Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s statue at Lahore Fort had historical significance and served as a memorial for his almost 40-year-long rule over Punjab from Lahore Fort.

This statue was brought to Kartarpur in December 2023 and has now been placed at a park named after Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the most successful Punjabi king, who won ‘Greatest Leader of All Times’ in the BBC World Histories Magazine poll, in which Winston Churchill was also a candidate.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s statue at Lahore Fort had historical significance and served as a memorial for his almost 40-year-long rule over Punjab from Lahore Fort. Now by shifting the statue to a Gurudwara, Pakistan has undone its own effort to tell the unbiased history of Lahore Fort and secular nature of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s kingdom to the upcoming generations.

The first attack on the statue by terrorists occurred in 2019 soon after the statue was installed. It was vandalized again in the summer of 2020, and once more in 2022. Following these incidents, the government was forced to relocate the statue to its current location.

Babar Jalandhari, an activist promoting the Punjabi language in Pakistan, said, “We are proud of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Punjab became orphaned after his death. His administration had officers from all religions. He constructed mosques and temples,” Jalandhari said.

“The attack on his statue in Lahore and the government’s silent surrender to such attacks by relocating it to Kartarpur Sahib is a defeat for the government. If the government continues to react this way, then tomorrow someone will object to the existence of Kartarpur Sahib too. I want this statue to be relocated to Lahore Fort. I am embarrassed by this decision of the government,” he said.

Objection Over Statue

The statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh at Lahore Fort came in sharp contrast with Pakistani nationalism, which celebrates Ahmad Shah Durrani, regarded as the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan who had invaded Punjab many times before Maharaja Ranjit Singh stopped these invasions forever and dealt with Afghans on their own terms.

Religious and mainstream politics in Pakistan are greatly influenced by madrassa institutions that migrated from Uttar Pradesh in 1947, leaving hardly any space for regional identities and non-Islamic heroes like Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Even Punjabi Muslim heroes like Dulla Bhatti failed to get a place in popular Pakistani culture as they did not fit into Pakistani nationalism.

The politics of Punjabi identity is still too weak in Pakistan, and the Punjabi language has no official status in West Punjab despite the majority of Pakistanis speaking Punjabi. This is the reason that the statue of Maharaja was seen as taboo in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

“One main reason behind the attack on the statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh was that he was a non-Muslim ruler of Lahore Fort, which otherwise represents the dominating history of Muslim kings and does not fit into the idea of ​​the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. ,” said Jalandhari.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh not only brought law, order, and justice to Lahore, but he also gave it a touch of secularism for which he is still remembered in Pakistan even after the 1947 Partition and migration of Sikhs from Lahore.

The secular administrative approach of the Maharaja played a big role in keeping Lahore peaceful during his rule. Sikhs were a minority in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s ruled Punjab with a Muslim and Hindu majority. Maharaja Ranjit Singh included Muslims and Hindus of Lahore in his ministers along with Sikhs. Faqir Aziz-ud-Din, his Foreign Minister, was greatly responsible for persuading the Maharaja to sign the Treaty of Amritsar in 1809 AD.

The king also gave donations to many mosques and Hindu temples in Lahore apart from Gurdwaras.