• After partition, the Sikh worship place was used as a government school
• Area shopkeepers say many tourists from India still visit the place

The Gurdwara Singh Sabah Daultala, a glorious place of worship for Sikhs in the pre-Partition days, is crumbling due to persistent neglect of the authorities concerned.

Daultala town had been a prominent marketplace in the pre-Partition era, and it was peopled by affluent Hindu and Sikh notables, while the surrounding villages — Karnali Syedan, Machia, Guliana, Harnal and Harial (the native village of Master Tara Singh, a Sikh leader), Sukho, Dora Budhaal, Kontreela, Devi Data Dera Bakhshian and Banda Basali — were also famous abodes of Khatris, Hindus, and Sikhs. Due to its fertile lands, this town was named Daulat-Wala (place of riches).

The Gurdwara Singh Sabah Daultala, once a glorious high-roof building — the big hall having capacious galleries on its sides and high pillars, the marble platform in the centre lined with china tiles — had been a mirror of the wealth and religious devotion of the Sikh community, who were living in harmony with Muslims.

Chaudhry Mohammad Ashraf, former AJK chief secretary, who also hails from a nearby village, said that he studied in a government school in Daultala before partition and had many Sikh and Hindu boys as his classmates.

He further said that Devi Laal and Jagat Ram were his Hindu teachers, and Master Akbar of Guliana was the headmaster of the school. Mr Ashraf said that on the way to school, this gurdwara fell in his path, and the hymns being sung inside were heard by them with a childlike wonder still fresh in memory. He guessed that this gurdwara, commonly called the Dharamsaal, was probably built around 1942.

Mr Ashraf further said that Sardar Jewan Singh had been a very prominent and influential figure of Daultala during those days. According to him, the prime minister of India, I.K. Gujral (late), while meeting him during his (Mr Chaudhry’s) official visit to India, had disclosed to him that his paternal grandmother hailed from Sukho, near Daultala. Mr Chaudhry regretted that another prominent monument of history, the Samadahi of Baba Mohan Das, was also crumbling due to neglect.

Baba Mohan Das and his village fair in the Karnali village near Daultala are mentioned in the Rawalpindi District Gazetteer of the British government in this area of the subcontinent. He said that the District Gazetteer of Rawalpindi during the British era and his annual village fair attracted devotees from all over united India.

Dr Khalid Mahmood, a social figure from Daultala, and Sarfraz Chohan, like many residents of Daultala, said that this gurdwara had also been used as a sub-campus of the government high school. He remembered that his teachers —Master Fateh Khan, Master Nazeer Mian, Master Hukamdad (also his father) — used to teach there.

“Students squatting on the cool, white marble slabs and tiles in the big hall and the galleries used to look with wonder at the tiles in the floor, inscribed with names of the donors, while a wooden Paalki (palanquin), placed on one side of the high platform, was a forbidden place for us, by the teachers who had a special respect for these religious relics of the past.”

However, now the chabootra is razed and its beautiful tiles are scattered, while the wooden palanquin also stands broken. Mr Chohan said that the deep well in the compound was filled with debris, and the big peepal tree was also gone, while naturally growing peepal trees in the walls also posed risks to the building. He regretted that after the closure of the school campus, this abandoned building was rapidly decaying due to neglect.

Many shopkeepers in the area told Dawn that many Sikh tourists from India still visit this place to look for the memories of their forefathers, who once lived in the town and had narrated to them their nostalgic love ‘Daulat-Wala.’

The residents of the area, as well as the old students of this old-time school, urged the Punjab chief minister to take measures to restore this monument, which also serves as proof of interfaith harmony.

When this reporter drew the attention of Marriyum Aurangzeb, the senior provincial minister as well as the archaeology minister, acknowledged that this gurdwara was also being included in the list of archaeological sites to be renovated and protected by her department.

The minister also dispatched a team of officers of the Walled City Lahore Authority and the DC Office Rawalpindi to submit an assessment report for the repair and rehabilitation of this monument. The sources in the DC office claimed that a PC-I was being finalised by the Lahore Walled City Authority for the site.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2025