A lot of our readers pose the question ‘Just how can we best save and conserve the old walled city?’ My answer invariably is to first rebuild the ‘stolen’ walls and regain the lost garden surrounding the old city. Sounds simple? In this piece let me dream of what is possible, and what we confront.

Once the ‘stolen’ walls and the ‘stolen’ garden are regained, almost everything else is within this ‘saved’ area, except where it concerns elements that effect the old city. If, and a big IF, our city planners can shift the truck and bus stands at Badami Bagh to a ‘New Lahore’, that would deprive the old city of the rush of buyers of wholesale goods. Maybe, a much bigger and more accessible wholesale market near this crazy ‘riverfront’ project is possible, a project that will further eat into our agricultural lifeline. If that ever happens then it should be located on the western side of the river, if that river ever remains. If such a situation ever emerges, then what should the law state about commercial coverage. The answer is simple, for it should be what the law already states, and that is that inside the old walled city only 15 per cent of the localities should be allowed to be run for commercial purposes. Currently it stands at a colossal 67pc, and all this has happened after 1947.

One study suggests if all the traders of the old walled city pay their taxes legally, the revenues from this area will multiply 18 times. Seems the tax collectors are having a grand time. If this 15pc commercial area law is enforced and the falling areas of the old city are simply conserved, that will lead to a massive flow of tourists … a massive boost for the city itself, many time larger than what ii generates now. But then the ‘ill-conceived’ project called the Riverfront Project will just not make sense. So, a first step should be the banning of all trucks and buses at Badami Bagh. As far as the current ‘so-called’ river is concerned normal river water no longer runs in it. At Ravi Siphon the quality is fine. Even at Mahmood Booti it is acceptable. Then all the poisonous industrial waste water is added to it. By the time it is six miles from the Ravi Bridge it is enough to kill a human if drunk. There is no scheme to cleanse this water.

One ‘airy-fairy’ scheme, yet another official bluff, claims it will solve the problem. Enmity with a ruthless India is costing us massively. As is normal all over the world no industrial unit should be allowed to decant its waste into a river. The different ‘nullahs’ as far away as Sheikhupura, especially tanneries at or near Kot Abdul Malik, are involved in criminal neglect. Money flows and all is well. Can this new Ravi Riverfront ‘Development’ project fulfil these basic, and more, critical needs? The only way is to involve concerned citizens to help in the planning, execution and monitoring process … but then that is another ball game. From an airy-fairy dream of a ‘New Lahore’, let us for starters look at the past, and how Lahore has managed to remember it. We talk about the past in terms of ‘people, places, things and faces.’ Most have been forgotten, given our limited investment in education and archives, while a considerable number we deliberately ignore. Such is our communal mind-set.

Over the last 3,000 years, thousands of outstanding persons and events have been part of our city’s history. Sadly, our national narratives start with a foreign invasion and, as if by magic, there was ‘enlightenment’. We tend to forget that our land is among the oldest in history. Here let me pinpoint just a handful and hope the people of Lahore will seriously bring forth some of them. To expect governments to help is to fall back on a colonial mindset in which we absolve ourselves of a responsibility which is primarily ours ... the citizens of a ‘free’ country.

As we go about changing the ancient names of lanes and ‘mohallahs’ to communal ones, mostly of irrelevant religious priests, surely there is an urgent need to restore the old names and put-up plaques to remind the people of our amazing past.

We can pinpoint people and events in the form of plaques, small monuments, busts, statues, and even tombs in an abstract form. They can be in any form. Our imagination is the limit.

Happily, there is an excellent collection of concerned citizens known as Lahore Sangat, who are putting up plaques outside the original houses of prominent people, mostly in the walled city. They happily dig deep into their own pockets for funds. Their magnificent effort is just the beginning. If the stingy rich, who abound, add to their funds, it will speed up the effort. Let me suggest a few areas in which we should remember our amazing past and hope our people will respond.

Imagine a detailed plaque installed at the beginning of Mohallah Maullian, inside Lohari Gate, informing local people, tourists and visitors that in this ‘mohallah’ the great Lord Buddha resided for three months. Would that not be a tribute to the ancient city and its importance in the history of the numerous religions that once flourished here? Surely a lot of scholars can supply the details. Let me dare to suggest, and this is not to spite our eastern neighbours, that in the mount that is today the Lahore Fort once lived Prince Bharata, the ruler of Lahore, and that the soldiers of Lahore defeated the collective ‘nine armies’ who wished to take over the maritime economy of the River Ravi that once flowed around the fort mound.

The epic Rigveda, written approximately 3,200 years ago in today’s land of Pakistan, alludes to ‘Dasanrajna Yuddha’ – The Battle of the Ten Kings - which took place on the banks of the River Ravi at Lahore. The Puru Vedic Aryan collection of tribes from Waziristan to Multan were defeated by the soldiers of Lahore. The ‘Kurukshetra Wars’ are described in the ‘Mahabharata’. For that matter India’s official name ‘Bharat’ is derived from the Lahore ruler, just as the word ‘Hindu’ is an Arab inability to pronounce the name ‘Sindhu’ – The Indus. The actual battle took place near today’s Mahmood Booti Bund. Surely that epic victory deserved to be remembered, but in a non-communal way.

To rethink our history in the way it really was, not in the communal way the minds of most of our youth are polluted currently, is a task that must be started. In the same vein the use of our mother tongue is urgently needed. There is just so much that needs to be done for Lahore and its people to be themselves.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2024