As you walk towards the Lahore Fort from the Minto Park end, to the right is the citadel and on the left is the magnificent ‘samadhi’ of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, his son Kharak and grandson Nau Nihal, as well as some of their wives who committed ‘sati’.

Few realise that the reason this place was selected by the maharajah himself was because it was the very place where that great Punjabi freedom fighter, the first Sikh martyr and sage Guru Arjan Dev dived into the river Ravi after being tortured by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir over six days in the Lahore Fort. Hazrat Mian Mir had requested the emperor to grant him some relief and let him bathe in the river outside. Arjan dived in and disappeared forever on the 30thof May, 1606, exactly 415 years ago.

The popular belief, though not part of Sikh scripture, is that at this place the fifth Sikh guru, the first of the countless martyrs, will emerge on the day of judgment. Sikh scholars discount this belief, born more out of piety just as our pious create similar stories.

But the ‘samadhi’ site of Maharajah Ranjit Singh was selected by the Punjabi ruler himself in his lifetime. The real religious structure till then as far as the Sikh faith goes is a well where the guru first bathed and then dived into the river. That well, amazingly, unlike other wells in Lahore, maintains a reasonable water level. The pious blame providence, though a reasonable scientific reason surely exists. It is claimed that the Muslim sage Hazrat Mian Mir used to come here once a week to offer a prayer for the late martyr.

But more on Guru Arjan at the end of this piece. Let us now dwell on the ‘samadhi’ and its numerous inhabitants. When Maharajah Ranjit Singh died on the 27thof June, 1839 of paralysis, his body was brought to this place decked in the finest royal clothes with gold and silver trappings. Four of his Ranis and seven slave girls silently sat of the funeral pyre, following Rajput practice as opposed to Sikh religious needs. Two of them were Rani Mehtab Devi of Kangra, and Rani Har Devi of Atalgarh. On hearing of their ‘sati’ there was public jubilation in Kangra and Atalgarh.

Most of the ashes of Ranjit Singh were taken to be added to the River Ganges, while the remaining came to the place where today stands his magnificent ‘samadhi’, which was built by his son Maharajah Kharak Singh, who assumed power but was soon imprisoned by his son Nau Nihal Singh on the instigation of his Hindu Prime Minister Raja Dhian Singh Dogra. In what was a case of slow poisoning of the ruler, he died in his Haveli Kharak Singh, on the 5thof November 1940.

None of Kharak Singh’s three wives committed ‘sati’, if anything his first wife, Chand Kaur, was murdered in Lahore in 1942 by her maids and thrown over the balcony of Haveli Nau Nihal Singh inside Mori Darwaza. However, three maids did perform ‘sati’. But then on this sad occasion as the ruler’s son Nau Nihal Singh was leaving to assume power, he passed under the gateway leading to Hazuri Bagh when suddenly the gateway collapsed. Just how this sturdy brick gateway collapsed remains a mystery. He was just 19 years of age, and his bleeding unconscious body was taken inside the fort where it is rumoured he was murdered by Raja Dhian Singh Dogra.

At his cremation two of his four wives committed ‘sati’, they being Rani Bhadauran Kaur, daughter of the ruler of Bhadaur and Rani Katochan Kaur, daughter of the Rai of Lambagraon. Also on the pyre were five servant girls. So we have three generations of Punjabi rulers all passing away within two years. But we all forget the 21 women who sacrificed their lives as ‘sati’ for the so-called glory of the rulers of our land. No one seems interested in this aspect of our past.

The question is that when Sikh scriptures, and their gurus strictly forbid this practice why was this ignored? Just as in our land we still have so-called educated people following the caste and racial beliefs of ages past. It is that the ruling classes, no matter what their religion or beliefs make use of this set of contrived differences in what are basically ‘Imagined Narratives’. Sadly, even education does not seem to rub them out.

So when you ever visit the Samadhi of Ranjit Singh, which very few in Lahore have visited anyway, people are basically just not interested in the 24 set of ashes of the elite of Lahore and their wives and servants. No one is even bothered about the real reason this site was selected by Maharajah Ranjit Singh in the first place.

To my way of thinking it is always worth visiting just to remember the great sage, thinker and scholar that Guru Arjan Dev was. To visit the Lahore Fort to gasp at the glory of foreign invaders instead of remembering the martyrs of our land speaks more about our present state of mind. The mere fact that a person as great as Hazrat Mian Mir was involved in the life of Arjan Dev speaks volumes of the man who disappeared among the waves of the River Ravi.

Let me recall an event that reflects our present way of thinking with regard to Guru Arjan. Before being imprisoned Arjan was kept in a haveli inside Mochi Gate by the emperor Jahangir, and just because he came to know that Arjan had blessed his brother Khasrau in his fight for the throne. For three months Arjan was starved in a room in Lal Khoo area, nailed and bricked up. Little did he know that Mian Mir would come every day to pray for him, and slide through a vent some ‘barfi’ and ‘ber’ with water being supplied from a well that is known as ‘Lal Khoo’.

He survived to the emperor’s dismay and tortured for a week on red hot iron plates. But he survived. Call it a miracle, just as his disappearance is considered one. Can resurrection be far away?

My point in this piece is that some pious persons in the Lal Khoo area have captured the ‘ber’ tree and the now bricked up well and declared it a Muslim saint’s place. Just how the authorities can turn a blind eye to such a criminal twist to our history is beyond any sane person. But then in our land ‘contrived piety’ rules. Who cares?