Daily Times

After gaining independence, Lahore became Pakistan’s cultural capital and retained its primacy and beautification. Lahore was a city where Bapsi Sidhwa’s characters lived, Amrita Sher-Gil painted her immortal compositions and Iqbal wrote his thought provoking poetry. This cosmopolitan city also had many historical monuments and statues which history books reminds us of, but with the time it all disappeared. Nobody knows where these important statues are today; not even the museum authorities.

There was King Edward’s (V11) statue riding a horse in front of King Edward Medical College, Lala Lajpat Rai’s close to Nasir Bagh, 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. However, 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.

Alfred Woolner’s memorial statue was constructed, designed and manufactured by Gilbert Ledward R.A sculptor, Pembroke Walk Studios, Kensington, and London WB, dated 27th May 1937. The statue is 7 feet and 9 inches tall and is in bronze. In 1951 an attempt was made to remove this statue but it fortunately survived. The inscription on the left of the statue bears the following statement, “Professor of Sanskrit, and Principal of the Oriental College from 1903 to 1936 and Dean of the University studies from 1920 to 1936”. The inscription in front says, “Alfred Woolner 1878 to 1936 a great and beloved leader”. Furthermore, few years back a mob tried to damage the statue but they didn’t succeed, even presently the district administration haven’t initiated any measure for protecting this statue. I want to request the Lahore Museum authorities to take care of this historical sculpture, which reminds us about the enriched history of Lahore.

“An inflamed mob in Lahore, after attacking a Hindu mohalla, turned to attack the statue of Sir Ganga Ram, the Indian philanthropist. They first pelted the statue with stones; then smothered its face with coal tar. Then a man made a garland of old shoes and climbed up to put it round the neck of the statue. The police arrived and opened fire. Among the injured was the fellow with the garland of old shoes. As he fell, the mob shouted: Let us rush him to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.”

However, two more important sculptures are not present in modern day Lahore. One is Lala Lajpat Rai and other one is Sir Ganga Ram.

The statue of Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928), who, while leading a procession with Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya to demonstrate against the Simon Commission, faced brutal baton charge and died of fatal injuries on November 17, 1928, was somewhere in the vicinity of Kim’s Gun. But it is not there anymore. It was moved to Simla where it still stands.

Renowned historian 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.

Saadat Hassan Manto, renowned Urdu short story writer, explains what happened to the statue of Sir Ganga Ram in his stories in the following words, “An inflamed mob in Lahore, after attacking a Hindu mohalla, turned to attack the statue of Sir Ganga Ram, the Indian philanthropist. They first pelted the statue with stones; then smothered its face with coal tar. Then a man made a garland of old shoes and climbed up to put it round the neck of the statue. The police arrived and opened fire. Among the injured was the fellow with the garland of old shoes. As he fell, the mob shouted: Let us rush him to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.”

Sir John Lawrence, the first governor general of Punjab and later the governor general of British India (1864-1869) statue is also missing in Lahore. This statue stood in front of the Lahore High Court, on the Mall. When I spoke to some historians, I was informed that this statue was a unique sculpture holding a pen in the right hand and a sword in the left. The status was inscribed with the following words: “I have ruled this district for three years by the sole agency of the pen, and if necessary I will rule it by the sword”. The statue was taken to Northern Ireland where it stands today.

Queen Victoria’s statue was at Chairing Cross, installed in 1902, but later shifted to the 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.

A bronze statue of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was also installed in Karachi in 1931, but was pulled down and damaged during riots around the year 1950. Pieces of the broken statue were handed over to Indian Consulate in Karachi in 1981. However, it was repaired and then installed at the high commission, where it remains to this day.

Hereby, the question, which comes out of my mind is that, what exactly led to and resulted in the removal of these sculptures? I personally believe that it was somehow the iconoclasm of the post-independence society; and also the political and religious controversies that surrounded the personalities whose sculptures were placed in Lahore’s public places.

Many in Pakistan debate that these statues are not the part of our culture. I want to tell them that we should preserve them as pieces of heritage, the way other countries have preserved their culture heritage. The rest of the world owns its heritage by heart. We as a nation should also respect and preserve such artistic monuments and statues.

The writer is a social and political activist based in Sukkur. He has done his Maters and MPhil in Communication Studies. He can be reached at salmanali088@gmail.com, tweets at Salmani_salu

Published in Daily Times, May 1^st 2018.