Of recent I happened to be visiting Italy, my favourite country after Lahore, and what struck me was how after the carnage of the Second World War they reconstructed the destroyed walls of 21 old cities in stunning detail using old paintings as reference.

The most remarkable rebuilding effort in war-torn Europe was Warsaw, capital of Poland, which the Nazi war machine flattened to the extent that only 15 per cent of all structures remained, and even they had pock marks of shell explosions. Today Warsaw has returned to what it once looked like, using old photographs and paintings. Even the materials and building methods were the same old ones. My thoughts went to Lahore where today we have, deliberately I would say, destroyed our amazing walled city. To be honest it no longer has any walls. My late father used to call it the world’s largest ‘living museums’.

Imagine the scale of the carnage which we simply ignore. Silence is criminal when the very cultural and historic face of an ancient city, or even a people, is at stake. Take Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her silence over the Rohingya massacre has led to her Oxford University College removing her name and picture from their Roll of Honour list. There are suggestions that her Peace Prize could be at stake. Similar is the deafening silence of the people of Lahore, and their ‘trader-politician’ leaders, over the destruction of their old and historic city wall.

But before we advocate its rebuilding, like those of major European walled cities after the two Great wars, we should dwell into what exactly happened. Since time immemorial Lahore has been attacked, pillaged, flattened, and every time it has managed to rebuild. Every time Lahore was reborn. Let me explain.

In Sheikh Ahmed Zanjani’s famous treatise ‘Tuhfatul Wasilin’, written in 1043 AD, he provides his version of Lahore’s past: “Lahore was founded by Raja Parachit, a descendant of the Pandavas”. He goes on to write that Lahore was depopulated a number of times by famines and by brutal invasions. He goes on to write: “Every time it is depopulated it is reborn. This has been going on for centuries. Raja Bikramjit populated it and then Jogi Samand Pal Nagari expanded it and the town flourished. When Lohar Chand came to power the town was called ‘Loharpur’. The high fort next to Loharpur was called ‘Loharkot’. The name then corrupted to Lahore”.

Just for some flavour a quote from ‘Hududul-Alam’, written by an anonymous writer in 982 AD, the word Lahore finds first mention as ‘Lahor’ as a town “full of temples and markets and clean streets paved with stones with no Muslims.” Al-Biruni mentions Lahore in his famous ‘Tarikahul Hind’ during the aftermaths of the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni, who flattened the city. Al-Biruni uses the word ‘Lauhavar’ and says: “Its beautiful walls look stunning as do its beautiful fruit orchids and surrounding fields”.

Then the hordes of the Mongols came, then Timur the Lame, and then Babar the Mughal (the word being a Persian corruption of the word ‘Mongol’), with each and every one knocking the city flat. Its famed walls were knocked down and Timur even uprooted fruit trees. Over the last 1,500 years, Lahore has had its famous walls knocked down seven times. Now come the eighth knocking down and it seems given our state of mind it might never rise again. Machiavelli was not wrong when he said: “When a trader becomes Prince, all he knows is how to sell the State. Whatever he cannot sell, he destroys.”

After 1947 when the trader classes rushed in they set up shops inside the walled city. From having the normal 15 per cent area earmarked for commerce, today it is 65 per cent. Trade needs mobility and the walls stood in their way. So in a way the trader classes, who back trader-politicians, are responsible for the destruction of the walls of the city. But this destruction has a history. While Maharajah Ranjit Singh was in power, the city walls were all intact. They were reinforced, made stronger and higher, a moat was built around it and the River Ravi flowed around it. At Lohari Gate, Mochi Gate and Delhi Gate there is mention of wooden drawbridges working, which were lifted at night when all the 13 gates of the walled city were closed.

After the fall of the Sikhs the East India Company took over and made sure the walls provided the security needed. But once the events of 1857 took place the British in a calculated step decided to knock down the southern walls of not only the city, but also the Lahore Fort. The moat was filled in and a garden replaced it. The fort’s southern wall was replaced with an angular wall. Once satisfied that a siege was not possible the remaining walls were left in place. But no construction was allowed between the Circular Road and the walls, and the garden was kept in excellent condition. Lahore looked beautiful still.

Come 1947 and the riots at Shahalami saw the destruction of the walls between Shahalami Gate and Lohari. The Shahalami gateway was knocked down, never to be rebuilt. At several places all over the city people knocked holes in the wall as escape routes. The displacement of people and the level of destruction led to a massive reconstruction effort inside and outside the city. With law and order no longer a priority for an increasingly corrupt bureaucracy, people just drove up to the wall on all four sides and loaded their carts with bricks.

To add to this chaos was the increasing emergence, within the walled city, of wholesale markets, all illegal if the law is followed even today, which needed new routes to move their goods. As more and more small factories were set up in residential areas, cheap labour moved in. They led the assault on the walls. Today the walls of the ‘walled’ city of Lahore no longer exist. This is the reality of Lahore. It has become a city without its comforting embracing walls.

Should these walls not be rebuilt just like those in Europe, or even China? This is the question the people of Lahore should ask themselves. The city’s western wall was always a straight one and is the easiest to rebuild in old small brick and lime mortar like in days of old. The walls of the fort provide the sample to follow. We could rebuild Taxali Gate and take the wall to Bhati Gate. This would upset the ‘corrupt trader-politicians’ the least. It would make the old city look beautiful again. Maybe a special fund could be raised by the people of Lahore to finance it. I am confident all Unesco-related organisations would donate handsome amounts, as would overseas Lahoris, not to speak of our wonderful school children. The Aga Khan Trust should handle this initial effort, as they are the only ones to have the skill and knowledge to do justice to this labour of love.

There will be problems, of this one should not have any doubt. The trader-politicians would not allow such a move, because once the effort reaches the northern portions the movement of goods could be regulated. Traders hate regulation, which leads to taxes and levies. On the eastern and southern side the traders would resist. This is where our bureaucrats have to show their mettle. Do they want the glory of the past to return? Maybe they do, but experience tells me otherwise.