Our dear country was created on religious considerations, while across the line drawn by the British was an alleged secular country. Today India - or Bharat the name of ancient Lahore’s ruler - is getting more communal by the day. Both are headed towards ‘fascism’ under a democratic guise.

Just how does one try to understand why Partition took place, and more importantly the Holocaust that followed. This is an event never discussed, for it seems our minds have gone blank to the horror that was unleashed. In Indian Punjab, they have unveiled a Partition Museum in Amritsar’s old town hall. The reality of Partition is there for all to see.

What about Pakistan? There seems to be hope unless our bureaucrats think along the same communal lines. The freedom movement and its ultimate bloody face can still be understood. These days after considerable effort on the part of history and heritage partisans, the authorities that control Lahore’s cultural heritage monuments are working to, they claim, conserve the Bradlaugh Hall on Rattigan Road.

The much-ignored monument that held a special place in the sub-continent’s freedom movement had become victim to our communal mindset. My interest in the place stems partly from the fact that for many years we lived next to the hall. Plus, immediately to the right was the house of Ruchi Ram Sahni, the Government College Lahore pioneering physicist and meteorologist and education activist and discoverer of the atomic weights of lead and bismuth. Next to it was the famous Parsi temple, which no longer exists. In early British Lahore, this was an elite area opposite Central Model School.

The name Bradlaugh was used by the Indian National Congress to honour the British MP Charles Bradlaugh, who advocated freedom for the sub-continent, and even attended the 1889 session of the Indian National Congress. Later with an effort by Sardar Dyal Singh, a famous Lahore newspaper tycoon, a fund was created, and the hall came about in 1893.

The hall was used by almost every political leader of every shade, and in the initial years even Mr. M.A. Jinnah and Allama Iqbal and other Muslim leaders, especially of the Khilafat Movement, attended meetings here. But the greatest event that was held here was the passing of the Indian Freedom Declaration in January 1930, called ‘Purna Swaraj’, and observed on the 26th of January by India every year.

The entire Congress leadership walked to the river Ravi and promised to fight for freedom and Indian flags were put up everywhere.

Not coincidental but the Pakistan Resolution was passed nearby in Minto Park, now renamed Iqbal Park, in 1940, ten years after the one passed for the whole of the sub-continent nearby. This is no mystery for Lahore was always central to freedom movements of every shade and style. But then it took a communal twist when a ‘proportional representation’ solution based on Hindu-Muslim population-based seats was not agreed to.

In Bradlaugh Hall, the famous Bhagat Singh was educated and organised his famous attack on a nearby English policeman, for which he was hanged along with his comrades. Once the sub-continent’s politics changed to one with communal bends, the Bradlaugh Hall was isolated.

Come Pakistan and after housing refugees from Amritsar, it became a wheat storage hall. It had many such shades, including a small factory being set up. Then thanks to the clout of our legal and police friends a lot of the hall’s lands saw illegal houses being built there.

Over the years this historic hall has decayed and, luckily, was never knocked down. Now the WCLA is working on reconstructing Bradlaugh Hall. The word ‘reconstruction’ has been deliberately used instead of the word ‘conservation’. A visit by a team of experts reached the conclusion that major damaged portions are being reconstructed, while the hall is being officially ‘conserved’. Interesting explanation,

The roof, made of tin sheets, has completely rusted, and is to be replaced. The structural pillars of iron, along with its base, are to be replaced. Major brick portions are dusting. So, the strategy was to have a mix of replacement, reconstruction, and conservation. It is a reasonable mix but will take time and the result should be the beginning of a new era.

The question now is just what this famous hall will be used for. This column over the years has advocated for the place to be used to set up Pakistan’s ‘Partition Museum’. In the Indian Punjab city of Amritsar, the main Town Hall houses a Partition Museum where visual and written record of the terrible 1947 Partition is there for the young to see.

There is no denying that in Pakistan we just do not teach or learn about the horrors of Partition. We simply have blocked out from collective memory the greatest holocaust in human history, where millions migrated, most of them were killed brutally on the way. Just how can we forget this most important event in our collective history. Almost every family in one way or the other was affected. We surely owe it to our people and our children.

Some suggestions might help. There is a Berkeley-based research non-profit organisation called ‘1947 Partition Archives’ led by an amazing lady Dr. Suneeta Bhalla. They have just published 10,000 Partition stories, a book that is highly recommended. Their work continues and should continue for the next many years. It makes sense to display what they have published. Their photograph collection can surely be replicated, for that is what this archive effort is all about.

It also makes sense for this proposed Partition Hall to hold weekly sessions with partition victims. It could also cater to teaching school children the history of our freedom movement through the ages. To add to all these possibilities, it could be an excellent art museum with the finest donating their paintings and drawings. In a way our cultural life could return to the old city area instead of flirting towards an elitist construct.

But before such a matter can come about, a massive legal effort must be undertaken to get rid of all the illegal houses that have been constructed on the land that belongs to the Bradlaugh Hall. Even that might be a long legal battle.

Another side of the future is to determine which future organisation should be handed over control of this amazing historic hall, whose history should also be researched and put on display.

Probably, it might turn out to be an official organisation to which the government should donate, every year, a reasonable amount to keep the show going. Let’s see how things turn out.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2024