Imagining Lahore

  Model Town was the ultimate expression of aspiration for the growing educated elite. This was also made possible with the advent of motor vehicles in Lahore which changed the way people conceived distance and time, thus allowing suburban communities to develop further away from the walled city. The distance between the walled city and Model Town is more than 10 kilometres. From 1943, a regular bus service started between Model Town and the Shah Alami market in the walled city.73

  It wasn’t, however, just architecture that changed under the colonial state. Several local institutions quickly eroded as the society experienced seismic shifts. Perhaps the biggest loss was of indigenous educational institutions. A remarkable report detailing the different kinds of local models of education in Punjab was compiled by G.W. Leitner thirty-three years after the annexation of the province. It contains a scathing indictment of the devastation of the indigenous education system following the introduction of the British education system.

  The various kinds of schools identified by Leitner included Persian, Quranic, Sanskrit and Gurmukhi. There were also specialized schools for the children of merchants. At a higher level, students were encouraged to seek the guidance of specialists in their fields. Leitner points out how rigorous the syllabus was for certain subjects such as astronomy, mathematics, medicine, philosophy and theology.

  The colonial state completely ignored these indigenous models of education when it introduced its ‘modern’ education system. Education, along with infrastructural development, became a tool of propaganda to highlight the benevolence of the colonial state. Any form of education that did not emerge from the European system was derided and looked down upon. The Indian elite, trained in institutions set up by the British, internalized these colonial attitudes. The present education model of Pakistan (and India) is a direct legacy of the colonial system, where indigenous systems and methodologies have all but disappeared.

  A wide gulf opened up between ‘educated’ children and their ‘uneducated’ parents. Urdu, a foreign language until then in Punjab, was imposed as a medium of education, along with English. The knowledge that the older generations possessed through the indigenous education system became irrelevant, and an entire culture and its traditions came to be looked down upon.

  On 20 October 2016, about a dozen protesters gathered outside the head office of Pakistan’s largest private school network located on Guru Mangat Road in Lahore. The name of the road is derived from the hamlet Guru Mangat, now completely surrounded and ghettoized by Gulberg Housing Society. Somewhere in the middle of the community are also the remains of an old Jain temple. The temple was constructed to commemorate the visit of another saint, Shri Chandrasuri, a prominent Jain monk, whose smadh is located in Mehrauli in Delhi. The buildings of the temple were taken over by the local populace, their little domes the last remaining signs of the historic structure. There was also a massive pool next to the temple, now the site of residences. It is believed that Shri Chandrasuri undertook an extensive tour of Punjab, trying to retrace the journey of Lord Mahavira. One of these journeys brought him here to a hamlet now at the centre of Lahore.74 Was it the footsteps of Mahavira that brought him to Guru Mangat?

  The gathering of protesters was depressingly small. The situation would have been different had this been Sindh or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but it was not. This was Lahore, the capital of Punjab, where colonial policies had changed the fabric of society.

  The group of protesters, led by Punjabi nationalist and literary organizations, were protesting against the school for ‘disrespecting’ their language and culture. The principal of the school’s branch in Sahiwal in south Punjab, about 170 kilometres from Lahore, had issued a circular stating the school’s policies. One of the rules was that foul language was not permitted on campus. It explained the point thus: ‘Taunts, abuses, Punjabi and hate speech.’75 Punjabi had been declared a foul language. The circular was shared on social media by one of the parents from where it went viral. Online petitions began. Exacerbating the situation, the head office defended the principal saying on its official social media page that no parents would like their children to use foul language. They had completely missed the point.

  While this unfortunate school was the one that came into the limelight and was rightly reprimanded, this attitude is not particular. Punjabi as a language and culture is looked down upon by most private schools and colleges around the province. While Urdu is a compulsory subject and English an avenue for social mobility, Punjabi is considered the language of the uneducated, the unruly. It is seen as a language of curses. The educated, the cultured, speak either Urdu or English.

  Young children in private schools are exposed at an early age to the literature of Dickens, Shakespeare, Dante, Yeats in English and Allama Iqbal, Meer Taqi Meer and Faiz Ahmed Faiz in Urdu, but there is absolutely no mention of Punjabi literature. Children with elaborate formal education spend their entire lives in the cities of Punjab without any knowledge of Ghulam Farid, Waris Shah, Bulleh Shah, Shah Hussain, Guru Nanak and Baba Fariduddin Shakarganj, all classic Punjabi poets. Devoid of their language and literature, these young adults spend an entire lifetime alienated from the culture of their land.

  The root of the problem lies in British education policy. Urdu, as opposed to Punjabi, served as the medium of education. With complete ignorance of Punjabi and its literature, the language was labelled unruly and unsuited to ‘scientific’ education by colonial officers. Urdu, on the other hand, was promoted as the state language, to be used as a medium of instruction by government schools along with English. This was in contrast to the educational policy of the British in other parts of the country. For example, in Bengal, Bengali continued to serve as the medium of education. The promotion of Urdu over Punjabi further aggravated the communal issue in Punjab, with the Muslims embracing the language, while the Hindus demanded the introduction of Hindi as the medium of education. Punjabi became associated with the Sikh community. This attitude continues to exist in contemporary Punjab.

  In independent Pakistan, the situation of Punjab was somewhat of an oxymoron. On the one hand, Punjab became a symbol of the Pakistani state, a hegemonic power that overshadowed the smaller provinces. On the other hand, the unique Punjabi culture, expressed in language and festivals and rituals, began to be associated with a non-Muslim heritage. The hegemonic province was fine with giving up its distinct identity. Perhaps this was even required to a certain extent. Punjab was now the symbol of the Pakistani state, defined through its Islamic identity, represented through the Urdu language. Punjab could not afford to be Punjabi any more, for it had to be Pakistan.

  The situation in the smaller provinces was the opposite. With an overarching state eager to dictate what their culture and heritage would be, there was a heightening of nationalist identity, resulting in a stronger claim to one’s distinct, indigenous identity. This is a phenomenon that was experienced in East Pakistan and now in Sindh, Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

  Small as the gathering of protesters was, their voices were loud. A case against the school was filed at Lahore High Court for insulting ‘Punjabi culture’. Representatives of the institute were summoned to court, reprimanded publicly and made to apologize. The Punjabi nationalist organizations hailed this as a victory. But this was only a small battle. The culture and the education system that has given birth to this antagonistic attitude towards Punjabi still exists in Punjab, more deeply rooted in its soil than ever before.

  Perhaps a greater catastrophe was the linking of education with the job market. Education, for the first time under the colonial state, came to be associated with economic advancement. This completely altered the way students interacted with education. While education in the indigenous model was seen as a tool to refine one’s personality, in this new model, it became a ladder to climb the steps of economic success.

  One, however, has to be careful not to romanticize the indigenous model of education. The system was far from perfect, dogmatic in certain
disciplines and in fact could have learned immensely from European scholarship. But that was not to be. Leitner suggested how, instead of completely replacing the indigenous education system, a product of the history and culture of this society, the colonial education system could have revamped it and inculcated aspects of it. This would have no doubt resulted in a healthier system instead of creating a people embarrassed of their own culture.

  The intellectual growth of the people was of course never the agenda of the colonial state. Its education system was premised upon the ‘civilizing’ role of education. The locals were seen as uncivilized people who could be civilized and made to appreciate the benefits of the colonial state through education.76 While one of the advantages of the colonial education system was the creation of a political class that began opposing the colonial state and took a leading role in the anti-colonial movement, it continued to share the colonial attitudes of the ‘civilizing’ aspect of the education system.

  With the death of the indigenous education system, the society also experienced a fading away of other intellectual pursuits. With the advent of European science, the traditional knowledge of medicine, astronomy and philosophy was slowly supplanted by colonial fields. In only a couple of years, the society experienced fundamental shifts and lost knowledge and culture that had been accumulated over generations. While British education, science and medicine opened for us avenues that would otherwise have remained shut, it also managed to cut us off from our traditional knowledge which could have benefited from exposure to European systems of knowledge.

  6

  THE CITY OF NOSTALGIA

  Holding a wreath of flowers in one hand, the angel, wearing a flowing gown, her curly hair scattered around her shoulders, rests an elbow on the cross. Her eyes are closed and her expression is forlorn. The tops of her wings have broken off. Another angel, decapitated, rests on a small slab at the base of the cross. With one hand she is tying a piece of cloth across the cross, and with the other, placing a wreath on it. A sculpture hangs on the back of a cross, waiting for eternity, like several others whose forms gradually wither away.

  The other graves are not as elaborate, just sombre reminders of death with religious inscriptions. Some have been recently visited and are covered with fresh flowers. Others haven’t had any visitors for decades. Located on Jail Road behind the Lahore Gymkhana golf course, Gora Qabristan was built in the 1920s for the British population of the city. Initially reserved for the British, it eventually began admitting anglicized Indian Christians. Several colonial officers whose bodies could not be returned to England were laid to rest here, never to be visited by their loved ones. After the creation of Pakistan, the graveyard was taken over by the local Christian community.

  Some of the most elaborate graves, the ones with statues, are also the oldest, from the 1920s to the 1940s. A walk through the graveyard gives one an idea of changing sensibilities—statues replaced by simple crosses, crosses eventually replaced by just tombstones. Located in the heart of Lahore, it is a tiny oasis of Christian sculptural and artisanal work. Perhaps it was due to this that it was attacked in 1991 by a mob protesting American involvement in the Gulf War. The graves, with their ostensible Christian features, became a symbol of American imperialism. Many of the heads, hands and wings of the angels guarding these graves were destroyed at the time by the mob, with the graveyard’s guards looking on helplessly.

  On 10 March 1957, a modest funeral was held here, arranged by the deputy high commissioner of the UK in Pakistan. In the presence of a handful of mourners, the last living descendant of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Bamba Sutherland, was consigned to the earth. She had spent the last several years of her life in Lahore, the city of her ancestors, in a bungalow in Model Town. She had moved to Lahore in the early 1900s, and continued to live there with her husband, Dr David Waters Sutherland, who became the principal of the famous King Edwards Medical College in the city. After his death she remained in Lahore. Even the hurricane of Partition could not dislodge her.

  Perhaps she was fulfilling the unrequited yearning of her father, Duleep Singh, and grandmother, Maharani Jind Kaur. Both of them died with Lahore on their lips. During their lifetimes, they had been forbidden from returning to the former capital of the Khalsa Empire, a city which in their eyes had no rival in the world, whose charm not even London, the seat of imperial power, or Paris, the City of Light, could rival. Aware of her grandmother’s desire, Bamba had orchestrated the removal of her ashes from Bombay in 1924, to be placed next to the smadh of her grandfather, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, in Lahore.

  Her father, the deposed boy-king, Maharaja Duleep Singh, before he died in a rundown Paris hotel still dreaming of Lahore, was convinced that his loyal subjects would rise up in arms against the British upon his return. He had no doubt that just a glimpse of his face would suffice as a call to action.1 Memories of an evening at Spence’s Hotel in Calcutta were imprinted on his mind, when hundreds of Sikh soldiers had encircled the hotel upon learning that he had returned to India and was at the hotel with his mother, Rani Jind, in the year 1861. Veterans of the Second Opium War, the Sikh soldiers had shouted slogans in favour of the Khalsa Empire, the lost empire of his father, which the British had snatched from him through deceit.2

  At least ostensibly, before the Spence Hotel incident, the deposed maharaja had not shown much interest in regaining his empire. In fact, ever since his ‘adoption’ by the colonial state at the age of ten, he had gone out of his way to convince it of his loyalty. At fourteen, in 1853, he had converted to Christianity while living in Fatehgarh, UP, under the protection of Dr Spencer John Login, a Scottish surgeon, and his wife. At fifteen, he was permitted to travel to England where he quickly won over Queen Victoria, began living as an aristocrat with a vast estate, and regularly featured at the court. Behind closed doors, a maternal bond is believed to have developed between the queen and Duleep Singh. When shown the famed Koh-i-noor diamond for the first time after it was forcibly taken away as a ‘gift’ by the British following the annexation of his empire, Duleep Singh presented it to Queen Victoria, as a gift from a humble servant to his sovereign.3 The queen regularly wore the Koh-i-noor from that day on.

  The charm of the imperial court and a royal lifestyle began to fade away, however, as the deposed maharaja came of age. He began wondering about his mother, from whom he had been separated as a child. The regent of his empire, Rani Jindan, the youngest wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had been imprisoned by the British resident for conspiring against British rule. Initially imprisoned within Lahore Fort, she was moved to Sheikhupura Fort, from where she was transferred to Chunar Fort, close to the city of Benares. She escaped to Nepal, where the colonial state, using its influence, had kept her as a virtual prisoner. Painting her as a sexual predator, the British administration made the decision to keep her ‘corrupting’ influence away from the young maharaja, who had hitherto shown all the signs of a perfect loyal prince.

  At the age of twenty-one, the deposed maharaja wanted to re-establish contact with his mother. Reluctantly, the British allowed communication between them and gave permission for a meeting, the first since she had been whisked away from him in 1847, when the boy maharaja had been taken to Shalimar Garden for a ‘recreational’ tour. As far away from Punjab as possible, Calcutta’s Spence’s Hotel was chosen, for the British were aware that her imprisonment had turned Rani Jindan into a rallying cry for the ‘rebels’. The Second Anglo-Sikh War, which had established British hegemony over Punjab, had seen some fierce battles, causing the British unexpected losses. Even with an iron grip over Punjab, the British state was paranoid about the potential significance of the return of the maharaja and the regent to the land of the five rivers.

  For the British, at least, the meeting did not go as expected. Once united with her son, Rani Jindan refused to be separated from him. Upon Duleep Singh’s insistence, the British authorities allowed her to return to England with her son.

  The deposed maharaja quickly
transformed under his mother’s influence. Soon after his return to England, the loyal subject began showing signs of rebellion. The British even contemplated sending Rani Jindan back and imprisoning her, but she died on 1 August 1863. Her last wish was that she be returned to Lahore, and her ashes buried next to Maharaja Ranjit Singh, but that was unacceptable to the British. She was temporarily interred in London but Duleep Singh was allowed to take her body back to India to be cremated. With Lahore or any other part of Punjab out of bounds, he was given permission to cremate her in Bombay where her ashes remained until they were removed by her granddaughter, Bamba Sutherland.

  Despite the short period of time she spent with her son, Duleep Singh was completely transformed under Rani Jindan. He began questioning the terms of the settlement that took his empire away from him. He turned down a deposed princess suggested by Queen Victoria and instead chose to marry Bamba Muller, the sixteen-year-old ‘illegitimate’ daughter of a German merchant and an Abyssinian slave.4 Duleep Singh knew that she, with her background and lack of education, would invoke the displeasure of his aristocratic circle, but perhaps that was what he wanted.

  Soon after his marriage, he took to drinking heavily and associating with dancing girls much more than he had as a bachelor. Embarrassed by his antics, the British government in 1877 threatened to stop his pension if he didn’t change his lifestyle. Duleep’s response was to spend even more extravagantly, while demanding that his family jewels, worth half a million pounds, be returned to him along with over a million pounds worth of ancestral lands.5 These, he claimed, were never part of the treaty he had signed as a child. When his demands were refused, he began writing in newspapers, trying to win the support of the British people, but only managed to reduce his situation to a farce.6