May 24, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 07, 1428

RAWALPINDI, May 23: It is a magnificent 19th century Hindu temple that stands in Kohati Bazaar in Rawalpindi but alas its inmates cannot enjoy its magnificence. They are blind.

It is a shame for those who run the Government Kandeel Secondary School for Blind in the Mandir Kalyan Das. They have eyes but act as stone blind.

Built in 1880, the temple complex has been brutalised and vandalised over decades and is in a state of decay, losing fast its intricate paintings and carvings inside.

It was abandoned as Hindus left the city in the frenzy of mass migration of populations that followed the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947.

But the temple survived as a place of worship until 1958 when a school for blinds started by Begum S.M.A. Farooq was shifted into the complex. At that time it had a Baradari with rooms for worshippers, a pond and an Ashram.

In 1975 the school was taken over by the government. A new building was erected for the school after razing the Baradari and the Ashram in 1986 when Gen Ziaul Haq’s Islamisation programme was in full bloom.

His civilian successors were more concerned with securing their political heritage than preserving the minorities’ heritage.

Today the main prayer room in the temple complex is being used to store the broken furniture of the school. Idols of Hindu gods are all gone but their images are still visible in paintings as are artistic floral carvings in the main prayer room.

Four small rooms of the temple have been closed because the roof leaks. That has saved some small idols from the vandals but the decoration work at the ceiling is fading in the dampness.

The many spires in the temple complex are still imposing but 60 years of neglect has made them colourless. White paint given to brighten a canopy inside the complex in fact buried its original floral work.

One could only sympathise with Kalyan Das and his brother who raised the edifice in his memory as Kalyan Das was childless.

A senior teacher of the school, a native of Rawalpindi, said Muslims vandalised the temple at the time of partition. But luckily the school administration prevented the same happening to the temple in the wake of the demolition of the historic Babri Mosque in Varanasi by Hindu zealots in 1992.

Mr Sultan Mirza, principal of the Kandeel School, said the law of the land does not permit changing the character of a religious place and wanted the government to restore the temple for the tourists.

Kalyan Das’ admirers occasionally visit the temple, glad that it was still serving a good cause and praying that it opens the eyes of people with vision too.