I am in Lahore, the capital of the state of Punjab, the land of five rivers and the largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, with a population of 14 million.
We navigate the traffic, dusty old motorbikes noisily spluttering either side of us, their riders’ helmets taped together, whilst behind them women sit side-saddle with only their hijab as protection. Three blind men try to cross the road – an unenviable challenge even for the sighted.
We turn into the long leafy avenue called The Mall. Napier Road, Lytton Road, Temple Road, Charing Cross and The Mall are all legacies of the British that linger in Lahore.
But that is not why I am here. Its history is older and grander than that of the Raj. By the 17th century, it was famed as one of the world’s most populous and cultured cities. Its overlords, the Mughals, were a byword for power and opulence, and their patronage blessed Lahore with more Mughal architectural masterpieces than either Delhi or Agra.
Today it is one of the most historically rich and culturally important cities on the Indian subcontinent and thus is Pakistan’s main bastion of history, culture and cuisine.
My history lesson begins in the Lahore Museum, Pakistan’s largest museum, that houses an extensive collection of Buddhist art from the ancient Indo-Greek and Gandhara kingdoms. It also has collections from the Indus Valley Civilisation, the Mughal Empire, the Sikh Empire and the British Raj.
Founded in 1865, John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard, was one of the museum’s first curators. The overhead fans that create little movement apart from getting some of the hanging signs to swing might well originate from the opening of the current building in 1894. Suffice to say that the fans make little difference to the oppressive heat inside.
In spite of the stuffy atmosphere, I am taken by the museum and its various displays. Pakistan might be a young country (1947) but its history is old, such as the civilisation of Mehrgarh, near the Bolan pass to the west of the Indus River, which is 9,000 years old. And so too Harappa, a prominent archaeological site and ancient city in the Punjab, a capital of the Harappan civilization which flourished between 2,600 and 1,900 BC.
I was particularly impressed by the Ghandaran art, Ghandara being a civilisation that flourished from 500 BC to 900 AD and a distinctive blend of Greek and Indian influences. Ghandaran art introduced the image of Buddha – hitherto the symbol of Buddhism was a footprint and a wheel – and the iconography which went on to influence Buddhist art and statues around the world.
The Buddhust statues, carved in Schist stone, are striking, in particular the Fasting Buddha – a powerful depiction of the heroism of Buddha in his struggle to attain the answer to human suffering.
Opposite the Museum, amidst the cacophony of the traffic, stands Zamama. Immortalised in the opening lines of Rudyard Kipling’s novel ‘Kim’, which begins with the young adventurer “sat, in defiance of municipal orders astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher, the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum.”
The Zamzama Gun is a historic large-bore cannon cast in the mid-18th century in Lahore under the orders of the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani. It became a symbol of control over the Punjab, as an old proverb states: “Who holds Zamzama holds the Punjab”.
Speaking of Kipling, he described the Wazir Khan Mosque as “full of beauty even when the noonday heat silences the voices of men and puts the pigeons of the mosque to sleep.” Located in the bustling melee of the Walled City of Lahore a few hundred metres west of Delhi Gate (one of thirteen gates of the Walled City), the exquisite mosque is one of the old City’s most famous treasures. Built in the 17th century by Wazir Khan, the physician of the Mughal emperors Jhangir and Shah Jehan – Wazir Khan reminded me a little of John Radcliffe, the physician of Queen Anne, and his (Radcliffe’s) patronage of Oxford – it is considered to be the most ornately decorated Mughal-era mosque.
It is renowned for its exterior, lavishly decorated with intricate Persian-style kashi-kari tile work. Its interior surfaces are embellished with frescoes that synthesise Mughal and local Punjabi decorative traditions.
Outside the mosque a young man wasn’t selling pigeons but sparrows – the aim being that you buy one to release to please God. Given the beauty of the mosque, I thought that this was overkill.
Jahangir, which means ‘Conqueror of the World’, was the fourth Moghul Emperor and his tomb is one of the finest Mughal tombs.
When Jahangir died in 1627, his son, Shah Jahan, which means ‘King of the World’, ordered that a mausoleum befitting an Emperor be built as a permanent memorial. Located in Shahdara Bagh, a suburb of Lahore to the northwest of the city – the area had been a favourite spot of Jahangir and his wife Nur Jahan – the tomb is made of marble with trellis decorations of pietra dura bearing the 99 attributes of Allah in Arabic calligraphy. These are inside a vaulted chamber, decorated with marble tracery, extensively embellished with frescoes and cornered with four minarets.
Sadly, when the Sikh army took over Lahore in 1799, they started destroying many beautiful pieces of art in the inner chambers. The Sikhs used this tomb as an army headquarters and then as a private residence. It wasn’t until the British took over Lahore that, at the end of the 19th century, the British began restoring the tomb and gardens to its former glory.
Compare Jahangir’s tomb to that of Queen Elizabeth I. She predeceased Jahangir by 24 years and is buried in the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey.
Compare Jahangir’s tomb to the Taj Mahal, which was also built by Shah Jehan. Built as a mausoleum for his wife, the Taj Mahal is based on Gur-i-Amir, the tomb of Timur (Tamerlane) in Samarkand – the Mughals were Muslims from Central Asia. There is irony in the fact that India, a land so deeply Hindu – and ever more so with the rise of the BJP – is symbolised around the world by an Islamic masterpiece.
Whilst the Moghuls were Muslim and much of Lahore’s architecture Islamic, the Punjab once was a Sikh stronghold. Hence Lahore is home to the tomb of Gurdwara Dera Sahib, the 5th Guru Arjun and the burial place of the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh.
The Punjab saw the emergence of an unlikely threat that would later come to contest the Mughal hold on north-west India: the Sikh religion. The seed was planted by Guru Nanak who was born to a Hindu family in the Punjab in 1469, travelled extensively and on his return news of his learnings and teachings began to spread under his disciples – Sikh means disciple.
Under Guru Arjan, the fifth of the Sikh gurus, the Adi Granth, the Sikh scriptures, were compiled despite the declaration of Nanak that holy books had no value. Guru Arjan was arrested and died in a Mughal prison in 1606, which set the Sikhs on a more armed and militant path.
More than anything it was the execution in 1675 of the ninth Sikh guru, Tegh Bahadur, under the orders of Aurangzeb, the sixth Moghul Emperor and son of Shah Jehan, that militarised the Sikh community and set them in determined opposition to the Mughal ruler. Aurangzeb closed India’s doors to the talents of adventurous incomers and his religious intolerance stimulated revolt from his non-Muslim subjects.
As an inward creed, Sikhism did not threaten the powers to be in its early days but over a couple of centuries the faith grew into an alternative state and a martial establishment that became a potential replacement for Mughal rule in the Punjab. The competition between Sikh and Mughal was to be long and bloody.
Indeed, Mughal influence in Lahore was replaced by Sikhs in 1751. The most prominent Sikh ruler of the Punjab was Ranjit Singh, who unified the region under his rule and established the Sikh Empire in 1799. The Sikh Empire lasted from 1799 until the empire’s fall to the British in 1849 after the Second Anglo-Sikh War.
Perhaps Lahore’s most famous site is Lahore Fort, at least according to UNESCO, which has granted it World Heritage status. A fort had been existence as a caravanserai for many hundreds of years but the current fort dates back to the reign of Akbar, the third Moghul Emperor. Akbar was the grandson of Babur and father of Jahangir. Babur, grandson of Tamerlane, established the Mughal Empire in 1524.
Akbar built the fort in 1575 and it became the hallmark of Mughal culture: a fusion of Hindu and Islamic traditions. This fusion of Muslim and Hindu was not just artistic – Akbar’s wife was Hindu.
Akbar’s son, Jahangir, and grandson, Shah Jehan, especially Shah Jehan, lavishly developed his architectural idiom, adding palaces, towers and gardens to the fort’s 20 hectares.
With the arrival of the Sikhs in the 18th century the fort fell into disrepair – as a consequence of the assassination of Guru Arjun, the Sikhs didn’t like to use Mughal buildings. The British occupied the fort after their conquest of the Sikhs and made several modifications to it, primarily involving conversion of existing buildings for colonial use and barracks.
Hence the red-brick walls at the entrance are built by the British and above the first gate it states “1853 HEIC”, none other than the Honourable East India Company.
Inside is Jahangir’s extraordinary Painted Wall in which camels, elephants, flowers and horses depict Mughal life.
There are secretariat and government buildings displaying books and papyrus marriage contracts in Persian, the official language of Mughals. The Persian influence is a result of the fact that Hamuyan, the second Mughal Emperor, was defeated in battle 1540 and spent the next 15 years in exile, much of which was in Persia.
There was also an artistic consequence to Hamuyan’s time in Persia: the emergence of the Mughal school of painting and the arts. Mughal art is a combination of Persian, Central Asian and local art, the latter seen in lotus flowers at the base of pillars.
Throughout the Lahore Fort there are separate areas for ladies, even separate area for ladies of the harem (haram forbidden). There are reception areas, there are entertainment areas. But perhaps the most exclusive of all was the Shish Mahal, the Palace of Mirrors.
Built in 1631 – 32 by Shah Jehan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, it was a dazzling, ornate structure famous for its walls and ceilings adorned with thousands of tiny convex mirrors and frescoes, its brilliant gilt work, pietra dura and carved marble lattice screens.
The Place of Mirrors is a testament to Mughal artistry, reflecting the opulence of the era. An opulence that was to lead to the imprisonment of Shah Jehan – when Mumtaz died (after giving birth to her fourteenth child) Shah Jehan went in depression and went on a massive spending spree that included the Taj Mahal; it was too much for Shah Jehan’s son Aurangzeb, who imprisoned his father.
The demise of the Palace of Mirrors was equally ignominious. The waterfalls are dry. There is no fragrance of jasmine as the fountains do not work. The mirrors are dusty and their glory faded. There is no longer any razzle in their dazzle. Whilst it is difficult to see and smell the glory days, you can feel it when you walk through the palace and benefit from its cool breezes.
Walking out of the fort, the steps were at an awkward pace. They were not built for me, indeed they were not built for humans, they were built for elephants for that is how the royal retinue would have arrived and/or departed.
Next door to the Lahore Fort is one of the architectural gems of the Mughal empire, the Badshahi Mosque. Built by Aurangzeb in 1674, it was the world’s largest mosque until the late 1980s. Today, it is a monument to Mughal genius, despite the way it was treated in the 18th and 19th centuries – the Sikhs and British used it for stables and storing munitions.
I enter the vast courtyard, able to hold tens of thousands of worshippers, to see the mosque on the far side of the square in the west facing Mecca, its four minarets slightly leaning outwards in case of earthquake. Built in striking red sandstone from Rajasthan, a huge dome of white marble is flanked by two almost as large. The domes are drawn into tapering points.
Its prayer hall is bright with elegantly restrained fresco work, stucco tracery and columns, which appear as vases containing decorative flowers in relief.
It is not a World Heritage Site but UNESCO need to think again…
Perhaps my most curious experience of Lahore was just outside at Wagah, the Pakistani border with India. I am here for The Wagah border flag ceremony, formally the Beating the Retreat ceremony, a daily military display at sunset between India and Pakistan, where soldiers from both sides perform synchronised and competitive drills, which involves a lot of stomping of feet, before lowering their respective flags.
In essence it is a much-vaunted daily spectacle between the Pakistan Rangers and the Indian border security force.
The two large ‘amphitheatres’ – one Indian and one Pakistani – are pushed together and divided by a large iron gate and a small no man’s land. Crowds gather on both sides. It is a family afternoon out, Lays chips are shared around, a hawker sells samosas, children are adorned with headbands, face paint and flags. There seemed to be more people on the Indian side but they were not as well equipped with ‘merch’.
The volume ramps up so high that words are indistinguishable, simply noise, very loud noise. Videos displaying Pakistan’s aerial and military might add to the jingoism.
At 17:30 on the dot, trumpets sound, the audience stands and then there is a loud call that almost sounds like a call to prayer on the Pakistan side. Cheerleaders begin egging on the enthusiastic crowd. I look across to the Indian side to see if there is the same zeal. I got told off for doing so. Definitely more fanatical on the Pakistani side.
The Ministry of Silly Walks then begins. First with two women and then with a series of impressive male guards, all chosen for their height and beards. Everything Pakistan does, India does and vice versa. All tit for tat. All orchestrated nationalism. The Maori Haka meets the synchronised choreography of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ at speed.
To many the highly theatrical ritual symbolises rivalry and national pride. To me it speaks of the trust deficit between the two countries. But hopefully that deficit is between governments as opposed to its peoples and they see the ceremony for what it is, a charade.
The British exit in 1947 and the line of partition, the border between the largely Hindu India and the largely Muslim Pakistan, has created much division. It has left Lahore isolated from much of its heritage. Whilst sad, the city is more than able to stand alone. For the time being.
