Daily Times

Prime Minister (PM) of Pakistan Mian Nawaz Sharif was in Sukkur the other day on his first visit to what is commonly known by non-Sindhis as interior Sindh — Sindhis hate the term, by the way. To them Sindh is Sindh, from Karachi to Kamoo Shaheed, the last town of Sindh at the Sindh-Punjab border. It looks like as if in the past three years, the prime minister and his federal government left ‘interior’ Sindh entirely under the charge of Asif Ali Zardari and his party members as though through some sort of a territorial treaty between two conquering princes. The PM was in Sukkur for the inauguration ceremony of the Sukkur-Multan Motorway.

In his ardour to appease the crowd, among other lofty proclamations, the PM also announced to reconstruct the Lansdowne Bridge. The span, built in 1889, connects Sukkur to Rohri. This had me, as well as everyone else back in Sindh, alarmed. Lansdowne Bridge is not an ordinary bridge. For the last century and a quarter, Lansdowne Bridge has been the emblem of Sindh. Is the government planning to remove the glorious landmark and erect in its place another eyesore, one of those flat, characterless bridges that render nothing but ugliness to the landscape everywhere in the country? Does the PM recognize the historic if not aesthetic value of the bridge? I while growing up in Sukkur and Rohri am witness to many a striking sunset in Sindhu from the bridge. Can the PM possible conceive the sheer beauty the bridge exudes with the sunset in the backdrop?

And, it is not just the Lansdowne Bridge. There are many things in the Sukkur-Rohri area that have a historic and cultural significance and needs to be touched with special care. The area is an incarnation of history. I could not have understood the potential of the area to be a huge tourist attraction until I climbed to the top of the Galata Tower in Istanbul for the first time. Istanbul and Sukkur-Rohri have many things in common. Both cities are built on mountains, and both are on the waterside. Looking from the top of the tower, the view looked to me as though I was looking at Sukkur-Rohri from the top of Maasoom Shahjo Munaaro (Masoom Shah Tower). Everything looked similar.

Later, I read Salman Rashid’s article on Rohri in which he said “… of all the cities in Pakistan, it is Rohri and Rohri alone that still preserved its medieval air…we absolutely agreed with Byron when he said Herat was the only city in Asia without an inferiority complex…we in the Land of the Sindhu River too had a city to match Herat. It was Rohri. And if Herat is the city to die for, Rohri is even more so.” I agree with every word of it.

But while Rashid may have been impressed by the medieval air of Rohri, Captain Leopold Von Orlich, a Prussian army officer who visited India in 1843, was mesmerised by the beauty of the area. See what the German traveller had to say about Sukkur in his book Travels in India: Including Sinde and the Punhab (sic): “Sukkur and its environs have an exceedingly pleasing appearance and is, by far, the most beautiful of all the places of Sindh visited thus far, from Thatta to the border with the Punjab.” After spending a few days in Sindh, Von Orlich, who must have visited other countries in the world, concluded, “In no country are the mornings and evenings so pleasant, or the sunsets so beautiful and sublime, as here.”

An Indian poet likened his beloved to mornings of Banaras and evenings of Awadh in his poem: “Qaos-e-qazah abroo-e-tu/Shaam-awadh gaisu-e-tu/Subh-e-Banaras rooh-e-tu/Tu but hai dunya Brahman/Ai jaan-e-mann, jaanaan-e-mann” (Curved like a rainbow are your eyebrows/Evening of Oudh is your hair/Morning of Banaras is your face/You are an idol and the world, worshipper/ O my beloved, o my dearest beloved).

Those who have been to the area will vouchsafe that if mornings of Awadh and evenings of Banaras are blended into one, the result will be Rohri-Sukkur. One does not have to be a poet to appreciate the exquisiteness of Lansdowne Bridge on Indus at Rohri.

So, please build a bridge by all means. We need bridges. But for God’s sake, build something visually beautiful. And, leave Lansdowne Bridge alone. Let it be as it is today. Just reserve it for pedestrians. Build some open-air restaurants on the bridge. Have an occasional concert on a full-moon night at the Lansdowne Bridge. Remember the fish restaurants lining the Galata Bridge and how much fun it is to walk the bridge. Make Lansdowne another Galata Bridge. There is no harm in beautifying cities other than Lahore on the lines of Istanbul.

Looking at the ruins that Sukkur has been converted into by the greed of the overlords of the city, and the ‘bear garden’ it has become through the chaos that rules the roost, one cannot but remember the real conqueror of Sindh, Charles Napier. He decreed circa 1942 in Sukkur: “Gentlemen, as well as beggars may, if they like, ride to the devil when they get on horseback; but neither gentlemen nor beggars have a right to send other people there, which will be the case if furious riding be allowed in camp or bazzar. This order is to be published through the cantonment for three successive days. Capt. Pope is not empowered to let anyone off punishment. Because when the orders have been repeatedly not obeyed it is time to enforce them. Without obedience, an army becomes a mob, and a cantonment a bear garden. The enforcement of obedience is like physic, not agreeable, but at times very necessary.” (Taken from the archives of New York Daily Times, New York, NY, October 2, 1852, Pg. 2)

But the above passage from history will not shame anyone, this much I am sure of.

The writer is an independent political analyst based in the USAa