Finally, the ‘poor’ walled city might be served … maybe

So the Walled City of Lahore Authority is now committed – to assist they claim - to conserve and repair numerous Muslim shrines, Christian churches and a Hindu temple far away from Lahore’s walled city. Does this mean that their interest in the walled city itself is confined to special projects and monuments?

This I say not to oppose their bureaucratic ways of working solely on monuments in the fort, as well as on five within the old city. This is conservation no doubt and also pleases rulers of every hue and shade. But then on their own these decaying monuments need constant care and maintenance. Inside the old city just five historic monuments have been worked on over the last 10 years. That is commendable too. Before the WCLA was set up in 2012 the Aga Khan Trust for Culture had conserved, as a demonstration project, the Gali Surjan Singh, a magnificent effort that was responsible for the WCLA itself being set up. But then to completely ignore the poor inhabitants of the once walled city and concentrate on faraway shrines of different ‘dispensations’ with special funds is sort of ‘startling’.

Let me start off by saying that piety should never be part of science. So to balance things they last month announced that the Bhati Gateway was to be conserved and brought back to life. Interesting, but then what happened? My journalistic sources inform that it was a shot in the dark, and that no such plan has been officially approved. Probably the meeting was last month called to achieve different outcomes. So back to a top bureaucrat inside the Civil Secretariat, an old friend, who informed that till date no such complete plan had reached his desk, for that is where it is to be approved. “Surely a PC1 would be moving along the line?” His reply was crisp: “Not that I know about, though some objections have been verbally reported to me.”

But then he further ‘informed’, sort of adding to my curiosity, that three other proposals for Gali Surjan Singh-type projects have been tabled. Plus he explained that besides finances some technical objections have come forth. To further confirm this I turned to another official source. She stated: “Till now no PC1 concerning the Bhati Gateway has been approved”. Not bad. More of the same.

But then this source informed that the WCLA has also tabled three other proposals to conserve three ‘mohallahs’ on the lines of Gali Surjan Singh. That is great news. The bureaucrats insist first the ‘holy’ shrines and then Lahore. Maybe their ‘obvious’ agenda is piety not heritage.

Now let us discuss just why does the Bhati Gateway Project matter, and what is its context. So a bit of history. The original walled city had mud walls, as did major portions of the Lahore Fort. They were very thick walls that worked. In the days of the Mughal emperor Akbar, who ruled from 1556 to 1605, a series of heavy land taxes were imposed, added to this the constant threat from within Akbar’s circle of influence starting with Bairam Khan wanting to take over, to the Afghans wanting to win Lahore, Akbar tackled this by moving near to where the real trouble lay.

By sending Bairam Khan on Haj and then getting him stabbed and killed, to the most potent threat posed by the landlords of the Punjab, with Dulla Bhatti being at its head, he ruthlessly crushed all opposition. But to permanently seek peace he expanded the walled city with an opportunity that came his way.

The Punjab, and large parts of the sub-continent, were hit by famine, and people flocked to Lahore. So the emperor in return for free food purchased thanks to heavy taxes, made almost 25,000 hungry persons manufacture bricks and with them built a wall around the fort and an expanded walled city. That is when the Bhati Gateway came about.

To the south there were originally only two gateways, they being Lohari Gate and Mori Gate, both ancient in a sense. Lohari Gate faced Ichhra, itself as old as Lahore, if not older and a Hindu holy city. The other Mori Gate is almost like a large hole, hence the name Mori, which helped bring for cremation the Hindu dead to the edge of the River Ravi flowing outside. Among the most important person to be cremated there was the Rajput emperor Jayapala of the Hindu Shahi dynasty. He committed ‘johar’, a Rajput act of chivalry, in 1001 AD after losing the Battle of Peshawar to Mehmud, the Afghan invader.

The walls of the then old city were located to the west of Mori Gate. Even today if you walk along Bhati Bazaar to the east you will notice that the entire area is slightly raised, for beneath the ‘ghatti’ lie the old walls of Lahore. That wall turned inwards along Tehsil Bazaar to meet the old walls that ran to the east of today’s Shahalam Bazaar turning in before Rang Mahal crossing. That was the original old walled city with mud walls.

The emperor promised the aggressive Rajput Bhatti clans with special treatment and land ‘jagirs’, and hence the entire area was given to the Bhat Rajputs, of whom the Bhatti are a major clan. Hence the entire area was known as ‘Bhati’ as of the Bhats’, and the gateway acquired the name Bhati Gate. It goes without saying that the Rajputs played a major role in the expansion of the Mughal Empire under Akbar, even though he had tricked Dulla Bhatti to meet him, and then skinned him alive to hang for a week outside the Akbari Darwaza of the Lahore Fort for a week. The grave of Dulla Bhatti is in the Miani Sahib Graveyard near Ichhra.

The original Bhati Gate had a drawbridge, which served to cross over the Ravi that then flowed outside. Our readers know that the Ravi River meandered westwards over time to flow a mile to the west before Shahdara, where the old ‘pony express’ was set in place by Sher Shah Suri. In the Sikh period the Ravi could be crossed by a boat bridge, with the first fixed bridge coming up to serve the British-built railways.

But then we see with time old monuments are destroyed more so by economic and trading necessity. The events of 1947 saw the destruction of Shahalami Gateway, as well as other ones to the east. But more destructive has been the entry of the trading classes from the nearby Punjab cities of Indian Punjab. To assist these refugees and given that the old Shahalami Bazaar was badly burnt down, the then Deputy Commissioner got the remains of the gateway knocked down, with the traders stealing the bricks of the walls.

Over time the walls on both sides of the Bhati Gateway were stolen as people indulged in building illegal structures. That is still an ongoing pastime. Walls hinder the movement of goods and people. For that reason the 14th gate of old Lahore has sprung up between Shahalami and Mochi Gateways. No authority dares close it, so strong is the influence of the trading classes of old Lahore. Over time we have seen traders inviting invaders, mostly foreign, to take over the old city. Profit and patriotism just never mix.

But back to the missing PC1 of the Bhati Gateway project of the WCLA that the present dispensation advertised through Press stories. The outline should go through public scrutiny, if that is possible at all. Just how long will the missing walls of the old city not be reconstructed on both side of the gateway? But like the Bradlaugh Hall and the dormant Punjab Archives proposals, one hopes the gateway plan, as well as the three ‘mohallah’ plans, do not disappear. Call it the science of piety.