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At the end of the second Anglo-Sikh War, the British annexed the Punjab to the Indian Empire in March 1849. The new administration was established in the Shahi Qila (Royal Fort) as well as around the Anarkali area, in the old Sikh barracks and in some hastily built new ones (Goulding, Old Lahore). The stretch of Multan Road from the Fort through the Old Anarkali to Chauburji constituted both the military and the civil administration till the 1850s.
Soon, however, cholera began to take its toll on the British troops. The death rate due to this scourge was horrendous. Most units lost about 10% of their manpower whereas some suffered as much as 20%. Maj Gen Syed Hamid has written a very detailed article on the incidence of disease in early colonial Lahore. The sanitation conditions, as noted by John Lawrence, the first Chief Commissioner of Punjab, were deplorable. He wrote that few suburbs in any of the provinces presented such difficult sanitary conditions as Lahore did. He also noted that there were many ruins in Anarkali area along with stagnant water (SM Latif). This forced the British to build a new cantonment for the troops away from the city.
The British administration had a highly proficient set of civil engineers in Lahore, at one time headed by Lt Col Napier (Later Field Marshal). He planned and supervised the construction of the Governor’s House, the Mall road and many other buildings of the initial British period. He had previously developed the cantonment at Ambala. This team was tasked with siting and planning the new cantonment. As relocation of troops was necessitated by spread of disease, it was natural that physical environment of the site stayed as one of the prime criteria while searching for a suitable area.
During the Mughal era, a cannon manufacturing workshop was established at Mughalpura. The facility remained operational during Ahmad Shah Durrani’s time, when the massive ‘Bhangion ki top’ and its sister gun were cast here in 1760 as the Afghan ruler prepared for his looming tussle with the Marathas. The gun manufacturing here continued during the Sikh period. Ranjit Singh had one of his artillery parks, as per a 1839 map made by a visiting British official, a little north east of Mian Mir tomb. There used to be a road fork here at that time where a track emanating from Akbari Gate divided into two tracks; one leading to Tarantaran, the historical holy Sikh city, and the other via Barki-Hudaiara to Harike ferry over the Sutlej.
This was also the place where, in September 1845, the Sikh army summoned and executed Jawahar Singh, the hated Prime Minister in the post-Ranjit Singh period (Irfan Ahmad). It is no coincidence, therefore, that the most prominent, central and widest road in the cantonment, the Wellington Mall, or the Tufail Road as it is called now, was aligned as a straight line from the Shalimar Gardens in the north, through Mughalpura, to the large oval ground in the south that housed the grand St. Magdalene Church and the Officer’s Club (now DeSOM). It symbolised the British Empire as the successor to the Mughal Empire and the Sikh Kingdom. The area was evidently familiar to the British as a ‘treeless and dreary’ place but sufficiently away from the city and its putrefying atmosphere.
The better-built British barracks were located in the northern parts of the cantonment while the native troops were housed in inferior barracks to the south, where RA Bazaar was also built
A zone of about 20 sq km was earmarked for the cantonment, spread in a rectangular shape with wide roads; some running north to east, crisscrossed by others in east to west direction. The area earmarked for stationing a few army units must have seemed too spacious at the time but the British, like all super powers in their day, thought and planned on a grand scale.
While many local builders were contracted for barracks and office buildings to work under the supervision of the British Engineers, the European barracks were built by Mian Muhammad Sultan who became quite rich in the process. He would go on to build the Delhi Gate, the Railway Station and the Attock Bridge. He also became proficient in selling old bricks vandalised from old Mughal buildings. Having earned enough money, he would buy these buildings and strip them for building materials. For the European Barracks, a large house built by Avitabile, the Sikh General of French origin, at Buddhu ka Awa in Mughalpura, was stripped. The Awa was a large brick kiln dating back to the time of Emperor Jahangir. The house was completely demolished and no trace of its existence remained. There is no doubt that the European engineers and the administrators approved of this act. In 1919-20, the Punjab Government decided to build a monument to mark the kiln.
The better-built British barracks were located in the northern parts of the cantonment while the native troops were housed in inferior barracks to the south, where RA Bazaar was also built. When the office and residential buildings were ready, the British moved their troops to the cantonment. These included units of Royal Artillery, a British Infantry Regiment, a Bengal Cavalry unit, a native infantry unit and Punjab Pioneers. A large area in the south west corner was reserved for cavalry training. When railway line connected Karachi and Lahore, the cantonment was provided with a separate railway station. The first airport of the city was constructed west of the Cavalry Grounds and named after Colonel Walton. A flying club was added to the airport in 1930. The current international airport was built in 1962 east of and adjacent to the cantonment with its passenger terminal facing the Abid Majeed Road.
Soon, however, cholera and malaria broke out resulting in the same difficulties that had plagued the troops around Anarkali. Lahore came to be known as ‘The graveyard of India’. The reason being that there was little provision for drainage of waste water around the new barracks, which gave rise to cesspools resulting in sewage water mixing with drinking water. Slowly, remedial measures were taken and sanitation improved, overcoming cholera. Malaria would take longer to control as the link between the disease and mosquitoes was not discovered till the early 20th century.
Initially, the new cantonment was known by the name of Mian Mir, because it was so far away from the city of Lahore that it couldn’t be called Lahore Cantonment. The name changed to Lahore Cantonment in 1905 because in the intervening fifty years, the city had expanded to become contiguous with Mian Mir.
The names of roads in the cantonment are an interesting read. The east-west tracks were called roads and named after Indian cities such as Lahore, Amritsar, Ambala, Gujrat, Rawalpindi, Allahabad, Murree, Dharamshala, Shahdara, Jullundur, Faizabad, Montgomery, Agra, Jhelum, Banaras, Dalhousie, Banaras, Patiala, Shimla, Lucknow, Bareilly, Moradabad, Calcutta and Sagar. All these names have been changed to local Pakistani heroes.
There were four major north to south roads. They were called streets and named after military commanders. The Sir Hugh Rose street, or the Shami Road as it is called now, begins as Mayo Road, now called Allam Iqbal Road, at the railway station and flows east towards Mian Mir. Crossing the canal, it takes a sharp turn south and passes by the CMH on the left. This portion of the road, from the canal to the CMH Chowk, is called the Infantry Road. Thereafter, as it straightens up towards south, it was named as the Sir Hugh Rose street.
As for the personalities honoured in naming these roads, Sir Hugh was in command of Poona Division on the eve of the War of Independence 1857. He retook Jhansi and Gwalior from the mutineers. Later he was C-in-C of Bengal Army as Lt Gen and C-in-C India as General (1860-1865). Lord Mayo was Governor General of India from 1869-72, and was murdered by an Afridi Pathan during his visit to Port Blair on the Andaman Islands. The Afridi, a soldier in the British army, had been transported for life for murder and harboured grudge against the British. Lord Mayo was much honoured after his death. Mayo Hospital in Lahore, the biggest hospital in Pakistan, was commissioned during the Lord’s tenure and named after him. Mayo School of Arts, now called National College of Arts also carries his name. Mayo Gardens housing colony, behind Governor’s House, too bears his name. Shami was Brigadier Shami, H.J., who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the 1965 war at the Khem Karan sector.
The next north-south street was Elgin street, named after Earl of Elgin, the Viceroy of India from 1894 to 1899. It is now called Sarwar road after Captain Sarwar Shaheed who was the first recipient of Nishan-e-Haider, the highest gallantry award in Pakistan, during the Kashmir war of 1947-48. Tufail road was created as the widest of all streets and called Wellington Mall. Lord Wellington fought extensively in India against the Marathas, won the battle of Waterloo against Emperor Napoleon and subsequently became prime minister of UK. Major Tufail was posthumously awarded Nishan-e-Haider in 1958. Rafiqui road was Cunningham street. Maj Gen Cunningham was a British Army engineer who took part in the Chillianwala and Gujrat battles against the Sikhs in 1848-49. Later, he became the first DG of Archaeological Survey of India and is regarded as the father of Indian archaeology. Sqn Ldr Rafiqui, the most decorated officer of PAF, lost his life over Halwara during 1965 war. He, along with Alam, is the most revered officer in the PAF.
Some of the other roads were named after British officials or soldiers such as Spencer (Gen Sir Augustus Spencer), Mansfield (an Army officer), Dalhousie (a GG) and Featherston (a British historian of India) but have been renamed after Rehman, Mazhar, Younas and Abid Majeed respectively. Cantonment Board Lahore has done an admirable job in gathering the old and existing names of roads in their jurisdiction and put them online.
The Cantonment continues to stand as a prestigious area of Lahore. It houses the Lahore army corps as well as the PAF Central Command. It contains an Army Division, a PAF Base, associated messes, CMH, living areas, sports grounds, markets, and military Housing Schemes for retired officers. It contains some of the premier schools, professional colleges, high-end shopping areas and marriage halls. Premier sporting facilities here include the Fortress Stadium and two golf courses. It is now hemmed in by the airport, Gulberg and DHA but continues to be an eminent part of the wider Lahore metropolis.