TOWN TALK
*Science Projects Exhibition being organised by LCCI Standing Committee on Science & Technology at Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Lahore Hall on Fri-Sat, Sep 24-25.
*Marxist Study Circle: Discussion on Class Struggle and Socialism today at 6:00 pm. Call at 0322-4415780.

It is just like curfew in the premises of the shrine of Syed Ali Hajveri, widely known as Data Ganj Bukhsh since the July 1 deadly attack.

The city police are now faced with the challenge of ensuring the security of major shrines of the provincial capital. Secret agencies of security forces gave intelligence reports of the attack which could not be prevented due to negligence and improper security by the local provincial and shrine authorities. Newly appointed Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Malik Aslam Tareen, while speaking before the Lahore High Court Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif, has confessed that the attack was a clear "security lapse".

Following this security lapse and still undisclosed clues about these attackers and attacks, the shrine authorities and devotees have outrightly rejected the new proposal of the city police to close this shrine at night. The police have a new security plan for the safety of the top shrines of Lahore which are under threat these days.

"We are seriously working on the security plan of eight major shrines in Lahore," the CCPO, Tareen tells TNS, adding, "These shrines include Data Darbar, Mian Mir, Darbar-e-Ghausia, Mazar Bibi Pakdaman, Mazar Baba Shah Jamal, Mazar Pir Makki and the shrine of Madhu Lal Hussain etc. Our proposal to disallow devotees at night has been rejected and now it has been agreed that only one gate of these shrines would remain open at night to ensure security.

"The police have also told the administrations of the shrines and the department concerned to prepare a security development plan for the places," he says. The CCPO further adds these shrines have a lot of funds and they are being asked to build proper checkposts and security bunkers on the ground and at the top for proper vigilance. Police will cooperate with them by all means."

A visit to the Data Darbar, ten days after the blasts, reveals a satisfactory security situation of the security but a bleak picture of the businesses and devotees who have to face many restrictions due to increased security measures.

Sahiwal-based Muhammad Akram, 34, and Muhammad Asif, 21, two labourers who come to shrine almost every night, want no ban of any kind. "Lots of people come at night. It is not possible to close down the shrine at night or even a gate."

A lot of people who travel at night come for 'haaziri' (visit) at night before their late night departure, says Asif. "It is a round the clock business and, especially on Thursdays, the queues waiting to enter the shrine extend up to Bhati Gate because of tight security and one open gate," says Muhammad Nawaz, 51, who has been serving at the shrine for the last 27 years. "There is no harm if similar tight security is placed at the other two gates so that pressure on one gate could be controlled."

The security plans are affecting the decades' old businesses around the shrine like distribution of free langar and selling of flowers and traditional jewellery etc. Javed Ahmad, running traditional jewellery shop at the shrine's adjacent road which has almost been closed because of security, says he has been doing business for the last 26 years. "If there is proper security concerns its fine."

He thinks that security is a collective responsibility of devotees, administration and police and everybody should cooperate to continue the centuries' old tradition and culture of this shrine.

"As many as 350 shops and more than 2,000 families of labourers are being affected because of these security measures," says Sahibzada Ahmad Asim, 32, who runs a langar stall in front of the shrine's main gate, which is closed now. "It's our economic murder. And the situation is creating tension among us. There should be security but without any hurdle," he maintains.

Langar distribution, an old tradition of the shrine, is under threat because of security hazards. People think the police and the administration should work on this dimension to ensure that this tradition is not affected. Arif Ali, a devotee of the shrine for the last several decades, wants a centralised langar khana to avoid these security issues and hurdles. "The security problem is because of this haphazard distribution of langar everywhere," he thinks.

The shrine administration is planning not to allow distribution of langar openly but to deposit it to the langar khana of the government where this can be distributed in a hall having a capacity of more than 1,500 people," explains the government administrator of the shrine, Rao Fazlur Rehman.

city

Before the partition, Lahore was a major cultural capital and retained its primacy even after the creation of Pakistan. This was reflected in the number of statues the city once adorned. Nobody knows where they are today; not even the museum authorities.

They were King Edward's (V11) statue riding a horse in front of King Edward Medical College, Lala Lajpat Rai's close to Nasir Bagh by the surviving cannon at The Mall, Queen Victoria's at Chairing Cross, Sir John Lawrence's statue in front of Lahore High Court, Sir Ganga Ram's was also on The Mall. Alfred Woolner's statue in front of the Punjab University's old campus on The Mall is perhaps the only one left in place today.

Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928) was a famous politician at the time of independence. His statue was on display in front of Gol Bagh, which is now Nasir Bagh. Sadly, his statue was shifted to Shimla in 1948 and was re-erected there. FS Aijazuddin writes in his book 'Lahore Recollected: an Album', that the whereabouts of this statue are not known.

Sahdev Mirza writes in his book 'Lahore Loved, Lost, and Thereafter' that the statue of Lala Lajpat was erected in Gol Bagh where he made his last speech. Later, in 1947 his statue was taken to Shimla, the capital of Indian Punjab and installed on The Mall there, where the hero is standing with his index finger raised towards the people whom he had loved and changed.

Queen Victoria's statue was at Chairing Cross, installed in 1902, but later shifted to museum in 1974. It was shifted to Lahore Museum when the government decided to make a monument there in memory of the Islamic Summit Conference held in Lahore in 1974.

Sir John Lawrence, the first governor general of Punjab and later the governor general of British India (1864-1869) holding a sword in one hand and pen in the other, was in front of Lahore High Court. This statue was made by Sir Joseph Boheme and was inaugurated in 1887.

In 1920, there was a campaign for the removal of this statue, which the Lahoris considered a disgrace to the Punjab. They didn't want this statue here so it is now standing in Royal College of Art with a sword in one hand which was damaged in an agitation in Lahore. Other two statues of John Lawrence are in Waterloo Palace in central London and another in Kolkata, India.

Statue of Sir Ganga Ram, the philanthropist to whom Lahore owes a lot, once stood at The Mall. It is said that Sir Ganga Ram's statue was dumped into the parking lot of the National College of Arts. Where it went from there, nobody knows.

Saadat Hassan Manto explains what happened to Ganga Ram's statue in one of his stories.

As we stroll past the Punjab University old campus on The Mall, you cannot miss the sole bronze statue of a man that stands on the sidewalk. The inscription below the statue reads: "Alfred Woolner (1878-1936), a great and beloved leader."

Alfred Woolner was the vice chancellor of the Punjab University from 1928 to 1936. His is the only statue left of the many that were positioned in front of prominent buildings during the British Raj in a wave of imperialistic civic zeal. Recently, a group of people smeared the face of this statue with paint last year. No authority took any notice of that. The City District Government says the protection of the statue is beyond its jurisdiction.

Naushaba Anjum (Additional Director of Lahore Museum) says, "We only have one statue of Queen Victoria II in the Lahore Museum. We don't have a clue as to the others. In 1992 when some fanatics attacked Babri Masjid, some extremists attacked Lahore Museum in retaliation to destroy the statues of Buddha and Queen Victoria but we stood against them. Our nation simply does not know the value of preserving ancient sculptures."

She urges people to inform the museum authorities about statues "if they know of any so that they can be preserved".

"The statues were significant part of my youth," says Shiekh Kalb-e-Ali, a septuagenarian Lahori who knows the city like the back of his hand. I would often walk down The Mall and take photographs of these beautiful sculptures because I knew that they would disappear one day.

"There were a total of ten such statues, each narrating the grandeur and the might of British rule. The most significant and controversial of these statues was that of Lord John Lawrence. The statue, placed in a small garden near the Punjab High Court, displayed the following inscription: "By which will you be governed: by the pen or the sword?" In the 1920 protests against the British, many nationalists objected to the offensive caption.

"The agitations were started by the All India National Congress and Islamic fundamentalists who demanded that no statues be displayed on roads," says Kalb-e-Ali. "The presence of these statues became a political issue at that time and though no action was taken then, after Independence in 1951, the statues were formally removed by the authorities.

"I respect the opinion of those who hold that sculptures are not in strict accordance with Islamic traditions. A sensible way is to preserve them as pieces of heritage like what has happened in Iran and Bangladesh," concludes Kalb-e-Ali who is in his eighties now.

The statues of local figures have disappeared but Alfred Woolner's statue still stands outside the old Punjab University building and continues to remind us of our colonial history. Most of the other statues once known to the inhabitants of this city have probably been smuggled or destroyed but how sad it is that nobody knows about them. They disappeared silently from the scene.

salmanali088@gmail.com

This is also Lahore