic example of colonial era Lahore that has developmental history. 1860 was of historic significance for the Mall road, as it marked the beginning of its landscape development. 

Mall road shows the vision of the British who envisaged itsconception keeping the future scenario in view. In early colonial accounts, Lahore as a city is confined to the walled city. British confinement of Lahore to the spaces inside the walled and gated city enabled administrators collating facts about the city to separate it from its suburbs and contiguous areas.

The early residential development in Lower Mall was known as Donald town. The Upper Mall was both an administrative and recreational area with the Government house and the Lawrence Gardens in which the Lahore Gymkhana Club was located. The central Mall was known as Charing Cross. The alignments of the Mall road remained unchanged until 1920, where after extensive developments were made in the eastern sections of GPO crossing by the Executive Engineer Sir Ganga Ram.

The history and architecture of Lahore cannot be separated from Sir Ganga Ram, who was one of the most respectable names when it comes to the beautification or welfare services in Lahore. Sir Ganga Ram was the father of modern Lahore. His works stand tall even today and each monument speaks for his meticulousness and eye for detail. For twelve years, he was the executive engineer of Lahore, a period which has been called as Ganga Ram period of Architecture.

The Lahore High Court, the museum, Post Office Building,the Anglican Cathedral, and National College of Arts are a few of the several examples constructed following this hybrid tradition. In these structures, balconies, columns and watchtowers, interact with domes, canopies, arches and screens. In Lahore, all of these iconic structures were raised by Ganga Ram. From the leafy end of the Mall that begins with the Aitcheson College to the university and Lahore museum it is the spirit and creative vision of Ganga Ram which permeate the air. Ganga Ram also built and endowed the Maynard hall and Hailey hall for the Punjab University.Working with the colonial state, he transformed the landscape of the city to reflect the glory of this new empire. A new cityhad been raised from the debris of its Mughal past.

Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore 1921, Lady McLagan Girls High School, the chemistry department of the Government College University, the Albert Victor wing of Mayo Hospital, Sir Ganga Ram High School, now Lahore College for Women, the Hailey College of Commerce, now Hailey College of Banking & Finance, Ravi Road House for the Disabled, the Ganga Ram Trust Building on The Mall and Lady Maynard Industrial School. He also constructed Model Town and Gulberg town of Lahore, and the railway track between Pathankot and Amritsar. He also gave Lahore new waterworks in addition to many other buildings.

He died in London on 10 July 1927. His body was cremated and his ashes were brought back to Lahore. A portion of the ashes were consigned to Ganges River and the rest buried at his Samadhi in Lahore on the bank of the Ravi River.  Sir Ganga Ram had served Lahore with his intellect and zeal for giving Lahore the best architecture which is a pride of Lahore.

The brothel houses were first developed by the British in old Anarkali Bazaar for the recreation of the British soldiers during the British Raj. After that these were shifted to Lohari Gate and then to Taxali Gate. Under the British colonial rule, Heera Mandi became a hub of prostitution. The place was originally the center of the city’s courtesan culture in the Mughal era, known as the Shahi Mohallah, it was a specific place where the servants, and courtesans of the king used tolive. The British authorities offered several justifications for the British regulation of prostitution in colonial British India. One justification of such state regulation of prostitution was the notion that prostitution was a vital safeguard against homosexuality. The British saw another further need for prostitution, It was seen as necessary to stave off boredom among soldiers. The British preserved and regulated prostitution through mandatory licensing and medical examinations, not out of concern for prostitutes, but out of concern for their own military men.

Sleepless on a hot August night, the narrator sets off towards Lahore City. 

The moon blazes down onto sleeping men, lying like corpses. 

A restless child stirs on a rooftop, and is stilled by its mother. 

Through the Delhi Gate he enters the walled city, where it seems even hotter and more stifling.

He hears men talking and pulling at their hookahs, and a shopkeeper balancing his books behind the shutters. 

At the Mosque of Wazir Khan he climbs a dark stair to a minaret high above the moonlit city. 

A muezzin gives his splendid cry to prayer, briefly rousing the sleeping men………

__ James Thomson

Napoleon Bonaparte of Lahore: Maharaja Ranjit Singh

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For Ranjit Singh, it was the capture of Lahore that was the ultimate step, transforming him from a warlord to a Maharaja. In July 1799 Ranjit Singh seized Lahore and in 1801 Ranjit Singh proclaimed himself maharaja of the Punjab. In July 1819 he finally expelled the Pashtuns from the Vale of Kashmir, and by 1820 he had consolidated his rule over the whole Punjab between the Sutlej and Indus rivers. Ranjit Singh had become a Sikh Napoleon, a Punjabi sun king.

Short in stature, never schooled, and did not learn to read or write anything beyond the Gurmukhi alphabet. He rose from the status of chieftain to become the most powerful Hindustani ruler of his time. He was the first Hindustani in a thousand years to stem the tides of invasions from whence they had come across the north-west frontiers of Hindustan. A French traveller compared him to Napoleon in miniature, while other observers praised him as a military genius. 

Ranjit Singh presided over a multi-ethnic, multi-faith, multi-caste empire of remarkable toleration and inclusivity. The army included Hindus, Muslims, and European Christians French, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and Prussian, though not British. His administration was a diverse affair; his prime minister was a Dogra Rajput, his finance minister a Brahmin, his foreign minister a Muslim. He set up separate courts for Muslims. Nezam Din was appointed chief Qazi with Mohammed Shah Puri and Saidullah Chishti as the two Muftis. For those Muslims who, like the Hindus and the Sikhs, preferred to be governed by the customary law of their caste or district, the Maharaja set up separate courts under judicial officers appointed by the Durbar. Hakim Nurudddin, the younger brother of Faqeer Aziz Uddin, was appointed chief medical officer.

Hindu and Sikh admirers deified him as a virtuous man and a selfless patriot. This academic apotheosis reduced a full-blooded man and an astute politician to an anaemic saint and a simple-minded nationalist. Muslim historians were unduly harsh in describing him as an avaricious freebooter. English writers, who took their material largely from Muslim sources, portrayed him as a cunning man, devoid of moral considerations, whose only redeeming feature was his friendship with the English____ Khushwant Singh

Lahore: Citadel of Tolerance

According to historical references, Ranjit Singh’s army desecrated Lahore’s Badshahi Mosque and converted it into an ammunition store, and horse stables. Lahore’s Moti Mosque was converted into Moti Temple by the Sikh army, and Sonehri Mosque was converted into a Sikh Gurdwara. Lahore’s Begum Shahi Mosque was also used as a gunpowder factory. 

But on the other hand Maharani Jind Kaur, the mother of Duleep Singh, donated a collection of handwritten Qurans to Data Sahab Durbar. Mai Moran Mosque which he built for his beloved Muslim wife Moran Sarkar, or how on  the request of Sufi Faqeer Satar Shah Bukhari, Ranjit Singh restored the Sunehri Mosque  back to a mosque.

Once a calligraphist who had spent many years making a copy of the Koran turned up at Lahore to try and sell it to the foreign minister, Faqeer Aziz Uddin. The foreign minister praised the work but expressed his inability to pay for it. The argument was overheard by Ranjit Singh who summoned the calligraphist to his presence. He scrutinized the writing with his single eye. He was impressed with the excellence of the work and bought the Holy Quran for his private collection; later Faqeer Aziz Uddin asked him why he had paid such a high price for a book for which he, as a Sikh, would have no use. 

Maharaja replied: God intended me to look upon all religions with one eye; that is why he took away the light from the other.

The Hazuri Bagh Baradari in Shalamar Gardens was built by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, to celebrate his capture of the Koh-I-Noor diamond from Shuja Shah Durrani in 1813.

A market of food stuff that was set up by Heera Singh became known as Heera Mandi, which was known as the Shahi Mohalla, it was a specific place where the servants and courtesans of the king used to live. It never was a place for prostitution in the Mughal era.

The personal life of Ranjit Singh was as colourful as his political career. He loved to surround himself with handsome men and beautiful women. He lived the life of a soldier and drank hard. Ranjit Singh married many times, in various ceremonies, and had eighteen wives. In an interview with French journal Le Voltaire his youngest son Duleep Singh quoted; I am the son of one of my father’s forty-six wives.

Kipling’s description of Ranjit Singh: Four things greater than all things are Women and Horses and Power and War.

Ranjit Singh had eight sons, but he acknowledged only Kharak Singh and Duleep Singh as his biological sons. His eldest was Maharaja Kharak Singh was the eldest from his second wife. Duleep Singh was from his last wife, Jind Kaur. 

Ranjit Singh suffered from numerous health complications, three strokes, which some historical records attribute to alcoholism. He died in Lahore on 27 June 1839.Four of his Hindu wives, and seven Hindu concubines with royal titles committed sati by voluntarily placing themselves onto his funeral pyre as an act of devotion. This happened despite the fact that the Sikh Gurus had condemned and denounced the man-made notion of the inferiority of women and protested against their long subjugation. Samadhi of Maharaja Ranjit Singh is located adjacent the Badshahi Mosque, a sign of religious tolerance.

When Kharak Singh died in 1840, his son Nau Nihal Singh performed his last rites beside the Ravi River in Lahore. When he was returning to the palace via the Hazuri Bagh, a massive block of stone from a gate fell upon him and died instantly.

In many ways a bastion of stability, altruism, and tolerationfor forty years, Ranjit Singh’s reign was not without its shortcomings. Investment in infrastructure failed to keep pace with military spending and the jagir tax system, inherited from the Mughals, went unreformed. Without a lasting framework for future governance, after Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839, the empire was weakened by internal divisions and political mismanagement. 

This opportunity was used by the British East India Company to launch the Anglo-Sikh Wars. The Sikh empire was finally dissolved at the end of the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849 into separate princely states and the British province of Punjab. Eventually, a Lieutenant Governorship was formed in Lahore as a direct representative of the British Crown.

When the pages of history are written, it is not the angry defenders of religious intolerance who have made the difference but 

Bonaparte of Lahore: Maharaja Ranjit Singh

For Ranjit Singh, it was the capture of Lahore that was the ultimate step, transforming him from a warlord to a Maharaja. In July 1799 Ranjit Singh seized Lahore and in 1801 Ranjit Singh proclaimed himself maharaja of the Punjab. In July 1819 he finally expelled the Pashtuns from the Vale of Kashmir, and by 1820 he had consolidated his rule over the whole Punjab between the Sutlej and Indus rivers. Ranjit Singh had become a Sikh Napoleon, a Punjabi sun king.

Short in stature, never schooled, and did not learn to read or write anything beyond the Gurmukhi alphabet. He rose from the status of chieftain to become the most powerful Hindustani ruler of his time. He was the first Hindustani in a thousand years to stem the tides of invasions from whence they had come across the north-west frontiers of Hindustan. A French traveller compared him to Napoleon in miniature, while other observers praised him as a military genius. 

Ranjit Singh presided over a multi-ethnic, multi-faith, multi-caste empire of remarkable toleration and inclusivity. The army included Hindus, Muslims, and European Christians French, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and Prussian, though not British. His administration was a diverse affair; his prime minister was a Dogra Rajput, his finance minister a Brahmin, his foreign minister a Muslim. He set up separate courts for Muslims. Nezam Din was appointed chief Qazi with Mohammed Shah Puri and Saidullah Chishti as the two Muftis. For those Muslims who, like the Hindus and the Sikhs, preferred to be governed by the customary law of their caste or district, the Maharaja set up separate courts under judicial officers appointed by the Durbar. Hakim Nurudddin, the younger brother of Faqeer Aziz Uddin, was appointed chief medical officer.

Hindu and Sikh admirers deified him as a virtuous man and a selfless patriot. This academic apotheosis reduced a full-blooded man and an astute politician to an anaemic saint and a simple-minded nationalist. Muslim historians were unduly harsh in describing him as an avaricious freebooter. English writers, who took their material largely from Muslim sources, portrayed him as a cunning man, devoid of moral considerations, whose only redeeming feature was his friendship with the English____ Khushwant Singh

Lahore: Citadel of Tolerance

According to historical references, Ranjit Singh’s army desecrated Lahore’s Badshahi Mosque and converted it into an ammunition store, and horse stables. Lahore’s Moti Mosque was converted into Moti Temple by the Sikh army, and Sonehri Mosque was converted into a Sikh Gurdwara. Lahore’s Begum Shahi Mosque was also used as a gunpowder factory. 

But on the other hand Maharani Jind Kaur, the mother of Duleep Singh, donated a collection of handwritten Qurans to Data Sahab Durbar. Mai Moran Mosque which he built for his beloved Muslim wife Moran Sarkar, or how on  the request of Sufi Faqeer Satar Shah Bukhari, Ranjit Singh restored the Sunehri Mosque  back to a mosque.

Once a calligraphist who had spent many years making a copy of the Koran turned up at Lahore to try and sell it to the foreign minister, Faqeer Aziz Uddin. The foreign minister praised the work but expressed his inability to pay for it. The argument was overheard by Ranjit Singh who summoned the calligraphist to his presence. He scrutinized the writing with his single eye. He was impressed with the excellence of the work and bought the Holy Quran for his private collection; later Faqeer Aziz Uddin asked him why he had paid such a high price for a book for which he, as a Sikh, would have no use. 

Maharaja replied: God intended me to look upon all religions with one eye; that is why he took away the light from the other.

The Hazuri Bagh Baradari in Shalamar Gardens was built by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, to celebrate his capture of the Koh-I-Noor diamond from Shuja Shah Durrani in 1813.

A market of food stuff that was set up by Heera Singh became known as Heera Mandi, which was known as the Shahi Mohalla, it was a specific place where the servants and courtesans of the king used to live. It never was a place for prostitution in the Mughal era.

The personal life of Ranjit Singh was as colourful as his political career. He loved to surround himself with handsome men and beautiful women. He lived the life of a soldier and drank hard. Ranjit Singh married many times, in various ceremonies, and had eighteen wives. In an interview with French journal Le Voltaire his youngest son Duleep Singh quoted; I am the son of one of my father’s forty-six wives.

Kipling’s description of Ranjit Singh: Four things greater than all things are Women and Horses and Power and War.

Ranjit Singh had eight sons, but he acknowledged only Kharak Singh and Duleep Singh as his biological sons. His eldest was Maharaja Kharak Singh was the eldest from his second wife. Duleep Singh was from his last wife, Jind Kaur. 

Ranjit Singh suffered from numerous health complications, three strokes, which some historical records attribute to alcoholism. He died in Lahore on 27 June 1839.Four of his Hindu wives, and seven Hindu concubines with royal titles committed sati by voluntarily placing themselves onto his funeral pyre as an act of devotion. This happened despite the fact that the Sikh Gurus had condemned and denounced the man-made notion of the inferiority of women and protested against their long subjugation. Samadhi of Maharaja Ranjit Singh is located adjacent the Badshahi Mosque, a sign of religious tolerance.

When Kharak Singh died in 1840, his son Nau Nihal Singh performed his last rites beside the Ravi River in Lahore. When he was returning to the palace via the Hazuri Bagh, a massive block of stone from a gate fell upon him and died instantly.

In many ways a bastion of stability, altruism, and tolerationfor forty years, Ranjit Singh’s reign was not without its shortcomings. Investment in infrastructure failed to keep pace with military spending and the jagir tax system, inherited from the Mughals, went unreformed. Without a lasting framework for future governance, after Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839, the empire was weakened by internal divisions and political mismanagement. 

This opportunity was used by the British East India Company to launch the Anglo-Sikh Wars. The Sikh empire was finally dissolved at the end of the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849 into separate princely states and the British province of Punjab. Eventually, a Lieutenant Governorship was formed in Lahore as a direct representative of the British Crown.

When the pages of history are written, it is not the angry defenders of religious intolerance who have made the difference but 

FALLING IN LOVE…

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Falling in love again and again; Lahore

My soul is entangled with the indifferent one

Lord of all things visible and invisible.

Madhu Laal Husain

The Lahore I love is so beautifully expressed by Bapsi Sidhwa; the city conjures up gardens and fragrances, the gardens in thousands of Lahori homes with their riot of spring flowers. The trees bloom in a carnival of jewel colours, the defiant brilliance of kachnar, bougainvillea and gulmohr silhouetted against an azure sky. And the winter and spring air are heady, they make the blood hum. On summer evenings the scent from the water sprinkled on the parched earth signals respite from the furnace of the day, for the summers are as hellish as the winters are divine. The city’s ambience has moulded my sensibility and emotional responses. To belong to Lahore is to be steeped in its romance, to inhale with each breath an intensity of feeling that demands expressions.

Lahore; the ancient whore, the handmaiden of dimly remembered Hindu Kings, the courtesan of Mughal Emperors, bedecked and bejewelled, savaged by marauding hordes, healed by the caressing hands of successive lovers. A little shoddy, as Qasim saw her; like an attractive but ageing concubine, ready to bestow surprising delights on those who cared to court her, profoundly displaying Royal gifts.

According to popular traditions Lahore was founded by Loh, one of the twin sons of Lord Rama, the epic hero of Ramayana. The other son Kush is said to have founded Kusawar or Kasu. The city was called Loh in the beginning; it acquired its present name when “awar” was attached to it, which means fort in Sanskrit. When Sultan Mahmud Ghazni seized Lahore his general, Malik Ayaz built the citadel, later to be replaced by Emperor Akbar’s brick construction.

Punjab is referred Panchal in Mahabharata, and Draupati wife of Arjun was called Panchali, the daughter of the Punjab. Lahore Fort has a vacant temple dedicated to Loh. Western historians believe the personages in the Ramayana existed between the sixth and seventh century BC, which proves that Lahore is one of the oldest cities in the world.

The name of Lahore is also celebrated in the legends and quasi-historical traditions of other Hindu states associated with the age of chivalry of the Hindus and their ancient civilisation. The first historical reference to the city is found in the journals of the Chinese pilgrim, written in 630 AD. At the time of Bin Qasim’s invasion of Sindh, Lahore was in the possession of a Chauhan prince. In 1008 the last Rajput king who was defeated by Mahmud Ghazni fled to Ajmer. In 1022 Mahmud Ghazni seized Lahore without any opposition. The Mongols invaded and conquered the Khwarazmian dynasty. The Mongol army advanced and in 1241 and defeated the Lahore governor Malik Ikhtyaruddin Qaraqash, massacred the population and the city was leveled to the ground. There are no buildings or monuments in Lahore that predates the Mongol destruction.

Lahore had welcomed visitors and settlers throughout its history. It has changed hands from Hindu, Buddhist, Greek, Mughal, Afghan, Mongol, Sikh and the British, thereby becoming the cultural capital and the heart of modern day Pakistan. Invaded and conquered many times, but apart from invasions, Sufis from different parts of the world settelled in Lahore too, the existence of shrines of great saints like Data Ganj Bakhsh, Mian Mir and Baba Shah Jamal are the living examples. Sufi thinking became popular among the people, because of their message of brotherhood, tolerance, unity and respect for other religions, besides promoting Islamic values.

It was during the reign of Sultan Ibrahim Ghazni that Abul Hassan Ali Hajveri came to Lahore. Ali Hajveri had travelled widely like many Sufi saints, visiting Baghdad, Basra, Bukhara, Damascus, and Khorasan before settling in Lahore. Ali Hajveri was one of the most notable Sufi preachers on the subcontinent. He is said to have lived on the site in the 11th Century. The Shrine of Ali Hajveri is located west of Bhatti Gate. Data Darbar is one of the oldest Muslim shrines on the subcontinent. It was originally built by the Ghaznavi king Sultan Zakiruddin Ibrahim and has been expanded several times since.

Baba Sain Mir Mohammed Sahib, popularly known as Mian Mir was another famous Sufi saint who resided in Lahore, specifically in the town of Dharampura. He is famous for being a spiritual instructor of Dara Shikoh. According to Sikh tradition, the Sikh guru Guru Arjun Dev met Mian Mir during their stay in Lahore. Mian Mir’s Mausoleum still attracts hundreds of devotees.

Baba Shah Jamal who belonged to a famous Kashmiri family came to Lahore in 1617 CE. He lived in Ichra at the time of Mughal emperor Akbar. Shah Jamal fought against Akbar’s Deen e Ilahi. He died in 1671 CE and was buried near Ichra in Tomb of Shah Jamal. The area has been named Shah Jamal in his honour.

And lastly we have another famous shrine of Shah Husain in Baghbanpura,  a pair of two graves next to each other, one of Shah Hussain and one of Madhu Laal. Both marked with a single emblem reading, SAKHI SARKAR MADHU LAAL HUSAIN.

Shah Husain, who neither belonged to a direct lineage of the Prophet Muhammad nor a wealthy merchant household.

Says Husain the worthless fakir, I am the dust on your doorstep.

After spending years learning the teachings of the Holy Quran and what his teacher would refer to as the true path towards salvation. Shah Hussain’s life took a turn when he came across a Brahmin Hindu boy, Madhu Laal. He was overwhelmed by the feeling of love and enchantment. Everyone questioned their attachment and called them with different names. Shah Hussain believed in the value of self-blame, that piety should be a private matter and that being held in good esteem will lead to worldly attachment. The bond between the two went so deep that Shah Hussain put his name after his beloved’s, becoming Madhu Laal Hussain.

The Urs of Madhu Laal Hussain is celebrated at his shrine, adjacent to the Shalimar Gardens. The Urs and the Mela were two separate events, one carried out at the shrine and the other in the Shalimar Gardens, until they were both combined into one, Mela Chiraghan which still is regarded as the biggest festival of Punjab, and has been a symbol of love, devotion, harmony and defiance of social customs.

Shah Husain says:

O God, do not mind my faults; full of failing,

I am without virtue.

O God, from within, show compassion,

 and enlighten me.

To the men of the world, the pride of the world,

to the recluse, renunciation

all masks, masks, masks!

Neither the man of the worlds, nor a recluse am I,

And they laugh at me, at me,

Who has befriended the terrible one