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Heritage

Some neglected structures

Lots of information and headwords

By Flotsam

Dawn

Some neglected structures

The cultural heritage, so far as buildings are concerned, does not merely comprise historical monuments and royal forts and grand mausoleums but also private construction that has acquired value with the passage of time or has architectural features that distinguish it from ordinary structures. For instance, the tombs at Thatta and Chawkandi are of cultural value because of the art that has gone into them. So are the tombs of the Talpurs and the Soomros and others who ruled over Sindh before the British.

Even a seemingly ordinary graveyard acquires distinction if great men are buried there. Many of the graves in Lahore’s Miani Sahib are redolent of the history of Punjab during the last century. Actually most of Lahore’s old graveyards are like that because everyone who died in Punjab’s capital was not interred in Miani Sahib. One of them, Qabristan Ghore Shah is probably the oldest in the city for it is the last resting place of numerous famous men of Lahore who lived more than a hundred years ago. It also happens to be the most neglected.

My main topic today is encroachments, and it also has a personal element to it. Graveyards are most encroached upon places because the dead can’t protest and their living relations are too busy with the problems of life to bother. At Ghore Shah we buried our mother in 1933 in the midst of several members of her well-known Chishti family of Masjid Chinianwali. My English sister-in-law, who died of smallpox in 1936, about a year after my brother came back with her from England, was also interred there. When in 1974, I suddenly thought of visiting their graves I couldn’t locate them.

This was not because of overcrowding but because they were at the edge of the huge graveyard and the area had been appropriated by an influential resident of the locality. After looking around for half an hour, I asked the caretaker to help me. He knew the Chishti family well, and, pointing to a fancy looking building, said, “They are under that paehlwan’s house,” Later I brought a couple of senior members of the Chishti clan to see the vandalism. They could only deplore the fact, while jointly we were unable to see any solution to the impasse, for it was an impasse. We knew the graves couldn’t be restored, but we did feel contrite and embarrassed when the caretaker blamed us for not visiting our dead for nearly four decades. “This had to happen,” he said.

Apart from this personal involvement, named after a saintly faqir whose tomb occupies the place of pride there, Ghore Shah graveyard also has a unique cultural facet. Time has obliterated from my mind the legend about horses associated with the faqir, but the fact remains that everyone who comes to pray there leaves a few tiny clay horses at the tomb. There are thousands upon thousands of them any time you go there, and my daughters never tired of collecting a small horde whenever we went there together. It became a popular sight to show to other children of the family.

Even the land around protected monuments is now encroached upon. My attention has been drawn to what has been going on around the tomb of Sharfunnisa Begum in Begumpura in Lahore where scores of illegal dwellings have come up on Auqaf land over the years, hiding the monument from the eyes of the world.

Houses have been constructed on eight kanals of land that was leased out for 99 years by the Auqaf Department in 1989 to four people — Maulana Abdul Qadir Azad, former Khateeb of Badshahi Masjid, Mahfoozur Rahman, former Director of the Ulema Academy, Tariq Khan, an employee of the department, and one Gowaria (what an outlandish name) at the “princely” rate of one rupee per marla annually! They sold a large part of the land to people who built houses on it in utter disregard of the law prohibiting construction within 200 feet of a protected monument.

Graveyards are most encroached upon places because the dead can’t protest and their living relations are too busy with the problems of life to bother

The real scandal lies in the fact that while the lease was cancelled in ‘1992, the so-called lessees continue to occupy the land and even put up notices offering plots for sale. When the lease was terminated the Archaeology Department directed the Lahore Development Authority to restore the monument to its original condition and lay a garden around it. Whether steps in this direction were taken or not, is not known because the lessees were said to have gone up to the high court in appeal.

The mausoleum has always been known as Sarw wala maqbara or Cypress Tomb as it bears images of cypress trees in blue tile work. It is the last resting place of Sharfunnisa, wife of Khwaja Abdus Samad, a governor of Lahore during the reign of Mughal Emperor Farrukh Siyar (1713-1719). She was a lady of spirit and always kept a copy of the Quran and a sword by her side. Allama Iqbal is said to have mentioned her in Jawaid Namah. The tomb is in dire need of attention, having been last repaired by the British in 1881-82.

From encroachments I move on to neglect of a fine building, although I’m not sure who is responsible for the neglect, for the building is neither historical nor protected. Everyone who has ever been to Chiniot must have seen that magnificent private residence, Gulzar Mahal or Umar Hayat Palace which, for size and embellishment and intricate woodwork is simply out of this world.

Its story is tragic. Sheikh Umar Hayat went to enormous expense to build it for his son Gulzar’s marriage in 1938, but the son was found dead in the morning after the wedding and, by special permission, was buried in the house. It is no way the responsibility of the state to look after this grand structure, though M. Athar Tahir, famous as a culture loving bureaucrat, did have some urgent repairs carried out when he was the local deputy commissioner. Frankly I am not aware of the present ownership.

Quite apart from questions of ownership and responsibility, the fact remains that Gulzar Manzil is a wonderful example of Chinioti craftsmanship, and by all standards, a splendid and most imposing haveli which must be unmatched by anything similar in this part of the world. It is to purchase, take over and maintain such marvellous residences and other structures that the National Council was founded by the state in Britain and has acquired innumerable such great homes that could no longer be managed by their owners. The point of the National Trust is that such buildings constitute a part of the heritage and cannot be allowed to fall into ruins just because their owners cannot afford the repairs and upkeep.

There are countless such buildings in various parts of Pakistan. The only solution to their preservation is an organization on the lines of the British National Trust. Will the federal government ever take the initiative of setting up such a body in Pakistan? It could only be goaded to do so by elected representatives of the people, but they are too busy looking after their personal interests to be moved by the needs of culture.