PART ONE
Lahore and Lahories
Lahore Revisited
AN UNKNOWN gora sahib wrote a small book, more a tract than a book, actually, on my city. It is titled, A Brief Account of the History and Antiquities of Lahore. The job was done under instructions from Sir Robert Montgomery, KCB, and the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab.
The unknown author who wrote the book 134 years ago (1860) quotes from Milton on Lahore in his preface:
"Cities of old or modern fame, the seat of mighty empires which met the eyes of the repentant Adam from the hill of Paradise." ( Paradise Lost , book XI).
And then Moore:
Lahore a city of "palaces and domes" a city of "enchantment sacred to the loves of Lalla Rookh and Feramorz." And listen to this:
They had now arrived at the splendid city of Lahore, whose mausoleums and shrines, magnificent and numberless, where death appeared to share equal honour with Heaven would have powerfully affected the heart and imagination of Lalla Rookh, if feelings more of this earth had not taken entire possession of her already.
The Rajas and Omras in her train, who had kept at a certain distance during the journey and never camped nearer to the princess than was strictly necessary for her safeguard, here rode in splendid cavalcade through the city and distributed the most costly presents to the crowd. Engines were worked in all squares, which cast forth showers of confectionery among the people, while the artisans rode in chariots adorned with tinsel. Such brilliant displays of life and pageantry among the palaces and domes and gilded minarets of Lahore, made the city altogether like a place of enchantment.
I don't know when Moore wrote these lines, but the author of the book in hand says that by the second half of the 19 th century the city had become very much smaller than it was in the heyday of the Mughal empire, and that its population had fallen to 90,000 and that streets were "narrow and wormlike." He adds that apart from its northern sector, Lahore was "neither imposing nor picturesque."
Of Lahore as he found it, the author says: "Few cities have suffered more from desolating hordes and anarchy than Lahore . Eight times did the troops of Ahmad Shah Durrani pass through Lahore; Marattas and Sikhs have done their work of destruction, and the buildings, being for the most part built of brick, have perished and are perishing rapidly from mere exposure." The author says that the city's decline began from 1740 and continued until the end of the Sikh rule.
The following comment on indigenous historians is almost as valid today as when it was made in 1860:
The general histories of India such as those of Ferishta, Nizamuddin Ahmad, Abdul Qadir, the Tarikh-i-Alfi , the Iqbalnamah Jehangiri , & CC., are little more than a chronicle of words, court intrigues and murders and seldom descend to local details; and those of a more local character, such as the work of Abdul Hamid Lahori, the Safinatul Aulia , and the records of the numerous Mahmodean shrines, seem to have been compiled upon the principle of omitting all that is interesting and recording all that is not. Local legends there are, but, for the most part, of so extravagant a character as to be neither instructive nor amusing; the people, moreover, are careless of their own history. . . .
The author then says that all these factors made his task an extremely difficult one. "Still the complier is sensible that he has not done justice to his subject, but if he succeeds in awakening interest and stimulating further antiquarian research, his object will have been attained."
These lines were written in Lahore on October 16, 1860. Today, 134 years later, 47 of them as an independent people, we have yet to awaken interest in our own history. We are as careless of our own history as we were when the British subjugated us. A former foreign secretary was once speaking at a function. During the course of his address, he said: "And now I come to the well informed ignorance of the gentleman of the Press." Can there be a pithier description of the Fourth Estate in the country?
A political leader of some importance said the other day that the government's foreign policy had failed. When someone asked him to explain how and why, he drew a blank. So, the leader, like most of us of the Press, was so well informed that he knew that our foreign policy had failed but he was very ignorant of the nature and causes of its failure.
But why attempt to know? Little knowledge is a dangerous thing, goes the saying. I say too much knowledge is a dangerous thing. Ignorance is bliss is a much better saying.
To return to our unknown chronicler. Who founded Lahore ? The Hindus say Lav or Loh, the Rama's son. The Muslims say it was founded by Malik Ayaz, "the friend and counsellor of Mahmood of Ghazni." The author says both claims are reconcilable. The Hindu city of Lahore was a long way away from its Muslim site, somewhere close to where Icchra stands today. There was, the author notes, "a tradition among the inhabitants of the villages of Icchra and Mozang to this effect. . . . The old name of Icchra was Icchra-Lahore. . . ."
I can also corroborate this. I live in Model Town, a place around eight miles further up from Icchra. Lahore has now expanded miles beyond Model Town. But even today if you want to go to, say, The Mall and someone asks you where are you headed, your answer invariably is: " Yar , I am going to town." In my childhood, we did not use to the word "town." We used to say: " Yar , I am going to Lahore." But this shehr (town) business continues to this day even though, as I said, Model Town has been engulfed by Lahore on all sides.
About the advent of Islam in Lahore, the author says that it was neither sudden nor peaceful but protracted and bloody. He says that Iran was taken after just three battles and Egypt and the north coast of Africa in less than fifty years but it took the Muslims more than two centuries to establish a foothold across the Indus.
Says the author " . . . the result of those long struggles in which Lahore was so conspicuous," was mutual tolerance of each other. "Steady resistance of a people to the religion and customs of their conquerors to the religion and customs of their conquerors will . . . teach even bigots the necessity of toleration. Even now the Mahmodean of the Punjab is perhaps less bigoted, and the Hindu less grossly superstitious, than elsewhere (no longer true, alas) and it is remarkable that two of the boldest reformers which India has produced Gorakhnath and Nanak, were natives of the Punjab ." More some other time.
Friday, April 22, 1994
