Legend has it that Hazrat Syed Muhammad Shah Bukhari, who lived in the times of Mughal emperor Akbar, turned the flow of the River Ravi to stop it from flooding what is now known as Lahore. In lands far and wide, he became known as the man who could command the flow of rivers. He was now Baba Mauj Darya.

Such was his influence on Emperor Akbar that he is said to have advised the king on how to conquer Rajasthan’s Chittor Fort. And such was the emperor’s regard for him that, according to popular belief, Emperor Akbar built the saint’s shrine after his demise and handed over around 625 acres of land around the shrine to the saint’s family.

Baba’s first wife, Mai Fatima, is buried right across from him; her shrine can be seen from Jain Mandir. The Mauj Darya shrine also contains the graves of his children from his first wife.

Construction of an underground tunnel for the Orange Line Metro Train in Lahore a few feet away from the shrine of Hazrat Syed Muhammad Shah Bukhari means the historic locality will never be the same again

History seems a different country, however.

The Mauj Darya shrine and some residences adjacent to it were marked for acquisition to pave the way for the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) track. The mosque adjoining the shrine and part of its courtyard, some portion of the historic Kapoorthala House and adjacent residential buildings were all eventually acquired and demolished to build the Anarkali station and lay an underground tunnel for the metro train.

Once the tunnel was laid, the land above it was restored, but the mosque and courtyard razed for the purpose have yet to be reconstructed as agreed between the shrine administration and the authorities executing the train project. Although a temporary mosque has been built opposite the original location, authorities and residents say the shrine’s mosque was supposed to be reconstructed once the underground tunnel had been laid. This hasn’t happened till now.

Not among the most popular shrines in town, yet with a considerable following, Mauj Darya is located on Edward Road near the Customs House, from where a narrow, uneven path leads to the shrine. It sits high up from ground level, while the land below has so far been marked for a courtyard and mosque. If official reports are to be believed, the metro train will run a mere 1.5 feet from the saint’s grave that lies on ground level with the shrine built much above. The track flouts the 200-foot-raidus limit rule set by law for any construction near heritage sites.

Residents and devotees are naturally unhappy. They don’t really understand the 200-foot-radius limit for construction, but they just want the mosque and the courtyard back that the authorities have been delaying for months now. In fact, for months, devotees, residents as well as activists were apprehensive about two issues. First, that any construction here would affect the shrine due to noise and vibration. And second, that the land acquired may not be returned to them as promised.

Syed Daniyal Shah Bukhari, a former caretaker of the shrine who lives opposite the building, alleges that former head of the OLMT steering committee, Khawaja Ahmed Hassaan had promised the devotees that land would be returned to the shrine, but he backtracked later.

“They now say the shrine will get 10 to 15 feet space outside the shrine as courtyard,” contends Bukhari. “It won’t be the same obviously because the shrine is now above the ground and there is no point in building a courtyard and mosque below it.”

From a shrine that was built on a large tract of land, it has now been reduced to finding space to accommodate devotees.

“These days devotees fit in wherever they find space,” explains Bukhari. “Every Thursday, there is a milad here and around 500 women gather for it, but there is not enough space. Some women have even stopped coming, some just look at the shrine from the ground below, pray and return.”

The story with men is different, however. The former caretaker claims that the 455-year-old shrine has seen a 50 per cent increase in devotees — mostly men — because for now there is an open space below, and also because renowned dholiya [drummers] Pappu and Goonga Sain play here. Earlier they used to regularly attract hundreds of devotees at the Shah Jamal shrine where playing the dhol is now banned on suspicions of drug peddling.

“Our negotiations with the authorities went on for at least six months,” says Bukhari. “They’ve only promised us land for reconstruction of the mosque, but not the courtyard. We have not even been given a deadline for completion of the construction work,” he adds further.

But this isn’t the only gripe Bukhari has. He blames the Auqaf department for many more issues in the shrine’s management and daily expenses. He alleges that the department has hired contractors to withdraw donations from the cash box placed at the shrine, doesn’t discourage sectarian clashes here and embezzles the grant released annually for the Urs (annual death anniversary commemoration), among other complaints.

“It is the department’s duty to withdraw the money and spend it on the shrine, but it doesn’t, he says. “Everything is managed by the devotees. Then there are Shia-Sunni clashes here and only the Auqaf department is to blame that it doesn’t take over the shrine. The department does not even spend the 400,000 rupees released annually for the three-day Urs; we manage the langar (free feast), ghusl (wash), chaadar-laying, cleanliness, all on our own. For every day tasks, the department has assigned one supervisor, who can’t do it all himself.”

And then there are petty politics involved in the shrine.

“The Auqaf supervisor, the mosque prayer leader and devotees all fight among themselves for distribution of langar,” says Bukhari. “There’s a lot of politics here because nobody has any control over anything.”

Asif Ijaz, the public relations officer of the Auqaf department, rejects all these allegations. He also maintains that due to a lack of resources, the department officially doesn’t distribute langar at any shrine except Data Darbar. However, the department maintains all 535 shrines in Punjab — with 114 of them in Lahore — in terms of payment of utility bills, cleanliness, paint, Urs preparations — qawwali, langar, ghusl, etc.

“The department has assigned a permanent caretaker for every shrine. We have receipts of all bills that have been paid over time,” he claims. “Every penny from the grant released annually for Urs is spent on the shrine. There are administrator- and manager-level committees formed that oversee grant utilisation.”

Regarding clashes during food distribution and the politics surrounding the shrine, Ijaz claims: “Often devotees distribute langar themselves as a contribution to the shrine, which we cannot stop. We cannot also tell people sitting in groups to disperse. The clashes are an internal issue. There are groups and politics everywhere, including residential societies and localities.”

Dismissing allegations of not managing the cash box, he says: “The cash box has a triple-lock system. It is opened on a fixed date either once or twice a month. Each lock is managed by the shrine manager, prayer leader, and an official of National Bank, where the shrine’s account is maintained. And the locks can only be opened together, not individually.”

The OLMT project didn’t just affect the shrine and its devotees. The families lving in the vicinity whose houses were acquired and demolished either completely or partially also bear grievances. Residents of whatever remains of the Kapoorthala House angrily refuse to talk, saying they’ve lost everything and don’t want me to rub salt on their wounds.

Other residents nearby who did speak gave a mixed response. Surprisingly, not all were unhappy, for some of them had been compensated handsomely. But in the process, some families have been directly exposed to dust and the noise of the heavy machinery drilling, with nothing separating their houses from the construction site. Bukhari is fuming again.

“They were supposed to build a retaining wall after digging the land right outside our houses, but have been making excuses only. We are told that the funds aren’t released or the maps not approved. Our houses vibrate from the construction and children are exposed to dangers with no wall or boundary in front of the house, and walls and ceilings have developed cracks.”

He claims he received no compensation for the demolishing of his wholesale garments factory.

“I’ve been jobless for over a year and a half and lost five million rupees. Earlier, they announced compensation for everyone losing their businesses, but later said they will pay only those living on the main road and not at the back. This isn’t fair; we lost the only livelihoods we had.”

Bukhari’s neighbour, Ghulam Abbas, echoes his complaints. He says the families whose houses were completely destroyed were happy with the compensation; they received 2.5 million rupees per marla (defined as 25 square yards in Lahore district), which was double the rate of the land.

“After the land in front of my house was dug for laying the tunnel, they should have erected pillars or a retaining wall for support, as per rules, but they just placed sacks of sand,” says Abbas. “It’s been a year now and the dug-up land outside our house is eroding slowly due to rains. We’ve been urging the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) to construct safety pillars to hold the land outside our houses, but to no avail. We’re only given excuses regarding finalisation of maps, lack of funds etc.”

Mrs Faheem, a resident of the Maharaja building adjacent to where Abbas and Bukhari live, like a couple of other families lost her one-room apartment and adjoining courtyard to the train project, but rues that she hasn’t been compensated enough to buy or build a new place to live. She now lives with her five-member family in a rented room in a nearby building.

“My two-marla house and courtyard have been razed and replaced with the temporary mosque of the shrine,” she narrates. “When they shift the mosque, I pled with them to at least return the courtyard to us and we’ll try to build something over it because I can’t afford to live in a rented place for long.”

The family was handed one million rupees by the government for both the room and the courtyard.

“In Anarkali, how can we afford a new house for such a less amount? I spent 500,000 rupees on my children’s education and bought a 2.5-marla plot of land in Badar Town from the remaining, but I don’t have the money to construct anything over it.”

An emotional Mrs Faheem only wants her courtyard back. She said her family lived in a three-storey building with one room on each floor. “Have they lost all sense of humanity? My husband’s family has been living here for over 80 years and now we’re on the verge of being evicted from this ancestral place. As soon as the court case against the project was disposed of, we were given only two days to vacate our houses.”

But not everyone is complaining here. In fact, one of the residents in the locality negates all complaints by his neighbours.

“Everybody who got compensated is happy,” says Tanveer, sitting in a reconstructed portion of his house that was partially demolished. “Most of the land acquired was anyway illegally possessed since it belongs to the shrine. Those whose land was acquired were also given the rubble of their houses that they sold. The entire construction of the train project is scheduled to be completed this year, as we’ve been told. We only demand the Anarkali station be renamed Meeran Mauj Darya station.”

The writer is a member of staff

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 14th, 2018