If there was a person as far removed from literary archives of the Punjab, it surely was Maharajah Kharrak Singh. Yet when the Sikhs took over in 1799, he stayed in the tomb of Anarkali, only to be brought to the Lahore Fort and the ‘Toshakhana’ archives moved there.

Then again almost 224 years later the archives of the Punjab Archaeology Department, which was shifted from the Lahore Fort, their entire archives were moved to the Haveli of Kharrak Singh. Now again the Punjab government is seriously considering moving the entire Punjab Secretariat Archives, one of the finest in the world, to Kharrak Singh’s ‘haveli’. The maharajah was poisoned by his prime minister and his son, but he seems to live on in the archives.

With this our story begins. A few years ago, when the then Punjab chief secretary wanted more space for himself and his guests, he simply got the gardeners to throw away the rare and precious Punjab Archives in his back rooms into the Sikh-era horse stables inside the Lahore Civil Secretariat. This horrible incident I got to learn when with great difficulty I managed to reach the Punjab Archives Department in search of a rare document as part of my non-ending research on Lahore.

The clerk assigned to provide me the document told me that it had been thrown away in the horse stables. This shocked me, and even more appalling was when he asked me: “Why do you need an archive document?” My response I cannot describe.

Let me explain the long story of the Punjab Archives, for it is the world’s second largest and finest collection of the period from Mughal ruler Akbar’s times to the present covering an area from Kabul to Delhi and Kashmir to Multan. The largest collection is in the British Museum Library – almost entirely stolen from Lahore. These rare documents originally lay in the Lahore Fort’s ‘toshakhana’ only for the British to dump them in the tomb of Anarkali. Whether the tomb of Anarkali is hers or not is a separate story.

The tomb of Anarkali, built in 1615, was taken over by Ranjit Singh’s son Kharrak Singh as a residence, only to be handed over to the wife of his French general Jean-Baptiste Ventura. In 1851 it was converted into the Anglian St. James Church, only to be termed the Lahore Protestant Cathedral. In 1891 it was made the Punjab Record Office. This is where the rare manuscripts and documents continue to lie.

It has always puzzled me that just why did Kharrak Singh have to move into a mausoleum. His father later built him a magnificent ‘haveli’ inside the fort. Surely a time lag there. But to make way the entire rare ‘toshakhana’ documents were shifted there and the ‘haveli’ of Kharrak Singh handed over to the British-run archaeological department.

Amazingly, recently the archaeological department was shifted out of the fort, which was handed over to the Walled City of Lahore Authority. The entire archaeological record remains in the Kharrak Singh ‘haveli’. Seems our archives and Kharrak Singh are connected in a bizarre way.

When my story about the horse stable ‘archives’ was printed by this newspaper, scholars of every ilk protested and took out processions. To curb the protest the then Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif immediately announced that they would be shifted to a new building to be constructed behind the famous Tollinton Market on The Mall. But then the very next day the Lahore Museum authorities announced that the space mentioned was their car park and not available for the ‘archives building’ announced.

Not that Mr. Shehbaz was embarrassed for the very next day he announced that there was a huge bungalow on Upper Mall opposite the Lahore Gymkhana. “That will be the new Archives Building,” he declared. As luck would have it turned out to be the residence of the Punjab governor’s military secretary, whose family was living there. The Governor’s House informed that they were certainly not giving up the residence.

These facts I wrote in a piece in this newspaper and the chief minister in a press conference stated, “We are looking for an appropriate site”. It was a sort of way as declaring: ‘I have no idea’.

The archives issue we have been pursuing for years now. All the major universities of the USA and UK are interested in assisting. Academic and journalistic research depends on rare documents and manuscripts of ages past. The Lahore Public Archives are known all over the world, though few know the condition in which they lie.

Now we come to a different development. Early this year as the WCLA then chief Kamran Lashari resigned to prevent a high court probable order against the Lahore Fort being used for commercial purposes – and rightly so – three development took place.

Firstly, a new politico-bureaucratic ‘heritage’ organisation was dramatically set up led by Mr. Nawaz Sharif and run by an array of loyal ‘serving’ bureaucrats. He pledged to remove the old walled city’s ‘illegal’ traders so as to rebuild the stolen walls and gateways. A tall order no doubt. Ironically, he depends on the support of the trading classes. We then pointed out that this would never work out. Our suspicions have turned out to be correct. They have ‘postponed’ that ‘pledge.’

Secondly, instead of the old effective chief of WCLA, a top planning bureaucrat was put in place. Then a few weeks later another lady bureaucrat has been ‘selected’ with the objective of being more visible. Further interviews for a WCLA chief are still on.

Thirdly, the Pakistan Archaeological Survey office has been traditionally, since British days, located inside the Lahore Fort. Last year they were asked to shift elsewhere, but the WCLA took over their entire archives and have thrown them in three rooms of the Haveli Kharrak Singh. It seems Kharrak Singh, and archives have a mysterious connection.

Alongside these developments, our bureaucrats have put into motion an attempt to ‘digitise’ the archives. In that they have managed just a small number – or so they claim - for the total archives size is massive. As mentioned earlier, Lahore’s Public Archives in the tomb of Anarkali is the second largest in the world.

As the Kharrak Singh archaeological archives are in disarray, my understanding is that they are calling in an expert to take a look at them. Once this expert determines the way forward, and is able to decide what to do, for in this the Aga Khan Trust is also involved, then setting up this Kharrak Singh Archives will open the way for its expansion.

One reliable source informs that there is a serious attempt to move the Punjab Secretariat Archives to the Kharrak Singh Archives. In this way they plan to have one of the world’s finest and largest archives collection in one place, covering from Mughal times to the present.

If this can be achieved, it will be a major achievement for the present government. For the academic community it will be a major move forward. At least one will not find the letter of Mirza Ghalib lying on the stable floor with human urine passing over it. The then secretary brushed aside this as: “A small error worth ignoring”. I probably will never recover from that comment.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2025