Lahore: A story of Divide.
By Maha Aslam
“Urban imaginaries are the symbolic sphere in which space and places are contested. They project unconscious social desires and construct imaginary social alternatives which form part of a long utopian tradition.”[1]
Not only do these urban imaginaries weave into the physical construct of the city validating the unspoken narratives but are also seen resonating through culture of the post-colonial cities of South Asia. In my paper I will discuss the play of these urban imaginaries in Lahore, a city in the process of reimaging its identity as a global city while being shackled in the imaginaries of its yester years as a Mughal era capital and consequently becoming a colonized city. The first half of my paper will attempt to spatialize the political paradigms in which the city experienced its first form of urban planning and discuss the precedent it set for future expansion and planning. The second half of my paper will shift the timeline to a more recent one, focusing primarily on the ideas of ‘gated communities’ that has become the agent for stratifying the city into smaller planetary cities orbiting around the economic cores.
Vijayanti Rao in her article “Embracing Urbanism: The City as Archive” expresses the growing interest from the fields of social sciences and anthropology (particularly in the case of the global south) in the study of the city itself as it ‘exposes the fundamental political geography of disciplinary epistemology, which brings into view class relations as well as relations of colonization’[2] The city is the manifestation of diverse ideologies and cultures, which agglomerate and present themselves most prominently in city planning and architecture. The built form then becomes a visual repository of different processes that sustain the city over a time period.
A theme that recurs prominently in this regard for Lahore as a city is the segregation of classes through division in land, most notably in the residential zones. These stratifying urban imaginaries have to be comprehended through multiple political paradigms. This region was the capital of the state of Punjab in the Mughal Era and later became a colonized city. Under the colonial rule major infrastructural changes led to a change in the city’s existing character as a rich cultural center to that of one with flourishing economic center. During the British era a huge network of roads were laid down and alongside a rail network connecting city and movement of artillery that increased the pace of developmental changes reshaping the city.
The composition of the city in this image is crucial to understand the birth of this narrative of a stratifying society. The image shows the two Landmark sites of the Mughal Empire, The Royal Fort and the Royal Mosque on the periphery of the closely structured quarters of the locals. The fluid unplanned residential zones were characterized by densely populated quarters along narrow paved streets. The lodging of the Royals on the contrary were constructed with huge open courtyards and lawns with meticulously design details intended to imitate the gardens of Heaven as mentioned in the Holy Books of Islam. The stark contrast between the languages of these two dedicated zones became the standards of urban planning in this region. The ownership of geographical divisions became synonymous with a person’s title in the imperial city. This system was creating two classes most prominently, the ruling class and the ones being ruled. Within the perimeters of the zone for the local residents, the land fragmentation had little differentiation. The close knit neighborhoods formed in these densely populated zones did not reek of the stringent social segregation the city was experiencing as a whole.
This painting of Ajaz Anwar captures the bustling life on the streets of the walled city of Lahore. The proximity of the housing units and the connectivity enhanced by the architectural design of the units promoted a healthy social life among the residents. Which sustained itself under the pressure of the neo liberal ideas of the city until most recently. This image of the city is significant in our narrative as it visualizes the human interactions directed by urban form in a city. With the arrival of the British, a secondary language (modernity) is superimposed on the socio-political geography of the city.
The western colonizers were uncomfortable with the idea of residing in close proximity of the illegible, intertwining neighborhoods. The pressure to rule efficiently over a population with a diverse life style than their own led them to expand the city outwards, providing them the luxury of practicing their lifestyle in their own manner with little or no interference from the local population and also to create safety protocols with regard to any mutiny that might arise.
The image on the left shows ‘The mall’ modeled behind the road with the same name in London. Characterized by a wide road along lines of local trees, the mall connected the cantonment area to the city. Not only was did the mall house major British administrative buildings but later on it also became lined with expensive residential Mansions. The road was strategically designed to
connect the residential area of the British officers to the walled city Mansions. The road was strategically designed to connect the residential area of the British officers to the walled city as can be seen in figure 4.
The city at this point in time is being stimulated with settings of contradictory paradigms of planning. The legacy of the social division inherited by the Mughal’s was being invigorated by the Colonial mindset of ‘Divide & Rule’.
‘The old city had two or three main streets of fair width, but from these a labyrinth of even smaller lanes led off into interiors of various muhallas (neighborhoods), many of which still had gates to seal off whole blocks at night…. The civil station by contrast was a grid iron of broad metaled roads, with newly planted avenues of trees framing bungalows which stood in lush 2,3 and even 10 acre compounds.’ [3]
The two contradictory scenarios of urban dwellings described by J.B Harrison in reference to the city Allahabad, have a striking similarity to the situation of colonial Lahore.
Visuals form this era provide us with evidence into this culture of segregation as a part of not only the city life but as part of individual homes. In the image above the insignificant figure on the left are the domestic helpers (Locals).This picture is a symbolic reference to their placement of squalid servant quarters at the back of their houses,these helpers would reside in very meager circumstances as compared to their employers(much smaller in size and in dilapidated conditions). the permanent residence of these helpers were designed so it was not visible from the main entrance of the house.So anyone visiting the house will not come in direct contact with those squalid living spaces and yet the services of these people could be asked around the clock. The culture of the city was beginning to shift and the for the first time the locals were pacing outward from the interior city for better economic opportunities as the British were shifting the administrative centers from the walled city to the Mall.
It wasn’t only the changing face of the public realm that the locals were placing themselves in but also the overpowering influence of an alien culture, which by standards of the world at that time was ‘superior’ to that of locals. The most effective tool that the British used to penetrate a culture was through the language.’ English’ was considered the language of the ‘Sahib’ a character introduced into the post-colonial cities. The ‘Sahib’ literally meaning ‘Mister’ was a form to address the British officers living in the city. The life style of the sahib became the civilized way of inhibiting the city along with speaking in the sahib’s language. As mentioned in my previous paper it was not only the urban forms that resonated the discriminatory mindset of the time but it also starts appearing in the name and order of things. The walled city is lined with streets and places with indigenous names like ‘Akbari Mandi’, ‘Shah Alaam Market’, ‘Noor Mohalla’ etc but as you move along the mall the streets are named after British officers or dignitaries of the times, Abbot Road Lawrence Garden, Napier Road etc. Effort to recognize English as the language of the developed western world is the fact that even today class differences are marked by English speaking skills. Kids from privileged backgrounds have access to ‘good’ education and can speak fluently as compared to their peers from lower income group. Although racial segregation was deeply embedded in the sub-continent cities in the form of caste systems and religious divides but for the first time in the history of the subcontinent racial discrimination was being practiced at state level as official language become English. The city at this point became an active struggle of identity, as the state began compartmentalizing the city for ease of administration.
While the colonial powers were developing a new more ‘educated’ scheme of living in the city, around 1920’s the famous Model Town of Lahore came into being. Inspired by The Garden City Movement, a plan (quiet literally the diagram made by Ebenezer Howard) was developed for the middle class locals of the time. The society was majorly occupied by Hindus and Sikhs before the partition. Post partition the houses abandoned by the Hindus were taken over by newly migrant Muslims in the area. This housing society today is the hub of influential business families of Lahore. The current Prime Minister of Pakistan resides here with special access to certain streets and a whole park developed along its major routes named after him. What is interesting to see is the immediate neighborhood surrounding this housing society, which has not conformed to linear planning of western sensibilities but has taken indigenous free flowing form. These areas are also heavily populated by the working class families and work as a support system for affluent residential areas like Model Town.
The modernity imposed on to the locals with added pressure of sectarian difference (leading up to the partition )The identity of the individual is lost in the struggle. The issue of the identity in the modern city is aptly explained in the words of George Simmel in his work ‘The Metropolis and the Mental Life’
‘The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life.’[4]
This identity crisis is still a crucial part of the city built on lines of divide. The current wave of neo liberal settings that are plaguing the city are gated sub-urban communities, connected by highways to economic centers of the city, Very much similar to the initial sub-urban cantonment and walled city dynamics. These gated communities are affordable to only a certain percentage of the population. Interestingly enough the general consensus is that these gated communities provide a high standard of living, same notion previously attached to the British residential areas. The grid iron planning along with the replication of the design of the units is a distinctive features of these gated communities. Interestingly enough the advertisement renders for the proposal of these gated communities quite blatantly exclude the presence of lower income housings or units for the domestic helpers to reside in. Especially since the culture of this region has made it mandatory for almost all classes to have some sort of domestic help for maintaining their residential units. Bahria town, one of the pioneers of these siphoned communities, has a strict monitoring system for the domestic help entering the society. They are issued cards for their entry and exits. In this mind frame of developing communities, one questions the idea behind providing space for domestic helpers within the gated community. The city planners tackle these problems by leaving pockets of land in-between these different gated communities that could become sights for possible occupation by informal settlers. These settlers can then be employed within these communities without having to reside within.
The popularity of these gated communities in the recent years have become alarming and it makes one question about the existence of a common ‘sub-conscious’ of the city that perpetuates these historical lines of stratifying city planning in today’s world.
The landmarks shown above are a familiar sights to the residents of these gated communities. It is interesting to note how the west still has a dramatic influence in our cities and more importantly in our thinking. The divide within has become the driving force in life, the market of the city is hoarding on to money by penetrating through the insecurities of one’s identity.
Another perspective for future reference I would also like to delve deeper into city as an archive and whether it can be called an archive if similar patterns are repeating over the historical timeline which then implies the city as a being a continuous recurring model of a once built narrative. In the case of my city I feel the story will always lead back to one of the Colonizer and the colonized and their contradictory relation in this shifting world.
Bibliography
Bloomfield, Jane. “Researching the Urban Imaginary: Resisting the Erasure of Places.” European Studies: A Journal of European Culture, History and Politics, Volume 23, Number 1, 2 November 2006, pp. 43–61(19) (n.d.).
Harrison, J.B. “Allahabad: a sanitory history”. 1886.
Rao, Vyjanthi. “Embracing Urbanism:The city as Archive,Anthropology and Urban Archive.” New Literature History,Vol. 40, №2, India and the West (Spring 2009): 371–383.
Simmel, Georg. The sociology of Georg Simmel. New York: New York: Free press, 1950.
Further readings:
http://www.mascontext.com/issues/17-boundary-spring-13/the-segregation-paradoxes/
Ideologies of the Raj, Volume 3, Part 4
By Thomas R. Metcal
[1] (Bloomfield)
[2] (Rao)
[3] (Harrison)
[4] (Simmel)
