Haroon Khalid

Book Excerpt: The Immortal Legend of Waris’s Heer

I had spent many nights with the moon in its loneliness. I had lent it my ear to hear its tale of woe. Sometimes when it had cried to its heart’s content, it stared back at me with enquiring eyes, urging me to share with its lonely heart some stories of my misery.

The following is an edited excerpt from Haroon Khalid’s recently published book From Waris to Heer: A Novel of Punjab. Republished with permission from the author.

It was the night of nights, the night of destiny. It was a night when gods, demons and humans alike, those who were still trapped in the travails of this life, those who burned in the eternity of hell and those who sipped the nectar of immortality in the heavens, all became one and set their sights on Jhang. In their maddening rage, the apsaras of the court of Indra kicked around the mattresses and the pillows, trying so very hard to regain the attention of the court, of Indra himself.

The houris of Jannah were not faring that well either. Just a moment ago, they had been playing the daf, drinking from golden goblets and singing heavenly songs. And now those seats had been abandoned, the juice from the golden goblets spilt on the floor, as all of heaven cast its eyes upon the Earth. Responding to the cries and laments, the monsoon wind rose like an army of soldiers from the Bay of Bengal. With lightning speed, as if it were the army of Hulagu Khan that had in time immemorial decapitated thousands of heads in Punjab and lit a bonfire of the heads to warm itself, it reached Jhang. Here these mercenary soldiers impregnated the clouds which blocked the view between heaven and earth, between its occupants and me. They unleashed a flurry of tears, crying on behalf of the apsaras and houris, crying that a more beautiful creature now existed on earth, in Jhang.

The Chenab was fuming with rage. As if intoxicated, she swirled like a bull in heat. She had to see for herself, make sure that the rumours were true. Daughter of the great Himalayas, the home of Shiva, the ascetic, the ultimate jogi, she had been hearing stories through her long arduous journey, in search of her lover, whom she had promised to meet at the Sindh coast. She raced in the direction of Jhang. Oblivious to the pain of separation that her lover experienced in her absence, she headed off now in a different direction.

Cover photo of From Waris to Heer: A Novel of Punjab.

Finally, reaching her destination, finally reaching Jhang, she prostrated outside its tall towers, its tall buildings and its tall mound. She pleaded and begged for just one sight of her Heer, for whom she had broken her journey, for whom she had delayed her union. Like an invading force of Afghans marching into Punjab, she had progressed uninterrupted, until she had reached Jhang, the crown jewel of all cities, glorious as Lahore was once. If only someone had stopped the Afghans the way Jhang halted her journey, the way Jhang humbled her. She had come not as a conqueror but as a beggar, she said.

My father, the most kind-hearted man, sire to the most beautiful girl in the world, could not ignore her wishes. He took Chenab’s hand in his own, placed a little flood water in the palm of his hand and poured it over my forehead, as if this was not the water of the Chenab but of the Ganga or the Abe Zamzam.

She caressed my face and ran her fingers through my hair. She was assured that the rumours were true. That I was indeed the most beautiful girl ever to be born in Punjab. For if there is a river that knows beauty, then it is indeed the Chenab.

On that fateful night, as she held my face in her hands, she saw before her eyes the unfolding of my complete life. She had already become a participant in the love story of Punjab. She changed her direction permanently that day so that she could see for herself this immortal love legend that was to unfold on her banks.

Flowers bloomed on the land that had been blessed by the daughter of the Himalayas as she receded to continue towards her beloved. All these flowers faced Jhang, for they too wanted to see the most beautiful thing there was to see. These flowers did not have to wait for spring to come. They smiled, sang and danced in the breeze and celebrated basant the day I stepped on the ground. The trees turned greener and their shadows became darker.

Assured by my laughter, the sun rose from the east. Throughout the day, it travelled through the sky to catch a glimpse of me from different angles. The moon existed to guard me. All night long, it kept the world illuminated, on the lookout for anything or anyone who could threaten me.

When with the moon, I did not have the heart to tell it that I had no complaints in the house of Chuchak. I could never summon up the courage to tell it that I did not need any protection. I did not tell the moon the tales of my fierce character, of my bravery. I had waged wars and led armies in the qissa penned by Damodar. That battle is not part of this qissa so I will not delve into it any further.

While I don’t fight armies in this qissa being penned by our Waris, I still retain my valour. I am a symbol of beauty and pride, but don’t forget that I am also a metaphor for rebellion, for action and agency. Our Ranjha might be the symbol of the divine, but what will happen to the divine if there is no devotee? Would the divine be able to retain its divinity, if that divinity is not recognised, not worshipped? The divine is an object of worship and without being worshipped, it is nothing but an object. It is through the finite nature of the devotee that the infinity of the divine is recognised.

The devotee is not a helpless, passive partner in this relationship, but rather the agent, the shaper of events, who makes this relationship progress.

Don’t be mistaken. This is not the story of Heer–Ranjha but rather the story of Heer — Waris’s Heer, from Waris to Heer. You might be tempted to see the parallels between Ranjha and our poet, our creator, our Waris, but it is really I who truly represent him. It is in my voice that the devotees speak — from Shah Hussain to Bulleh Shah, and now Waris. Sometimes I take the form of Radha, sometimes that of a nameless housewife, but it is always I, at the centre of it all, who become the symbol of a Sufi, a devotee, while Ranjha becomes the symbol of the divine. I make possible the union between the devotee and the divine, the disintegration of the male in my female body. For neither is there a distinction between a devotee and the divine, nor is there any distinction between the male and the female.

I am Waris and Waris is Heer.

Pakistan’s Move to Ban Textbooks Is a Bid to End Discussion on Nuances

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf in the country’s Punjab province has enacted a law that would see textbooks that are apparently ‘anti-Islam’ and ‘anti-Pakistan’.

Lahore: The terms ‘anti-nation’, ‘anti-Pakistan’ ‘anti-India’, ‘anti-Islam’ or ‘anti-Hindu’ are not meant to be deconstructed. Their purpose, in fact, is the exact opposite. It is the end of all discussion, an obliteration of all nuances and subtleties. There is no need to explain who or what represents the nation or religion, and what its anti-thesis is. It implies the existence of only two groups, of only two shades of politics, the fors and againsts, us and them. There is no qualification required, no explanation offered.

Punjab Tahaffuz-i-Bunyad-i-Islam Act, 2020, adopted by the Punjab provincial assembly in Pakistan recently, is meant to achieve this particular purpose. It is meant to ensure that all ‘anti-Pakistan’ and ‘anti-Islam’ books circulating in the province, taught in the public and private schools of Punjab, are banned. Towards the end of July, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) led provincial government banned 100 such books, and is now planning to review 10,000 more to see if they contain any ‘anti-Pakistan’ or ‘anti-Islam’ content.

One book that was banned had pictures of pigs to teach mathematics, while another had quotations of M.K. Gandhi (instead of focusing on the founding fathers of Pakistan, such as Allama Iqbal or M.A. Jinnah). It is meant to be understood, perhaps as common knowledge, that Gandhi was ‘anti-Pakistan’ and ‘anti-Islam’. It is futile to mention here that Gandhi was assassinated for he was perceived to be ‘pro-Muslim’, another term that isn’t meant to be deconstructed.

Do these binaries fail?

What is also not meant to be explored is this assumed overlap between ‘anti-Pakistan’ and ‘anti-Islam’. These two terms are used interchangeably, perhaps in a way similar to ‘anti-India’ and ‘anti-Hindu’ have come to represent in India.

What if I was to talk about Maulana Maududi here, that champion of Islam who wrote dozens of books on religion, inspiring a generation of scholars and political groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood. He was the founder of Jamaat-i-Islami, the right-wing religio-nationalist party, and considered to be one of the most influential Islamic scholars of the 20th century.

There is, of course, no need to sift through his religious writings to see if they are ‘anti-Islam’, but how are we to look at his political work? He was critical of the Pakistan movement, opposed to the politics of Jinnah and against the creation of this independent country for Muslims. Can we categorise his work as ‘anti-Pakistan’ but ‘pro-Islam’? Can these two categories exist independently? We can raise these questions, identify these loopholes but it would be a pointless exercise, for these terms are not meant to be debated.

Maulana Maududi. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/DiLeeF, CC BY SA 3.0

Standing at the other end of the spectrum would be Chaudary Zafarullah Khan, if there existed any such spectrum and neat binaries, for it these simplistic spectrums that the use of these terms are meant to create. But let us for a moment, suspend any adherence to a complex, complicated and holistic association with reality and accept the logic of these bifurcations. Zafarullah Khan was a stalwart of the Pakistan movement, represented the Muslim League at the Round Table Conferences, at the Radcliffe Boundary Commission and is believed to have drafted the Lahore Resolution, which is seen as the foundation of the Pakistan movement, became the first foreign minister of Pakistan and represented the country at the International Court of Justice.

Borrowing from American patriotic vocabulary, he could perhaps be referred to as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Pakistan. The government suggested that Zafarullah Khan’s quotations should be included in school textbooks, as opposed to those of ‘anti-Pakistan’ people such as Gandhi. Given his role in history, Zafarullah Khan has every right to fall within the category of ‘pro-Pakistan’ voices.

The problem, however, is that Zafarullah Khan belonged to the Ahmadiyya community. It was firmly established in 1974 that members of this community were ‘anti-Islam’ and were declared non-Muslims by the constitution of Pakistan. Much like the ‘anti-Pakistaniness’ of Gandhi, the ‘anti-Islamicness’ of the Ahmadiyya community is also supposed to be common knowledge. Where should we place Zafarullah Khan? In which neat category can he fit? Is he ‘pro-Pakistan’ but ‘anti-Islam’?

Chaudary Zafarullah Khan. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ Markazan-e-Tasaweer, Public Domain

What happens when we bisect these bifurcations further? Do new categories emerge as identified above or do all such simplistic divisions fail? Perhaps we could have had this abstract debate but that would require a deconstruction of these terms, which is not allowed.

Simplistic narratives to justify the state’s failures

It is not as if India or Pakistan is unique in using these simplistic narratives. They exist in every society, in every form. ‘Terrorist’ versus ‘nationalist’, ‘violent’ versus ‘civilised’, ‘law-abiding’ versus ‘law-breaking’. Most often than not, these categories come from the top, from a powerful state, looking to expand its role, finding justification for its failures. It is meant to distract, divert, to dumb-down a complex issue, to simplify a contested relationship.

For the PTI government ruling Punjab, this new Act is meant to steer the conversation away from their economic and administrative failures. It is meant to find a new enemy or revisit old ones, at a time when people begin asking questions from the state, when they begin to see through the empty rhetoric of their claims about progress and achievements. It is yet another example of a government that has failed to achieve its basic function, resorting to an old technique of stirring up a debate whose purpose is to shut all discourses.

Time to Rescue South Asia’s Muslims and Sikhs from Divide-and-Rule Historiography

History at the hands of the colonialists was a powerful tool through which ‘historical injustices’ were highlighted and then ‘avenged’.

Lahore: It was, at least till that point, the single most important event in the short history of the Sikhs. Not only did it change the course of Sikhism but also had long lasting impact on the course of events in Punjab. His was no ordinary death. This was the execution of a Guru, the head of this nascent religious community, a peaceful community which at that point could not, even it wanted to, threaten the mighty Mughal Empire – then at its zenith – ruled by Emperor Jahangir, conqueror of the world. This was the execution of Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Sikh Guru.

What is also significant here is the nature of the execution. For five days, the Guru is said to have been tortured. Burning sand is said to have been poured on his head as he sat in a lit cauldron, bearing all of this peacefully. There are multiple contesting narratives as to why the Guru was executed – narratives that still inspire heated debates and arguments. It’s not my job, neither my interest here, to explore these claims. What I am rather interested in is the long-lasting impact of this execution.

It is in the shadow of his father’s execution that Guru Hargobind emerges, the first Sikh Guru who could truly be called ‘Saint Warrior’. Realising the perilous situation of the community, the sixth Guru continued with passion the process of militarising the Sikh community, for self-protection. It is really the process started by Guru Hargobind that culminated with Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru.

In the popular imagination, it is Guru Gobind Singh, who is thought of as a ‘Saint Warrior’ for his opposition to Emperor Aurangzeb. However, the impact of Guru Hargobind cannot be understated on Guru Gobind Singh, with the latter even keeping the sword of his the Guru as a cherished possession.

Also read: Ranjit Singh’s Statue in Lahore Uproots the Colonial Narrative of Muslim-Sikh Strife

Another interesting parallel that connects the stories of these two Gurus is the nature of their ascension. Guru Gobind Singh too became a Guru in the aftermath of the execution of his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur at the hands of Emperor Aurangzeb. There was, therefore, a similar nature of threat on the Sikh community and its future at the time of his rise.

Between Guru Arjun, Guru Hargobind and Emperor Jahangir, and Guru Tegh Bahadur, Guru Gobind Singh and Emperor Aurangzeb, the entire story of the Mughal-Sikh relationship can be recalled. It is the story of a massive, powerful empire coming down hard on a religious group that through its resilience and leadership managed to survive. However, while these stories do present a good understanding of Mughal-Sikh relationship they do not necessarily explain the Muslim-Sikh relationship, often times assumed to be the same thing.

One way in which Mughal and Muslim became synonymous was through the colonial educational policy. Under the colonial state, when the history of South Asia was studied and written, it was categorised into neat compartments like the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh periods, with the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals falling under the category of Muslims, with Maharaja Ranjit Singh, on the other hand, highlighting the Sikh period.

These neat compartments provided the impression that these were isolated periods, with a rupture from one period to another. Actual history, of course, is much more complicated, with different ‘periods’ flowing into each other, transcending these imagined ruptures. For example, the court language of Maharaja Ranjit Singh remained Persian, following a tradition that came to him through the Mughals. There is also much historical evidence to suggest that ‘Muslim’ rulers maintained several of the state institutions of rulers preceding them. There is, therefore, much interaction and borrowing between different ‘periods’.

Unfortunately, early Indian nationalists, from secular, to Hindu and Muslim nationalists, educated mostly from colonial educational institutions and reading about the history of India through these colonial historians, failed to challenge this basic framework of periods through which a history of India was imagined. In many ways, this premise continues to inform how different kinds of nationalists continue to not just perceive history but rather also how religious groups interacted with each other. Therefore, using this framework, the Mughal-Sikh interaction between empire and rebel gets transformed into the interaction between Muslims and Sikhs as followers of different religions.

History at the hands of the colonialists was a powerful tool through which ‘historical injustices’ were highlighted and then ‘avenged’. During the War of 1857, particularly, the British used this excuse of ‘avenging’ the past to rile up former Sikh soldiers of the Empire of Ranjit Singh, to support the British against the ‘Mughal-led Muslim dominated-rebellion’.

Also read: Shared Trauma Underpins Sikh-Muslim Solidarity in Kashmir

The British, having only recently taken control of Punjab, realised their tenuous position in the province and also the grave implication to the future of the empire in India if Punjab too were to rise up in arms against the British. It is in this context that propaganda was done by the British to cast the rebellion as Mughal-led. Deliberately, a prophecy was spread into the newly-recruited Sikh soldiers that the ‘White-man’ would ‘avenge’ the injustices committed against the Sikh Gurus.

Unfortunately, even seven decades after decolonisation, the colonial framework of history continues to dominate contemporary political debates and actions in South Asia.

While on the one hand the execution of Guru Arjan at the hands of Emperor Jahangir is used an example to reinforce this framework, the same historical example also provides us with an alternative through which history and particularly relations between different religious groups can be imagined. It is well known that Guru Arjan and the Muslim Sufi Saint Mian Mir were close friends. It is believed that when Guru Arjan laid the foundation of Harminder Sahib in Amritsar he asked Mian Mir to lay the first brick. Similarly, when Guru Arjan was being tortured by the Mughal administration, Mian Mir is believed to have approached Guru Arjan to seek his permission to the destroy the city of Lahore to rescue the Guru. Guru Arjun turned down the offer.

It is these encounters, I believe, which provide us with a better understanding of the interaction between members of different religious groups. It is these relationships which can be used to dismantle the edifice of the antagonist and exclusionary framework through which the history of the subcontinent is understood. It is only through the decolonisation of history that a peaceful future in South Asia can be imagined, where mosques and temples are not brought down, and minority communities targeted to ‘avenge historical injustices’.

Haroon Khalid is the author of several books including Imagining Lahore and Walking with Nanak.

What the Debate Around bin Qasim and Raja Dahir Tells Us About Pakistan and Nationalism

Though the debate here is about two rulers, the actual conversation that needs to happen is between the Singh government and the federal state.

The demand first came last year, when a statue honouring Maharaja Ranjit Singh was unfolded at the Lahore Fort. Despite its political motivations and other contexts, it was an extraordinary moment. An extremely rare moment when the Pakistani state was not just acknowledging but celebrating a non-Muslim ruler. This was after years of propaganda of projecting the Sikh era as being tumultuous for the Muslim population of Punjab. Facing the Lahore Fort, in the alley of Badshahi Masjid, at least till a few years ago, when I last saw them, there were pictures from the colonial era that showed the dilapidated condition of the mosque during the Sikh era, when it was used as a horse stable.

Though unveiling the statue was praiseworthy, it was just that: a symbolic moment without any accompanying structural changes. In school and college history books, the Sikh era continued to be projected as tyrannous for the Muslim population, while Muslim nationalist writers vehemently recalled Ranjit Singh’s ‘atrocities’. It, therefore should not come as a surprise that shortly after its installation, the statue was attacked and damaged. The message had larger reverberations than was acknowledged at that time: Ranjit Singh, or for that matter, no Hindu or Sikh ruler could be celebrated in Pakistan.

Statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Photo: Twitter/pid_gov

Pakistan, like every other country in the world, has used history to tell its own national story. The story, of course, is not fixed. It requires constant revisions and modifications. For example, in the early years of the country, it was acceptable to teach the story of Ramayana or Mahabharata to school children. It was acceptable to discuss the Kushan or Gupta dynasties. As relations with India deteriorated, most of these stories began slipping away, while other stories became more prominent.

Also Read: Reclaiming the Nation: Reaching the Destination

These are the stories of Muhammad Bin Qasim, Mahmud Ghazni, Muhammad of Ghor, Babur, Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali. It became the story of Muslim triumph over a pagan land, a chaotic rule replaced by a benevolent empire enlightened by religious exceptionalism. Just as the creation of Pakistan was projected as the triumph of Muslim nationalism in juxtaposition to the defeat of Indian nationalism (read Hindu nationalism), history was recast to tell this story of triumph over and over again.

The significance of bin Qasim

While all these historical characters are significant in this narrative, as can be testified by the names of our missiles, Muhammad bin Qasim acquired particular significance in this pantheon. He was the first Muslim ruler, the one who brought the ‘first light onto this dark land’, the harbinger of glorious things that were to come after him, the Ghaznis, the Baburs, the Abdalis, and of course Pakistan.

If we use the story of Ramayana, they became the Rams of the story. However, every Ram needs a Ravana, the penultimate villain, on the basis of whom his glory is projected. Thus entered the villainous Hindu rulers like Raja Dahir, Anandpala, Prithviraj Chouhan, Shivaji and others. For the true light of their rule to shine, the era preceding them needed to be darker. In order for these Muslim rulers to be just, the ones before them needed to be more atrocious.

Standing in contrast to the glorious Muhammad Bin Qasim, the 17-year-soldier, was the aging Raja Dahir, the ruler of Sindh. If Muhammad Bin Qasim had to be a symbol of Pakistani nationalism, then Raja Dahir had to be its anti-thesis. And that is what he came to represent for a long time, his name itself representing tyranny. It was on his body that the glorious statue of Muhammad bin Qasim was to be erected, holding the flag of Pakistani nationalism.

Muhammad bin Qasim. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Mohammad Adil CC BY-SA 3.0

While the nationalist project, on one hand, had its successes, exemplified by the attack on Ranjit Singh’s statue. It is never completely successful, with constant challenges being thrown at this deterministic narrative. The most recent challenge to this national story comes from Sindhi sub-nationalists, who have over the years tried inverting these symbols, casting Raja Dahir as the real hero – the Ram of the story – and Muhammad bin Qasim, as the bloodthirsty invader, Ravana.

The debate in Sindh

When Ranjit Singh’s statue was erected in Lahore, they demanded a similar tribute to be made to the “son the soil” in Sindh. A few days ago, the debate raged on social media, with Sindhi sub-nationalists calling Dahir a Sindhi hero and in the process, disowning Muhammad bin Qasim. Consequently, the Pakistani nationalists came to the defence of Muhammad bin Qasim and criticised Dahir.

Both these narratives are quite problematic. A critical analysis of history debunks myths on both sides. The point here is not to talk about “true” history. Historians have done that quite convincingly and effectively. For example, Romila Thapar has done a fantastic job in deflating these myths around Mahmud Ghazni, while historian Manan Ahmed Asif has done a brilliant job doing that for Muhammad bin Qasim and Raja Dahir.

The question here is not about Raja Dahir or Muhammad bin Qasim, but rather what the debate tells us about how Pakistani nationalism defines itself, and how Sindhi sub-nationalism actively seeks to define itself in opposition to that. In many ways, the process is quite similar to what happened in pre-Partition India, when Hindu nationalism picked up these symbols of “local” resistance in opposition to “foreign” Muslim invaders, as its hero. This was followed by a reversing of these symbols by Muslim nationalism, as is shown by another impressive historian, Ali Usman Qasmi. These symbols were then inherited by India and Pakistan.

In the Sindhi context, the appropriation of these symbols represents a sense of marginalisation at the hands of the Pakistani State. This defiance to Pakistan’s national historical symbols needs to be seen in the context of a long relationship between the Sindh and the federal state, where a sense of marginalisation was experienced in several ways: with the arrival of muhajir and the “loss” of Karachi to the non-Sindhis, with the purchase of large tracts of lands by Punjabi landlords in Sindh, with the low representation of Sindhis in the bureaucracy, with the drying of Indus as it enters Sindh, with the assassinations of Sindhi prime ministers Z.A. Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. Most recently, this was experienced during the tussle between the Sindh government, led by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the federal government, led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), over strategies of how to handle the COVID-19 lockdown and the debate around the 18th Amendment, which assures autonomy to the provinces, hailed by Sindh, but has been increasingly criticised by the PTI.

Also Read: After Partition, Trust was the Biggest Loss in Sindh

Raja Dahir. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/INDIAN SCHOOL, Public Domain

Thus, while keyboard warriors engage in a debate on Muhammad bin Qasim and Raja Dahir, the real debate that needs to happen is about the relationship between the Sindh provincial government and the federal state. Unfortunately, when this debate is held through these symbols, the real issues are often forgotten and never addressed.

Haroon Khalid is the author of several books including Imagining Lahore and Walking with Nanak.

Why Pakistan Is Having a Tough Time With its Mosques

The current ‘confrontation’ between the mosques and the government is a product of the state’s encounters with religion.

Lahore: With the beginning of Ramzan, as it stands, mosques across Pakistan remain open, with the government issuing a standard operating procedure (SOP) for devotees who want to pray at mosques. These procedures require keeping a certain distance between people. However, given the historical independence of mosques in the country, it seems highly unlikely that the government will be able to enforce this SOP.

For example, different governments have tried standardiding the timing for azaan and prayer, in vain. In the aftermath of 9/11 and the fear of Talibanidation of mosques across the country, there have also been futile efforts to have a standardised, uniform, government-approved khutba, sermon, across the mosques. Even this Ramzan, there are certain areas where Ramzan ‘started’ a day before the rest of the country, following the Arab world, hence Eid would be celebrated a day before the rest of the country, as has been the case for many years. In Islamabad, the controversial Lal Masjid, headed by Maulana Abdul Aziz, sympathetic of the ISIS and a vehement critic of the Pakistani state, remains as independent as always, regularly giving sermons, while hundreds of his supporters gather in the premise of the mosque for prayers, despite government and court orders.

There have already been reports from across the country that various mosques are flouting these SOPs and it is business as usual. The government is regularly repeating the warning that if these SOPs are not being followed then they would have no other option but to shut the mosques. Given how much space the state has already conceded to mosques in the past several decades, there are reasons to believe that this too is a hollow warning, and mosques would remain open, despite whatever the government says.

Also read: Pakistani Doctors Urge Govt to Reimpose Mosque Restrictions

Instead of exercising its sovereign authority and enforcing a shutdown of the mosques, the government’s strategy has been to have religious scholars on national television to make a plea to the people to not go to the mosques. Similar messages have come from the president and other representatives of the state. The most recent example of this was Maulana Tariq Jamil’s address to the nation, while the prime minister heard in the audience, surrounding by representatives of the media. Tariq Jamil is one of the most famous Islamic preachers in the country, a member of the Tableegh-e-Jamaat.

While the government struggles to shut down mosques, it has had no issues in shutting down Sufi shrines, which historically, within South Asia, were much more important religious centres than mosques. Shia Imaam bargahs and mosques were also effectively shut down, not by a strict government order but rather on the decision of Shia scholars. Similarly, Church leaders too refused to have a large religious congregations on the occasion of Easter, in lieu of the coronavirus.

The argument I am making here is that the insistence of mosques to remain open, despite the dangers, cannot be understood through the framework of ‘religious irrationality’ or religious leaders standing in opposition to the government. In fact, I believe that this ‘confrontation’ between the mosques and the government is rather a product of a long process of the state’s encounter with religion, and the state’s active promotion of a particular religious tradition over the others.

Right from its inception, the Pakistani state has appropriated religion and religious spaces for its own political agenda. In the context of the Sufi shrines, the process began with the formation of Auqaf during the tenure of Ayub Khan, a government organisation that was responsible for looking after the affairs of Sufi shrines across the country. One of the stated goals of Auqaf was to bring practices at Sufi shrines in line with the ‘Islamic teaching’. In this relationship that developed between the Sufi shrines and the state, it was the state that was to have a paternalistic role vis-à-vis the shrine and define for it what is true religion or not.

In my writings on Sufi shrines in Pakistan, I have talked about several idiosyncratic traditions at Sufi shrines that continue to exist, despite the state’s insistence on standardising religious traditions at Sufi shrines through Auqaf. A few shrines that I have written about are the shrine of sacred dogs, the shrine of sacred cows, the shrine of phallic offerings, the shrine for lovers, etc. Given the historical connection between Sufi shrines and folk religion, a lot of these Sufi shrines were seen as specialising in certain aspects. So, for example one went to a particular shrine if one wanted to pray for a child, and another shrine if one wanted to find a marriage partner, and a different one if one was suffering from some disease.

Also read: Explainer: As COVID-19 Numbers Rise, Why Is Pakistan Reluctant to Call a Lockdown?

With the interference of the Auqaf department in the everyday experience at these Sufi shrines, there was an active policy of standardising religious traditions at Sufi shrines, with the state promoting a particular version of religion which it thought was the correct version. Thus, several religious traditions, which were seen as impure due to their pre-Islamic influences were looked down upon, discouraged and sometimes outlawed at Sufi shrines.

In the process those Sufi shrines which were more mainstream, in bigger cities, and where the state had much more of a presence, slowly became more ‘sanitised’ in line with the state’s understanding of ‘normative religion’. The biggest example of this is the shrine of Data Darbar in Lahore, where overtime all of these ‘non-normative’ traditions have been outlawed to promote a certain version of what a Sufi shrine should look like. Data Darbar today stands in contrast to the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan Sharif, Sindh, or Shah Hussain’s shrine in Lahore, where some of these idiosyncratic traditions survive, despite the presence of the Auqaf department.

As a guiding principle I have found that shrines that are away from important urban centres have, to a certain extent, retained some of their idiosyncratic tradition, but that is constantly changing as different areas of the country being incorporated into to the larger, economic and political systems.

This most recent example of the state promptly shutting down Sufi shrines, while expressing an uncertainty about mosques is yet another case of the state defining what normative religion in Pakistan is. For all the ‘soft image’ appropriation of Sufi shrines, in this world view, the religiosity they represent lies on the margins of what actual religion is. It is no surprise therefore that there was no trouble for the state to shut it down, while the same cannot be done for the mosques, for they represent normative religion.

It is therefore not a straightforward case of some religious groups exerting their independence but rather a complicated process through which legitimacy is rendered to certain religious traditions and spaces by the state and not to others.

Haroon Khalid is the author of several books including Imagining Lahore and Walking with Nanak.

What Happens When a Travel Writer Looks Only Through the Camera?

My experience at various Sufi shrines in Pakistan raised some difficult questions.

There is a fully functional camera in every cellphone, but my DSL camera was not being allowed into the Sufi shrine of Baba Fareed Shakarganj at Pakpattan. How do you point out these contradictions to the police officials standing at the edge of the entrance, searching everyone who enters the shrine?

The threats are real. Sufi shrines have been targeted by militants in the past decade or so, accused of being un-Islamic and promoting “vulgar” traditions such as dance, music and dhamal. At several of these Sufi shrines, multiple identities, religious traditions and genders melt, submerged just as a Sufi is believed to drown in divinity. “Calling the name of Ranjha (symbol of divine), I myself became Ranjha,” said 16th-century Sufi mystic poet Shah Hussain, whose shrine in Lahore is one of the most prominent Sufi shrines in the city.

Thus, I can understand the cause for concern and the extra precautionary methods that need to be adopted. However why is a camera threatening but not a multitasking cell phone, which sometimes has a much more powerful lens?

With the police official I was negotiating with taking mercy on me and allowing me to take the camera inside, I wasn’t willing to engage in these broader discussions. He was just following orders, given through a chain of command, a bureaucratic structure, which overtime sucks out any logic but remains tied to the command.

The initial logic could have been a security threat. The state doesn’t want militants to photograph the space, identifying its strengths and weaknesses. This logic falls flat in a world where every pocket phone has access to Google Earth.

Entrance to the mausoleum of Ali Mardan Khan. Photo: Haroon Khalid

It isn’t always security concerns, though. Several years ago, I was in Lahore visiting the shrine of Ali Mardan, the Mughal governor of Lahore in the 17th century. At the end a narrow alley, the mausoleum appeared out of nowhere, a splendid structure, a testimony of the Mughal empire at its zenith. The entire structure was decorated with detailed and colourful frescoes and mosaic. There was no end to this artwork.

Bewildered at the beauty of the structure, I unconsciously took my digital camera out of the bag, wanting to capture the beauty of the building. It was a futile attempt. I didn’t know where to begin from, or how to capture the essence of the structure, its festive colour standing in contrast to the drabness of the ordinary world around it – a few railway tracks and a workshop.

I could zoom in and look at the intricacies of these patterns, but in the process would have lost the interconnectedness of the patterns and how they scattered their web over the entire structure. A broader lens would have lost the subtleties of the pattern. The entire enterprise was doomed to fail even before it had begun.

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I had only snapped a couple of these pointless photographs when an old security guard, in plain clothes, sitting on a wooden chair, jumped up, saying with his finger that photographing the structure wasn’t allowed. “Why not?” I asked. “Just because,” he replied. More than security concerns, in this case it seemed the state wanted to save itself the embarrassment of having allowed this structure to fall into disrepair. Pictures in a local newspaper would have achieved that purpose.

But just as a chain of command strips an order of its logic, the same chain also breaks down a powerful state into several parts, all representatives of that bigger state. At that moment it was the security guard who was the state in front of me. I talked to him, requested him to let me take a few photographs. He was a sweet fellow who agreed after a little coalescing. This was not a negotiation between an individual and a state, but rather between two individuals.

I had a similar experience a couple of years ago at the smadhi of Ganga Ram in Lahore. He was an iconic philanthropist who was responsible for raising some of the most memorable buildings in the colonial city in the 20th century. Upon entering the courtyard of the smadhi, I began photographing the building when a security guard leaped towards me with a similar gesture, offering a similar logic. It was a similar interaction and negotiation, and eventually I was allowed a few photographs of the building.

Smadhi of Ganga Ram. Photo: Haroon Khalid

Back at the shrine of Baba Fareed at Pakpattan, the camera was eventually allowed inside, not so much after challenging the logic of the command but rather using the notorious “I am a journalist” card. At the top of the mound, I quickly began to photograph the shrine and several activities, eager to capture a few photographs before someone higher in the chain of command showed up, having to repeat the entire process of negotiation. I photographed each and every building, all the whirling devotees and the qawwali performances. I photographed all the rituals that would help me create a story around the shrine.

All these trips were successful and I have numerous photographs. But its taken me a while to understand what I have lost in the process of this photography. Delighted at the ‘privilege’ of being allowed to photograph, in all of these cases I was taken away from that physical space. The shrine, mausoleum and the smadhi became a story for me, which I imagined through words and pictures. Even when I was standing there, I was conceptualising the beginning, the middle and the end of the story, and taking photographs that would substantiate the story.

Also read: The Ugly Side of Wildlife Tourism

In that moment, the physical space stopped being an experience that it was meant to be. Instead of engaging in a conversation with these historical spaces, I was – through the lens of my camera and the unformed words of my story – involved in a one-way discourse with the space. My story was overriding all other potential narratives that could have come forward had I not been busy photographing these structures.

I wonder a travel writer is to negotiate with this. Photography is an essential feature of travel writing today, a story incomplete without it. But what if we were to remove photography completely from travel writing? What if travel writing simply became a conversation between a space and the author, a conversation that happened without photography and the need to ‘document’, with no template and no structure, no framing. What kind of stories would emerge through this conversation? What kind of stories are lost when seen through the frame of a photograph?

Haroon Khalid is the author of several books including Imagining Lahore and Walking with Nanak.

Nankana Sahib Is the Undoing of Kartarpur’s Movement Towards an Inclusive Pakistani Identity

Even ‘Hindu’ or ‘Sikh’ heritage is a part of Pakistan’s own.

Lahore: Fewer than two months apart, these two incidents could not be more in contrast to each other.

First came the inauguration of the Kartarpur peace corridor, attended by thousands of people, watched by many more around the world. After years of bad press this was finally Pakistan’s moment, a Muslim country, renovating and opening up the shrine of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.

In more than 70 years of Pakistan’s history, no other non-Muslim historical figure had received such attention as Guru Nanak was now getting.

Fewer than two months later, on January 3, a mob at Nankana Sahib, the birth place of Guru Nanak, gathered outside Gurdwara Janamasthan chanting slogans, threatening to overrun the gurdwara and also changing the name of the city that is known for its association with Guru Nanak.

If that was not bad enough, a Sikh man was shot dead in Peshawar two days later. This was not an isolated incident of violence against the Sikhs in Peshawar, where a couple of years ago Charanjit Singh, a prominent community leader had been assassinated.

Also read: Explainer | Kartarpur, the Making of a Diplomatic Corridor

How is one to understand and reconcile these two seemingly contrasting events?

While opening of the Kartarpur Corridor and recognition of Guru Nanak on one hand symbolised a turn in the history of Pakistan, which could finally be seen opening up to its Sikh heritage and community, the recent events in Nankana Sahib and Peshawar, challenge this perception. They highlight that Pakistan remains the same, a place where violence against minorities would continue to be experienced.

While these two events might seem to be poles apart, it is my argument that they are not as contrasting as they might appear to be. What Kartarpur Sahib represented was a state appropriating the Sikh heritage. It was a top down phenomenon that did not necessarily mean that things would change on the ground, as the events in Nankana Sahib underscore.

In addition, the language of this appropriation is also important.

Imran Khan at the inaugural ceremony at the Kartarpur Gurudwara Complex. Photo: Shome Basu

Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, had said that Kartarpur Sahib was like “Medina for the Sikhs”. The narrative was that this is a Sikh holy shrine that needed preservation so that the Sikh community could come and pay homage here.

This, in fact, has been the narrative that has been promoted over the past decade or so, when many other Sikh gurdwaras have been renovated and opened for religious pilgrimage.

There is no doubt that on its own, the narrative is important and appreciable. For a state that has for decades defined its identity as Muslim, excluding the other religious identities of this land, this is a big step.

Also read: In Kartarpur, a Reminder That Common Indians and Pakistanis Want Peace

With the state’s interest in the Sikh heritage and the inauguration of the Kartarpur Corridor came an increased interest in Sikhism in mainstream media. For the first time since Partition, Guru Nanak’s verses played on the radio and television channels in Pakistan, and several articles appeared in the vernacular newspapers talking about the life and philosophy of Guru Nanak.

While such coverage of Sufi saints has been a norm, never before in the history of the country has a non-Muslim saint received so much attention.

However, the problem with this narrative of ‘preserving Sikh heritage for the Sikhs’, is that there is an inherent exclusion in it, that differentiates between Muslim and Sikh heritage, ‘our’ and ‘their’ heritage.

Kartarpur and Guru Nanak, should be accorded respect because they are revered by the Sikhs, not because they represent ‘our’ heritage. Thus, even while it seems that this narrative of preserving non-Muslim heritage is challenging some of the basic assumptions of exclusivist national identity, it is rather building upon the same premise.

This brings us to the incident at Nankana Sahib, where a mob gathered a few days ago threatening to overrun the gurdwara.

For decades a chauvinistic nationalist narrative has been promoted through the education system, museums, the media, political rhetoric, etc., a narrative premised upon an exclusive Muslim identity, standing in opposition to a non-Muslim Hindu India.

Also read: India Condemns Vandalism at Nankana Sahib, Pak Says It Is ‘Undamaged’

Through these structures, several generations of Pakistan have internalised a particular narrative of Pakistani national identity, which cannot be challenged overnight.

Appreciable as it is, the inauguration of the Kartarpur Corridor happened without any systematic changes in these structures that continue to promote a particular narrative on national identity.

The renovation and the opening of the Kartarpur gurdwara in this context ends up being an isolated event that has much symbolic significance but devoid of actual long-lasting changes. Till that happens, people like Imran Chishti, the person who led the mob at Nankana Sahib on January 3, would continue to exploit religious sentiment targeting other religions, finding resonance in a society that for decades has been fed a particular narrative on religion and nationalism.

For now, Chishti has been arrested, another action that needs to be appreciated, for there is also a long history of people exploiting religious sentiments and targeting religious minorities, like him, and getting away with it. But just like Kartarpur Sahib this too would be an isolated event with much symbolic significance without necessarily challenging the structures that continue to produce people like him and this narrative.

Perhaps a step that would have far reaching consequences would be teaching the philosophy of Guru Nanak in the educational curriculum. This could be further followed by other non-Muslim scholars and philosophers.

The narrative for the preservation and appreciation of non-Muslim heritage needs to move away from ‘Hindu’ and ‘Sikh’ heritage, but rather ‘our’, Pakistani heritage, premised upon a national identity that is inclusive.

Haroon Khalid is the author of several books including Walking with Nanak and Imagining Lahore

How the Babri Masjid Demolition Upended Tenuous Inter-Religious Ties in Pakistan

Every time relations with India have soured, the loyalty of Pakistani Hindus and Sikhs was questioned – incidents of violence against them were reported during the wars of 1965 and 1971.

I met Parvati Devi in 2011 when I travelled to Multan to document the festival of Holi for my book A White Trail. This was the first time since Partition that the ‘Hindu’ community in the city were celebrating Holi. I use the word Hindu with caution here because the identity, particularly in Punjab, became contested at the time of, and after, Partition.

Many Hindus started wearing crosses or took on Christian names to escape the riots. With the situation worsening for the Hindus in the aftermath of contentious relations between India and Pakistan, many of them stuck to their Christian identities. Today, these Christian and Hindu identities continue to interplay, with many floating between them and taking on one identity or another, depending on the time of the year.

It is in this way that a Christian-dominated community in Multan, the fifth largest city in Punjab and the seventh-largest in the country, with an overwhelmingly Muslim majority, came to celebrate Holi. I wanted to visit Multan for Holi because of the mythological legend that connected the story of Prahlad Bhagat, Hiranyakashipu and Holika with Holi.

According to this legend, Hiranyakashipu was the tyrant ruler of Multan, challenged by his son Prahlad Bhagat, in a story that had a lot of similarities with the story of Moses and the Pharaoh. The legend states that the festival of Holi is celebrated to mark the victory of Prahlad Bhagat over Hiranyakashipu, of truth over evil. Thus this legend attributes the origin of Holi to Multan, and I saw a symbolic significance in attending the festival there – the first time it was being celebrated after Partition.

Also read: Imran Khan Points Fingers at India, but Can Pakistan Reassure Its Minorities?

This revival of Hindu religious festivals, particularly in Punjab, was a part of the ‘Enlightened Moderation’ years under the military dictator Pervez Musharraf. With the image of the country suffering a tremendous blow due to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the state, under Musharraf, took to projecting a soft image of the country, in which protection of the religious minorities played a pivotal role.

The democratic regime that took over the reins from Musharraf followed the tradition. Thus by the end of the first decade of the new millennium, the Hindu community of Punjab had begun to feel comfortable enough to celebrate some of their religious festivals on a large community scale. I saw this happening not just in Multan, but also Lahore and Bahawal Nagar.

In this March 2014 file photo, a member of the Hindu community holds a damaged statue inside a temple that was attacked in Larkana, southern Pakistan’s Sindh province. Photo: Reuters/Faheem Soormro/Files

It is here in the midst of the festivities that I was introduced to Parvati Devi, a woman from the community, in her 40s at the time. Like other members of the community, she too had a non-Hindu name, which she never told me. Perhaps one of the most well-known members of the community, Parvati Devi is a classically trained singer, who has appeared on television and radio. A community activist, she along with others played a crucial role in the revival of the festival of Holi in Multan.

However, being a prominent face from the community is also dangerous, particularly for those from a persecuted minority. On December 7, 1992, a day after the Babri Masjid had been demolished in Ayodhya, a mob gathered to ‘avenge’ the desecration of the mosque more than a thousand kilometres from here. This was, however, nothing new.

Since Partition, Hindus and Sikhs in the country had been viewed through the lens of a ‘Hindu’ India. Thus every time the relationship with the neighbouring country soured, the loyalty of the Hindus and Sikhs was questioned. Incidents of violence by mobs against Hindus and Sikhs in different parts of the country have been reported during the wars of 1965 and 1971.

For many residents of the city of Multan, some of whom were a part of this mob, this duality of Christian/Hindu community was obvious. Parvati Devi told me how the mob was searching for her house within the community. They wanted to burn her. Her ‘sacrifice’ would have somehow redeemed the ‘honour’ of this mob.

Also read: On December 6, 1992, in a Small Town in Assam

What happened in Multan was not an isolated event. There were similar mobs all over Pakistan that brought down historical Hindu temples, most of which had been abandoned at the time of Partition and were serving as residential quarters. The historical temple of Prahlad Bhagat that connected the story of Holi with Multan was attacked and left in ruins.

The Jain Mandir in Lahore was also destroyed – its turret still lies on the ground, bearing witness to the events that unfolded on December 6 in Ayodhya and then December 7 in Pakistan. Other temples in the historical city of Lahore – Seetla Mandir, Bhadra Kali Mandir and Bheeru da sthan continue to stand – their partially ruined structures bear the scars of the unfortunate events.

One of the only functioning temples in Lahore catering to the Valmiki Hindu community of the city – similar to the Hindus in Multan – who wore multiple religious identities, was also burnt and its pre-Partition idols were destroyed. The building, I am told by the priest of the temple, burned for days. He told me that the administration of the temple had gathered at the temple on the morning of December 7, 1992, to discuss precautionary measures.

Given the history of the country, it was obvious that there would be repercussions. However before they could decide anything, a mob of hundreds violated the space of this small community’s temple and physically attacked it. Many utensils and other everyday paraphernalia of the temple was stolen, including the bike of the priest. They could only look on, thankful for the fact that the mob let them go. For months afterwards, the Pandit remained in hiding, out of fear of further repercussions. They were reports in the local newspapers that he had fled to India.

Also read: Ayodhya’s Class of 1992: The Key Conspirators

Much like the Hindus in Multan, it took them years to recover from the trauma of 1992, picking up pieces of their life and finding strategies to survive in the country. It seems as if the worst is behind them and they now live in a country where it has become less dangerous to openly exert their identity. However, they are also acutely aware of the fact that this equilibrium is balanced on the precarious politics surrounding India-Pakistan and Hindu-Muslim relations and the Babri Masjid in India.

Note: Names changed to protect identity.

Haroon Khalid is the author of several books including Imagining Lahore and Walking with Nanak.

Ranjit Singh’s Statue in Lahore Uproots the Colonial Narrative of Muslim-Sikh Strife

The post-colonial states of Pakistan and India are starting to challenge the internalised narrative, of oppressive Sikhs or bigoted Muslim rulers, propped up by the colonial state to justify its colonisation.

At least until a few years ago, there were old pictures of the Badshahi Masjid in the gateway that led to the courtyard of the iconic mosque. Taken during the colonial era, the pictures showcase a tale of neglect and dilapidation. This was the condition of the mosque when the British formally took over Punjab in 1849 in the aftermath of the Second Anglo-Sikh War.

For years before the arrival of the British, Badshahi Masjid the largest mosque in Punjab constructed during the reign of emperor Aurangzeb, whose minarets and domes would come to define the skyline of Lahore, was taken over by the Lahore Durbar, under Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Converted into a horse stable, an ammunition depot, and quarter for his soldiers the Muslims of the city lost access to the mosque as its building began to crumble. During the war of succession that ensued after the death of Ranjit Singh, Sher Singh, his son used the minarets of the mosque to bombard the Lahore Fort.

The colonial narrative of ‘Muslim oppression’

Under the colonial government that was eager to define itself in opposition to all its predecessors – projecting itself as more ‘civilised’, ‘religiously neutral’, ‘tolerant’ and ‘progressive’ – renovation activity at the mosque took place and in a public ceremony, John Lawrence, the chief commissioner of the province, and the de facto ruler of Punjab, handed over the mosque to the Muslim representatives of the city.

Interestingly it was John Lawrence, who a year later would stir up historical prejudice between Sikhs and Muslims yet again, by labelling the 1857 war of rebellion as a Mughal-led conflict and urging the Sikhs to march on to Delhi with him to seek revenge for the blood of Sikhs Gurus at the hands of the Mughals.

The story of the renovation of the Badshahi Masjid as captured meticulously in these historical photographs was part of the colonial state’s narrative. This narrative suggested that Maharaja Ranjit Singh, though able, was ‘intolerant’ towards the Muslims, and thus there arose a need for intervention from the colonial state to save the oppressed Muslims.

Also read: In Honouring Ranjit Singh, Pakistan Is Moving Beyond Conceptions of Muslim vs Sikh History

Ironically in 1857, it was the oppressed Sikhs who needed rescuing from the bigoted Muslim rulers. The story of the colonial state became the story of our post-colonial state. Half-truths, packaged into Muslim, Hindu and Sikh versions of the story were consumed without any challenge to them by the respective communities.

The Pakistani narrative of Ranjit Singh

In the Muslim, and subsequently Pakistani, historiography, Ranjit Singh came to personify a tyrant, a despot, who oppressed the Muslims and desecrated our mosques. Stories of other structures became a part of the narrative. Stories of how he once spent the night with Moran Mai, his wife, on the minaret of Wazir Khan Masjid in Lahore in plain sight of the city were circulated. These stories were added to school textbooks and regurgitated in the media and other popular history books. These stories were recreated for all visitors who visited the Badshahi Masjid.

The Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan. Photo: Sir Cam/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

It, therefore, comes as no surprise that there are many people who aren’t particularly happy about the placement of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s statue in the Lahore Fort. It challenges the foundation of the historical truth upon which the edifice of our ‘national story’ is constructed.

Social media posts and WhatsApp forwards criticising this move by the state recall how Ranjit Singh desecrated our mosques and oppressed the Muslims. How can the state then honour someone like him?

The resentment expressed against the statue is the state’s own doing. For decades, a particular narrative of history has been promoted by it, as was bequeathed to it by the colonial state. This narrative of oppressive non-Muslim rulers paves way for the justification of the creation of Pakistan. It explains how it was essential for Muslims to be their own rulers, for non-Muslim rulers can never be trusted.

While it was would be futile to counter the claims about Ranjit Singh turning the Badshahi Masjid into a horse stable and arms ammunition, it would also be pointless to justify these acts. The exercise would be as meaningless as to defend the actions of emperor Jahangir when he executed the fifth Sikh guru, Guru Arjan, or when emperor Aurangzeb ordered capital punishment for Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru. The stories of the executions of the Sikh gurus are deeply entrenched in Sikh historiography and continue to define the parameters of understanding what life was like for the Sikh minority under a Muslim state.

Also read: ‘If Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs Fight in This Way, It Helps No One’

Discarding accounts that challenge this narrative

The problem with this communal interpretation of history is the jettisoning of stories that do not conform to this narrative. For example, it is true that while Ranjit Singh used the Badshahi Masjid as his horse stable and arms ammunition, what is also true is that he constructed at least two other mosques in the city of Lahore and also handed over Sunehri Masjid, back to the Muslims, after it had been converted into a gurdwara prior to his rule.

Within the walled city of Lahore – in a bazaar known as Pappar Mandi, not far Shahalami – is Mai Moran Masjid, named after a Muslim wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. A few steps away from the haveli of Moran Mai, all traces of which are now lost, the mosque was constructed by the Maharaja in honour of his wife. The mosque continues to function with the same name.

Similarly, in another part of the city, deep within the Miani Sahib graveyard, a historical graveyard in the area of Mozang, is the mausoleum of Gul Begum, the second Muslim wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The impressive structure situated in a vast garden with a mosque next to it was constructed during the lifetime of Gul Begum, who outlived the Maharaja and was buried here after her death. The mosque constructed here is also functional, though, like Mai Moran Masjid, its historical architecture is now lost.

These stories of patronisation of Islamic structures is not just limited to the Muslim wives of the Maharaja. According to historical records, his youngest wife, Maharani Jind Kaur also donated her imperial collection of handwritten copies of Quran to Data Darbar, which added to the stature of the shrine in the city.

Confronting the communal colonial account

What these stories highlight is that the Lahore Durbar, under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, shared a much more complicated relationship with Islamic structures and mosques then is presented in official Pakistani historiography and popularly remembered.

While it is absolutely true that the sanctity of the Badshahi Masjid suffered under the Sikh ruler, there were other mosques such as those mentioned above which were constructed by the Maharaja. Therefore, when recalling the story of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, it becomes essential to address not just what happened to the Badshahi Masjid but also talk about these mosques.

Also read: As Aurangzeb is Erased, Here are Some Tales From the Flip Side of History

This particular narrative of oppressive Sikhs or bigoted Muslim rulers, which continues to communalise history in South Asia was first propped up by the colonial state to justify its colonisation. However, instead of challenging the framework of this story, the post-colonial states of Pakistan and India internalised these narratives and continue to not just interpret history through this lens but also view the ‘other’ through this framework.

In this context, the setting up of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s statue in Lahore does challenge this colonial framework. However, the structures that produce this interpretation continue to stand. There is much symbolic significance of putting up the statue in Lahore however the root of the problem that views history through the categories of Sikh, Hindu and Muslim version of history, still remains unaddressed.

Haroon Khalid is the author of four books including Imagining Lahore and Walking with Nanak.

In Honouring Ranjit Singh, Pakistan Is Moving Beyond Conceptions of Muslim vs Sikh History

The Pakistani state has shown its willingness to share its most important metaphor, Lahore, with other religious communities.

Lahore is no ordinary city. It is a metaphor, appropriated and employed by empires, states and regimes of all kinds over its millennia-long history. In this symbolism, the landscape of the city becomes a medium through which kings, queens, administrators and politicians express their rhetoric and political ambitions.

For example, the city under Dara Shikoh became a symbol of his love towards his Sufi mentor, Mian Mir. The greatest infrastructural project that he planned – a pathway of red tiles from his palace at Naulakha to the shrine of Mian Mir – was an expression of this love. The project could never be materialised as the war for the Mughal throne ensued pitting all the brothers against each other. Emperor Aurangzeb, who took over the Mughal throne, used the red tiles to construct another symbol, something that has come to represent the city of Lahore – Badshahi Masjid.

Badshahi Masjid in Lahore. Photo: lukexmartin/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Maharaja Ranjit Singh too appropriated the symbol for himself. He conquered the city in 1799 and soon after got himself declared Maharaja. While Lahore before the conquest had lost much of its charm, replaced by the burgeoning Amritsar, the metaphor remained. For Ranjit Singh, it was the capture of Lahore that was the ultimate step, transforming him from a warlord to a Maharaja. Lahore was a symbol of Mughal power, on whose model Maharaja Ranjit Singh fashioned his Lahore Durbar.

Lahore under the British

Under the British, Lahore was to transform into its most potent symbol. On one hand, the construction of civil lines, Mall Road and the cantonment, in a grid, with wide avenues and spacious bungalows – when compared to the congested houses and the winding roads of the walled city – symbolised the emergence of a new more ‘organised’ and ‘scientific’ empire.

On the other, the development of a saracenic architecture that amalgamated traditional Indian architecture with the European style, represented in the buildings of Punjab University, Lahore Museum and Lahore High Court, represented a certain continuity – with the British casting themselves as the ‘successors’ of the Mughal Empire. This new city of Lahore, a modern incarnation of an ancient city, was a powerful symbol the British would use to justify their rule.

Facing the Punjab Parliament on the Mall Road was the Statue of Queen Victoria, sitting under a pavilion that borrowed from the Mughal architectural tradition. The British Queen appropriating Mughal architecture was the epitome of this symbolism, of this need to show a continuity between the ancient and modern Lahore.

Also read: Reimagining Indo-Pak History in a Borderless Place

A few kilometres from here, next to the Lahore High Court, was the statue of John Lawrence, who before serving as the viceroy of British India served as the chief commissioner of Punjab, overseeing the transitioning of Punjab from the Sikh Empire to British. Most importantly, it was his role during the ‘Rebellion’ of 1857 that transformed him into a legend, with him single handedly coming to the rescue of the Empire. The iconic statue that was removed in the 1920s after much protestation held a sword in one hand, and a pen in the other, with the following line at its base, “Will you be governed by the pen or sword?”

Statue of Alfred Woolner (1878-1936) outside Punjab University in Lahore, Pakistan. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Similar to architecture, statues played an important role in articulating the political aspirations of the state. The one of John Lawrence, for example, expressed how the ‘benevolent’ British Empire was willing to use force if the people were not ready to accept this ‘scientifically superior race’.

Next to the King Edward Medical College there was a statue of King Edward. Outside the wall of Punjab University was the statue of Alfred Woolner, the former vice chancellor of the university. Lahore, which continues to be the educational hub of Pakistan, first became the educational hub during the British Empire.

Out of all the statues that once existed in Lahore, this is the only one that has survived.

In the latter half of the 20th century, as Lahore slowly became the symbol of the nationalist movement, a couple of other statues across the city sprung up marking this transition. Close to Nasir Bagh was the statue of Lala Lajpat Rai, the popular Congress leader from Lahore, whose death was ‘avenged’ by Bhagat Singh and his comrades. On the Mall Road was also the statue of Sir Ganga Ram, the civil engineer who in the early 20th century gave the city some of its most iconic buildings.

Becoming a symbol of Islamic nationalism

After the creation of Pakistan, the city of Lahore was to experience another transformation, this time re-emerging as yet another metaphor, symbol, which it in many ways continues to serve. The largest city of the newly-created country – before Karachi eventually overtook it – Lahore became the symbol of Pakistani nationalism.

Roads, junctions and buildings that were named after colonial officers or prominent Congress leaders were replaced by Muslim League leaders. Lawrence Hall became Quaid-i-Azam library. The Mall Road became Shahrah-e-Quaid-i-Azam, while Krishan Nagar became Islampura.

The statues, symbols of a different era, were removed. Lala Lajpat Rai was moved to Simla. Ganga Ram was destroyed during the riots of Partition, while Queen Victoria moved to the Lahore Museum. No new statues replaced them, as, under a certain interpretation of religion, statues were deemed to be seen as un-Islamic. Lahore from 1947 onwards came to be seen as a symbol of Islamic nationalism. While some of the colonial names and symbols were retained, the biggest victims of this new-found metaphor were Hindu and Sikh symbols.

Also read: How Diaspora, Technology and Oral History Are Bridging Punjab’s Partition Memories

Ranjit Singh’s statue

In this context, how is then one to interpret the recently-inaugurated statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh inside the Lahore Fort? For years we have gone out of our way to cast the Sikh history of the city in a particular framework. The years of Sikh rule in Punjab, which predate the rise of Ranjit Singh and also continue for a few years after him, are projected in the Pakistani historiography as tumultuous years, particularly for the Muslims.

While part of it is propaganda, there are certain truths behind it as well. For example, it is true that under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Badshahi Masjid was used as a stable. There is also a popular story of him spending a night on the minaret of Masjid Wazir Khan with his favourite consort, Moran Sarkar.

Statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh inside the Lahore Fort. Photo: Twitter

The problem is not the inclusion of these stories. The problem is the selective inclusion of stories and choosing to drop others to fit a particular narrative. So while students will be taught that Ranjit Singh used Badshahi Masjid for a stable, they will not be taught how one of his wives, Maharani Jind Kaur, the mother of Maharaja Daleep Singh, donated a collection of handwritten Qurans to Data Darbar. Or how on the insistence of his Muslim minister, Ranjit Singh renovated and handed over the Sunehri Masjid of Lahore to Muslims, which had been converted into a gurdwara before he came to power.

In this narrative, what is also conveniently ignored is the political persecution of the Sikh gurus and community by the Mughals. The executions of Guru Arjan at the hands of Emperor Jahangir and of Guru Tegh Bahadur on the orders of Emperor Aurangzeb are not mentioned. What is also not mentioned is the phoenix-like rise of a persecuted religious minority to the pinnacle of power under Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

What Ranjit Singh represents to the Sikh community today needs to be understood in the background of centuries of persecution of the community at the hands of the Mughals and its cronies. Towards the end of the Mughal Empire, there was once a time when to be born a Sikh carried with itself a death warrant, such was the religious bigotry of some of the Mughal governors of Punjab.

In less than a century emerged Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who transformed the most persecuted minority of Punjab into its ruling class. Ranjit Singh was no religious leader. He was a secular ruler, rather shrewd who sometimes appropriated religious symbols for political gains, as rulers have done and continue to do so. But in Sikh iconography, he acquired a religious significance, primarily because of how persecuted the community was only a few years before his rise.

By honouring Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the government of Pakistan has undertaken a wonderful step, sidestepping decades of policy. It represents how the state today is willing to move beyond the narrow conceptions of Muslim versus Sikh history but rather willing to accommodate a more holistic history.

Interestingly, this comes at a time when the Indian state is almost seeing a reverse direction with deliberately sidelining Muslim history and heritage. This is a step in the right direction, a step that shows how the Pakistani state is willing to share its most important metaphor, Lahore, with other religious communities. Let’s hope this step is followed by several others.

Haroon Khalid is the author of four books including Imagining Lahore and Walking with Nanak.