There is much more to the dead lying in Lahore’s numerous graveyards compared to those living in the city. The sheer genius of the past makes one wonder just what has happened to the living.

As I wandered through three of Lahore’s numerous cemeteries, one is struck at the quality of the deceased. Naturally, one compares them to the living, and that made me think of writing about the two or three outstanding persons in three of the numerous graveyards. Let’s start with the Miani Sahib graveyard, an over 800-year stretch of land that today holds – officially both existing and flattened - a staggering 300,000 graves. Many side portions have been, thanks to ‘official assistance’, sold to people wanting to make a house.

Among the hundreds of grave three stand out of our freedom fighters, those of Dulla Bhatti, Major Shabbir Sharif and Dr Muhammad Iqbal Shedai. First let us dwell on Dulla Bhatti. From the days of the Mughal emperor Akbar is the freedom fighter Rai Abdullah Bhatti, better known as Dulla Bhatti. He was born in Pindi Bhattian and was a famous local landlord. Both father and son were executed for opposing Mughal emperor Akbar’s massive land taxes.

On learning of his father’s killing by the Mughal ruler, Dulla organised a rebellion. Bhatti’s class war took the form of taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Folklore gave him a legendary ‘Robin Hood’ status.

Akbar in an act of duplicity invited Dulla to his court to discuss his uprising, promising a positive result. But once in the Lahore Fort he was skinned alive and hung outside the now closed Delhi Gate of the fort. The great Sufi poet Shah Hussain claims his last words were: “No honourable son of the Punjab will sell the soil of the Punjab”. His skinned body was removed and buried in the Miani Sahib Graveyard.

Then there is the Pakistani 1971 War martyr Major Shabbir Sharif. His full name was Major Rana Muhammad Shabbir Sharif who was awarded a Nishan-i-Haider for his amazing fighting against attacking Indian forces. He was born in Kunjah in Gujrat district to a Rajput family and attended the St. Anthony’s High School, Lahore. As a child I remember him in the school sports event held in the railway ground, where he won all the medals. He was a champion swimmer, athlete and squash player.

In the 1971 War in an offensive on the Western front against an overwhelming Indian force, on the 3rd of December 1971, in a well-organised action, he fought alongside his men and held Indian attacks at bay. On the 6th of December, he took over as a gunner on an anti-tank gun and started firing on the enemy tanks. While this fight was on, one of the enemy tanks fired at him thus killing him. His last words were quoted as: “Don’t lose the bridge.”

Then there is the amazing freedom fighter Dr Muhammad Iqbal Shedai. If there was ever a leading freedom fighter against the British colonialists, this was Iqbal Shedai. Born in 1888 in Pura Hairanwala, Sialkot to a Punjabi Bhutta Rajput family, he graduated from Sialkot’s Murray College but was refused admission in Lahore’s Law College as he was anti-British. In 1915, he moved to Hoti, Mardan, as a teacher in the local government school, but was expelled from the NWFP for being anti-British. In 1918, Shedai joined the Hindustan Ghadr Party and moved to Kabul where Amanullah Khan appointed Shedai as his minister for Indian refugees.

Iqbal Shedai then moved to Moscow to study the socialism of the Russian Bolshevik Party. He then moved to Ankara, Turkey, where he met Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, In 1933, Shedai became an adviser to the Italian Foreign Ministry on propaganda efforts targeted at Muslims in India and the Middle East.

With the beginning of World War II, Shedai established a shortwave radio station in Rome, making daily broadcasts to Indians. He trained Subhas Chandra Bose in revolutionary theory. In 1941, Shedai established the Azad Hind Government, an exile government for an independent India. In 1944, he fled Rome to avoid capture by the Allied armies. He returned to Lahore, Pakistan, in 1964, passing away on 13th of January 1974.

Let us now move on to the Taxali Gate Christian cemetery. Here are three very famous personalities of Lahore, they are Charles William Forman, Sir Henry Adolphus Rattigan and Raja Dhian Singh. Let us start with Foreman, the founder the Forman Christian College, better known as FCC, a major Lahore college and now a university.

Charles William Forman was born on March 3, 1821, in Washington, Kentucky, United States. He started life working on his father’s hemp business where the misery of the slaves moved him. He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister on July 7, 1847, and on the same day started his journey to India as a missionary.

In 1849, he settled in Lahore and set up the Rang Mahal School in the old walled city of Lahore. It was the first Anglo-vernacular school of Punjab. This school added a college department in 1865, which was later known as Forman Christian College. He was known to walk, every day, the streets of Lahore talking to people. This practice continued for 40 years. He died on August 27, 1894, in Lahore.

Then opposite Taxali also lies Sir Henry Adolphus Byden Rattigan, a former chief justice of the Chief Court of the Punjab, which was to be become Lahore High Court. His house on Rattigan Road was an amazing thatched-roofed cottage, which after his death was demolished as being ‘dangerous’.

He was born in Delhi, and educated at Harrow School and later Balliol College, Oxford. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1874. In 1889, he returned to India and enrolled as an advocate at the Chief Court of the Punjab. He served as a judge of the Chief Court of the Punjab from 1909 and in 1917 was made chief justice. He was knighted in 1918 and remained as chief justice until 1920 when he died in Lahore. His published works include Tribal Laws of the Punjab (1895) and Laws of Divorce in India (1897).

Then in this very old cemetery is, allegedly, the body of Raja Dhian Singh, the longest serving ‘Wazir’ of the Sikh Empire. On 15th of September 1843, he was assassinated alongside the emperor Sher Singh by the Sandhawalia group. His body was chopped into small pieces and allegedly thrown in a grave at this Taxali cemetery. The grave is a mystery, though official record acknowledges it. Several visits to the cemetery have not been able to locate it. This needs more research.

In the third cemetery, the Gora Cemetery on Jail Road where lies buried the daughter of Maharajah Dilip Singh, the Princess Bamba Sutherland. Also, there is Cecil Chaudhary, Geoffrey Langlands and A.C. Woolner. Langlands and Woolner were both outstanding educationists, with Woolner’s statute still standing on The Mall opposite the museum. Cecil Chaudhary was an outstanding pilot of the PAF who was decorated for outstanding bravery in both 1965 and 1971 wars.

Princess Bamba Sutherland was the granddaughter of Maharajah Ranjit Singh and daughter of Maharajah Dilip Singh. She moved back to Lahore and lived in Model Town. It was her wish to be buried in Lahore after she died in March 1957. All three cemeteries have hundreds of outstanding persons buried there, but a comparative analysis brings forth how the past has fashioned the present, and what awaits us in the future.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2024