Apropos the letter above (Dec 28). First, a correction about the name. It is not Rani (as in queen) but Ranni, which means a ‘hill torrent’ that meanders across the fortification from the nearby Lakhi Hills.

Several sources attribute the construction of Rannikot to the Talpurs of Sindh who ruled the area between 1783 and1843. The earliest mention of the fort is a composition by the Talpur court poet, Ghulam Ali Ma’il, in which he eulogises the achievement of his patron, Mir Karam Ali Khan Talpur. He states that work started in 1815 and was completed five years later.

The extant family records of the wazir and project overseer, Nawab Wali Mohammad Khan Laghari, also attribute the planning and construction of the fort to the Talpurs. In his historical Sindhi narrative, Fatehnamo (1907), Mir Hasan Ali Khan records some details, including the cost of the fort’s construction viz, Rs17 million rupees that was borne by the Talpur treasury.

It would be worthwhile clarifying that Rannikot is not a fort as is usually understood, and simply denotes the outer fortification wall that has numerous circular bastions serving as watchtowers. The wall is not a continuous structure and is, in fact, constructed in several segments ranging from one as small as 39 metres to the longest one which is 3.8 km, all adding up to 8.2 km in length. The wall largely plugs gaps in the hills where the terrain is passable by intruders, mostly towards the south.

The wall cleverly aligns with the crests of the hills and forms a continuous barrier, which is, in most part natural and much less man-made. Put together, this barrier has been incorrectly termed as a single wall with a length claimed to be anywhere from 26-36 km.

Unfortunately, a Unesco listing which gives it a tentative status as a heritage site, gullibly takes up the Pakistani claim.

The three-metre wide wall is clearly visible (as well as measurable) in Google earth satellite pictures. There is no doubt that overly keen enthusiasts have blatantly distorted facts about its length.

Kaiser Tufail

Lahore

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2018