Archive for category LAKSHMI MANSION:LAHORE HERITAGE DESTRUCTION

THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN IN 2005, AS IT PREDICTED, LAKSHMI MANSION, A HERITAGE SITE FOR LAHORE’S MUSLIMS & HINDUS IS SET TO BE DEMOLISHED BY A DRUG SMUGGLER MIRZA IQBAL,

WHO HAS CLOUT WITH NAWAZ SHARIF & SHAHBAZ SHARIF

LDA or Lahore Development Authority has been Bribed by Mirza Iqbal Baig

Lakshmi Mansion heritage being threatened by commercialisation

By Yasser L Hamdani

LAHORE: What do these people have in common: Meraj Khalid, former Pakistani prime minister, Saadat Hassan Manto, world renowned short story writer, Zafrullah Chaudhry, the first foreign minister of Pakistan, and Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Indian petroleum minister? The answer is Lakshmi Mansion, a pre-partition residential establishment off The Mall and Hall Road, which now faces the threat of extinction because of extensive commercialisation. 

Hall Road’s business establishments are slowly beginning to creep into the once peaceful enclave. Houses, some of them eight decades old, are being replaced by commercial plazas, creating a myriad of parking problems and other civic issues for the residents of the leafy Lakshmi Mansion environs, an additional reason why some of them are leaving. Though the area is registered as residential, Hall Road vendors have acquired property and there are visible signs of destruction. Shops selling music, movies and cellular phones have changed the residential locality forever. Now a new commercial plaza is being built within the enclave.

The residents of the area have gone to court in the past, most recently in 1996. A writ petition was filed that stopped construction temporarily. Later the area was reaffirmed as residential, but that would matter little given that many in the area are willing to sell. Residents have written to the chief minister to intervene personally. 

“There is a Hall Road mafia that doesn’t stop at anything and will slowly engulf our neighbourhood,” said an elderly resident, residing there since independence. 

Muhammad Usman, a Hall Road businessman and a member of one of the many traders’ associations on that road, told Daily Times that it was only a matter of time before all of Lakshmi Mansion fell into their hands since people wanted to sell and they wanted to buy. While regretting that it would mean the loss of a great historical heritage, Mr Usman said that anything was possible in a country like Pakistan. “As long as Meraj Khalid was alive, such acquisition was impossible but now things have changed,” he added. 

The history of the residential enclave is older than independence. It was here that Mani Shankar Aiyar, the current Indian petroleum minister, was born in 1941. His family eventually moved to India at independence, but people in the neighbourhood still remember him. 

The Lakshmi Mansion Residents Association has formally invited Mr Aiyar to come. “If the Indian government can accord a special status to the Neharwali Haveli area because President Musharraf was born there, why can’t the Pakistani government do the same and declare Lakshmi Mansion enclave heritage property?” asks one resident. It would be a great confidence-building measure, he adds..

Saadat Hassan Manto, arguably Pakistan’s greatest short story writer, moved to this area in January 1948. It was here that he wrote some of his finest short stories and sketches including Toba Tek Singh, Thanda Ghost, Khol Do and Mera Sahib. Today his daughter resides in the house which has become a memorial of sorts to the man hailed as Pakistan’s most gifted writer. The plaque that indicates that Manto once resided in the building has been vandalised with graffiti. “People often come looking to find material about Manto and we try and help the best we can,” Nighat Patel, Manto’s daughter, told Daily Times. 

Meraj Khalid also lived here for a large part of his life. Lakshmi Mansion thus served on several occasions as the residence of the chief minister, National Assembly speaker and finally the prime minister of the country. 

A small library and museum dedicated to the life and work of Mr Khalid today operates without government patronage. Since the former prime minister’s demise two years ago, the family has moved and the house now serves as the office building of Daily Jinnah, an Urdu newspaper.

There is also a beautiful park in the centre of this historical locality. Trees in this park are said to be over a 100 years old. If the area gets commercialised, it is feared that this lush green park might end up a concrete car park one day.

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