Imagining Lahore

by Haroon Khalid

  While Akbar introduced changes in the administration of the empire to be able to smoothly manage his ever-increasing territory, he alienated many of his former supporters who felt he was betraying his Central Asian heritage. Taking advantage of this, Mirza Hakim began to project himself as the rightful heir to the throne of Babur, adherent of an orthodox Sunni tradition, ‘true’ to his Central Asian traditions.55 The court of Mirza Hakim became a refuge for Akbar’s political opponents.

  Punjab played a particularly important role in this conflict between the two brothers. In 1566, Mirza Hakim invaded Punjab and reached all the way to Lahore. The city refused to yield and he had to eventually return. He made another attempt in 1582, but once again failed to capture the city. This time he had to retreat upon hearing about the arrival of the Mughal army under the emperor’s command.56

  With danger looming on the western front, Akbar paid particular attention to Punjab and Lahore. Lahore under Akbar emerged as a key imperial city, and cast away its parochial-town identity. Lahore became Lahore under Akbar, a title it retains till date. Major infrastructural projects were undertaken. Its boundary walls were strengthened. In 1567, the imperial mint was established in Lahore, making it one of only four centres in the Mughal Empire where coins were minted.57 Lahore under Akbar was integrated into the Mughal economy. Roads and bridges in other parts of Punjab were also renovated. Parts of Sindh, Baluchistan and Kashmir were brought under Mughal rule to strengthen Akbar’s control over Punjab.

  It was the increasing control of the Mughal Empire over Punjab that led to the rebellion of the Bhatti clan. Part of the centralization effort was the new land demarcation process and the corresponding revenue system, which was not acceptable to several landlords, including Dulla Bhatti’s grandfather, as it ate into their power and resources. The entire empire was divided into subahs (provinces), which were further divided into sarkars (districts). The sarkars were divided into smaller units called parganas. Looking at past records, Todar Mal, Akbar’s finance minister, devised a taxation system in which the average annual yield of a pargana was calculated and tax was expressed in cash. This was radically different from the previous system in which the emperor relied on a tribute system with no fixed amount, thus giving the zamindar much more control over his economic resources. 58

  Further weakening the authority of the local zamindar, a Mughal administrator called a faujdar was appointed in every sarkar, whose job was to help the zamindar collect the stipulated taxes. With the knowledge of the average yield of a particular area, the faujdar would often bypass the local zamindar and go directly to the peasants to collect the taxes.

  The faujdar was also allowed to keep a small army, make his own weapons and undertake development projects on behalf of the Mughal authority.59 As the Mughal Empire extended its control over its territory, the autonomy of the local zamindar was severely compromised. It was to retain this independence that Sandal Bhatti, Dulla’s grandfather, first rose up against the emperor, a struggle that continued till Dulla’s time.

  With the looming threat of his brother on the western front and faced with rebellion from the zamindars, Punjab acquired a special strategic significance for Akbar. Soon after the death of Mirza Hakim in 1585, Akbar abandoned Fatehpur Sikri and established his base in Lahore. Some assert that Akbar had to move his capital to Lahore to directly address the issue of Dulla Bhatti’s rebellion. 60 Lahore, in the process, became a principal Mughal city.

  Faruqui suggests that after the death of his brother, when there was no other ‘rightful successor’ of Babur, Akbar once and for all shed his Sunni Muslim ruler image and expressed himself much more freely in religious matters.

  The policy of Sulh-i-Kul (peace to all) was formulated around this time.61 Akbar also initiated his own religious order, which came to be known as Din-i-Ilahi (divine faith), while subsidies for hajj expeditions were withdrawn. Steps were taken to replace the Islamic hijri calendar with the ilahi calendar, in which the first year was the year of Akbar’s ascension in 1556. He also banned the articulation of anti-Shia sentiment in the empire.62

  His brother’s ghost, however, continued to haunt him. In the 1590s, as Salim began presenting a political challenge to his father, many of Mirza Hakim’s former supporters, including Mahabat Khan, joined his cause. Like Mirza Hakim, Salim too posed an ideological challenge to his father by casting himself as a religious Sunni alternative.

  In these larger struggles of empires and legacies, Dulla Bhatti represents an indigenous movement against an imposing state, a movement to retain autonomy and freedom. While Akbar exhibited a propensity towards religious tolerance, he was still an autocrat, an absolute monarch, whose whims on occasion became laws. Thus, in an era of ‘good’ Muslim ruler versus ‘bad’ Muslim ruler, it becomes important to remember other smaller struggles, such as that of Dulla Bhatti, to gain a more nuanced picture of the politics of empire. However, his abandoned grave in Lahore today, visited occasionally by Punjabi nationalists and intellectuals, shows that Dulla’s movement is not really remembered in the land of its origin.

  8

  HUMBLE ORIGINS

  Deep within the bazaar, the mausoleum of Qutb al-Din Aibak, founder of the Slave Dynasty, is a lone structure, a yellow building, standing on a little platform. The grave lies within, covered with a piece of red cloth with verses from the Quran printed on it. Facing the mausoleum is a little garden. All around it are tall structures that encroach upon the building from above. These are residential quarters but many are also shops, part of the most iconic bazaar of the historic city of Lahore—Anarkali.

  At a short distance from here is the Punjab Civil Secretariat, the centre of provincial bureaucracy, from where the colonial administrators once established their control over the province, a job that has now been taken over by the brown sahibs. The central building here is a specimen of classical European architecture, a bungalow with several colonnades. Constructed in the early nineteenth century by General Jean-François Allard, a French mercenary in the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the building served as the residence of this famous European officer, one among many in the Khalsa army. Allard is buried close by.

  Facing this bungalow is a seventeenth-century mausoleum, a typical Mughal structure with a large dome. It now serves as the Punjab Archives, with a vast collection of documents and photographs from the colonial era and earlier. In its past lives, it served as the residence of Prince Kharak Singh, and later of General Jean-Baptiste Ventura, an Italian soldier who joined the Khalsa army along with Allard. It was a church during the early years of colonial rule in Lahore.

  Unlike other Mughal structures, the grave of the occupant of the mausoleum is situated in one corner, while the rest of the space has been taken over by a gallery of historical photographs, some hanging on the walls, others put up on boards placed all around the room. Popularly referred to as the mausoleum of Anarkali, the grave is believed to belong to the legendary concubine of Emperor Akbar who fell in love with Prince Salim and had to lose her life for the trespass.

  Several historians have reinforced this popular narrative. Syed Abdul Latif, in his 1892 book, Tareekh-e-Lahore, claimed that Anarkali, whose original name was Sharf-un-Nissa, was buried alive in a wall for falling in love with Salim. A mausoleum in her memory was constructed by Emperor Jahangir when he succeeded his father. The same narrative was taken up by Imtiaz Ali Taj, a famous playwright from Lahore, who wrote the play Anarkali in 1922. This seminal work was to become the basis for many other fictional narratives crafted around the love story of Salim and Anarkali, including the iconic Indian film Mughal-e-Azam.

  There are historians, however, who present an alternative story. Noor Ahmad Chishti, a chronicler of Lahore, wrote in his book Tehqiqat-i-Chisti, first published in 1849, that Anarkali or Sharf-un-Nissa was a favourite concubine of Akbar’s who passed away when he was in the Deccan. There is no mention of the love story between Salim and Anarkali, but this happened around the time when Salim rose up in
rebellion against his father. On his return from the Deccan, the emperor is believed to have ordered the construction of this splendid mausoleum in the memory of his favourite concubine.

  Yet another story is presented by Muhammad Baqir in his book Lahore: Past and Present where he asserts that the mausoleum actually belonged to Sahib-i-Jamal, one of the consorts of Jahangir. Since it was located in a pomegranate (anar) orchard, it came to be known as the mausoleum of ‘Anarkali’. Dara Shikoh in his book Sakinat-ul-Auliya also mentions a pomegranate orchard visited by the Sufi saint Mian Mir regularly. Perhaps this was the same garden. In any case, a concubine falling in love with a rebellious prince is highly unlikely. Even in Jahangir’s own writings, there is no mention of Anarkali or Sharf-un-Nissa. Whatever the truth behind the story, the mausoleum is today popularly believed to be that of Anarkali who paid with her life for her crime of falling in love with a prince.

  In the nineteenth century, as a bazaar developed here, it took its name from the mysterious mausoleum, which is a little distance away. In the years to come, Anarkali Bazaar was to become one of the most prominent markets of Lahore, selling everything from clothes to jewellery and now tyres and bicycles. A walk through the streets of this bazaar is a walk through the history of the city.

  A turret rose from behind makeshift shops. Hundreds of people gathered around the clothes shops oblivious to the pre-Partition structure in their midst. It used to be a well, reserved for the Hindus of the area. Several Valmiki Hindus I interviewed from the vicinity told me how they, along with the Muslims, were not allowed to draw water from this well for fear of polluting it. A short distance away, across the street, was a tall white building, with the inscription ‘Ram Krishna and Sons Booksellers’. The booksellers moved out of the building after Partition and it was taken over by shoe sellers.

  Walking deeper into the bazaar, negotiating this congested space with other pedestrians, cycles, motorbikes, cars, rickshaws and vendors who had laid out their goods on carts, I came across Jia Ram Building, a famous residential building of pre-Partition Anarkali. It was actually a collection of buildings, all interconnected. While the original name was preserved on one of them, on another, Jia Ram had been chiselled off.

  Not far from here are the remains of Bansi Mandir, the most exquisite Hindu temple in the area. Its eroded wooden jharoka and windows are covered by a web of wires running haywire, while parts of the facade of this multistorey building are hidden under boards of several shops in the vicinity. On the upper storey, the rooms had been partitioned and divided among several tenants. The temple could have easily passed off as another run-down pre-Partition building had it not been for an intricately designed turret rising from it.

  Several such pre-Partition buildings are scattered all over the bazaar, fighting for space with newer, shinier, glass-covered buildings that are gradually replacing the older ones. In sharp contrast to other rundown historic structures is the mausoleum of Qutb al-Din Aibak, the slave king, protected by an iron fence from the shops and houses around it. In one corner of the mausoleum sat an old man, appointed by the government to look after it.

  This was not always the case. Like other such structures, this too was a ramshackle old building, occupied by drug addicts, with garbage heaped in the empty plot by the neighbouring shopkeepers. The fate of the building changed in the 1970s when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then prime minister, ordered its renovation and regular maintenance. He understood the significance of this mausoleum, of a slave who rose through the ranks of the Ghurid Empire to become a general in the army of Muhammad of Ghur (or Ghor). After the king’s death, he became ruler of the north Indian territories of the Ghurid Empire and founded the Delhi Sultanate, which saw a series of Muslim rulers and was eventually replaced by the Mughals in the sixteenth century.

  By selecting this building for renovation while ignoring the other historic structures around it, such as the neighbouring temple, the state was engaging in a process of streamlining history to fit its nationalistic agenda, while discarding aspects that did not fit its narrative. In Qutb al-Din Aibak, the Government of Pakistan had found a perfect candidate. While Muslim invasions of India began in the eighth century with Sindh, and then later with Mahmud Ghazni in the eleventh century, Muslim rule over north India was only established in the twelfth century with the Mamluk dynasty started by Qutb al-Din Aibak.

  After establishing his empire, Qutb al-Din Aibak only managed to rule for four years, from 1206 to 1210 CE. These years were fraught with challenges as he spent his time oscillating between Delhi and Lahore, trying to maintain his writ over the areas under his control. He lost his life in a polo accident when he fell off his horse, not far from where his mausoleum is situated. He was buried in Lahore. The Mamluk dynasty saw some powerful rulers after him, including Iltutmish, his immediate successor, and Ghiyas ud-din Balban. Razia Sultana, the only woman to have ever ascended the throne of Delhi, was also a part of the Delhi Sultanate. The Mamluk dynasty was eventually overthrown towards the end of the thirteenth century by Jalal-ud-Din Khalji, who established the Khalji dynasty.

  In Delhi, which was serving as Qutb al-Din Aibak’s capital, the new king is said to have razed twenty-seven temples at the site of Mehrauli to construct the Qubbat-ul Islam, the oldest mosque in north India, from the ruins of these temples, after he defeated Prithviraj Chauhan.1 In the process of Pakistani historiography, this represented the triumph of Muslims over Hindus, of Pakistan over India. His origin as a slave also allowed for an opportunity to highlight the ‘democratic’ nature of Islam, the antithesis to ‘caste-ridden’ Hinduism. This narrative is still part of official Pakistani history as it is presented in textbooks taught to children in schools and colleges.

  This binary view, a dissection of the history of India into Hindu and Muslim, is a product of colonial historiography. In this interpretation, political motives were justified in the name of religion. For example, while it is true that temples were destroyed during Muslim invasions, several other temples were also constructed and protected under the Delhi Sultanate, as Muslim kings began ruling a Hindu-majority region. 2 The destruction of temples therefore may not necessarily have been due to iconoclastic zeal. Rather, it could have been a strategy to de-legitimize the political authority of local rulers, who in many instances drew their power from temples. 3 The looting and destruction of temples, presented as a feature of Muslim rule over India by colonial historians, was never exclusive to Muslim rulers. There are many instances of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain kings looting and attacking temples of their co-religionists during invasions. 4

  In presenting this binary version of the history of India, the British sought to rationalize their own colonization of the country. First, it needed to be underscored that India had been under occupation for several centuries, thus justifying its current occupation by yet another force. Second, by presenting the Muslim rulers as fanatical bigots who oppressed the Hindu population, the British wanted to present themselves as a benign alternative who were needed for the emancipation of the Hindu majority from a Muslim minority.

  While it is true that the Muslim rulers of India came from ‘outside’, there were fundamental differences in the nature of their empires and the one established by the colonial regime. While the goal of the latter was to extract resources from the colony to send back to the home country, Britain in this case, the Muslim empires since Qutb al-Din Aibak became Indian in nature. There was no home country in their context where the extracted resources from a colony were expatriated. Their home was India.

  Muslim and Hindu nationalists today, on both sides of the border, share this ideological framework through which history is constructed and understood. For Hindu nationalists, Qutb al-Din Aibak, Aurangzeb and other Muslim rulers are oppressive tyrants who subjugated the Hindus, destroying their temples to build mosques, motivated by a religious zeal. This interpretation has been used to justify events such as the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992.

  Muslim nationalists interp
ret these actions as part of their religious devotion, which resulted in the triumph of their religion over others. Nationalists on both sides of the border have thus failed to challenge the simplistic assumptions of this historical point of view. There is thus no difference in their interpretations of history, a product of colonial historiography.

  In a post-1971 Pakistan, with the separation of East Pakistan and Indira Gandhi asserting that the ‘two-nation theory’, the raison d’être of Pakistan, was dead, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto felt that the country faced an ideological existential threat. History, in subsequent years, became a powerful tool in his hand. A historical framework, adopted from the colonial predecessor, was used to contextualize this contemporary conflict between India and Pakistan. In many of his speeches pre- and post-1971, Bhutto referred to a historical conflict between Hindus and Muslims and the war which had been surging for hundreds of years. It is hardly surprising, then, that the mausoleum of Qutb al-Din Aibak, the slave king, was renovated, while a Hindu temple near it completely ignored. It is a narrative through which the Pakistani state continues to imagine history.

  There was a tap on my shoulder. I looked at the person standing next to me. I had no idea who he was. I stared at him intently and he stared back. And then, almost like a siren, his voice emerged from the depths of an inexplicable silence, like a shout. ‘Do you want this?’

  There was a wooden bong in his hand, filled with charas. Just the sight of it triggered a wave of euphoria in my body. I don’t know how high I was. Time had ceased to exist. I was beyond the threshold where I should have stopped smoking. The dholwala changed his beat as soon as I took the bong from my benefactor. It was a subtle change. Not many in the audience picked up on it. An extra loop had been added to the beat. It was building up. My benefactor began shaking his head, his long, unkempt hair flying all over his face.