A town of many tales

Swati Rai

Ferozepore, as the Punjab District Gazetteers 1915 spells and notes, is ‘situated in N latitude 30.55 and E longitude 78.40, 645 feet above the sea level, about 3 miles from the present course of the Sutlej.’ It was the first district to be formed in Punjab whence ilakas such as Makhu, Guru Har Sahai and Mamdot formed the present-day Ferozepur district. 

The convenience of country-made boats on the Sutlej to carry out trade, and later the intricate railway network, brings forth the significance of the town as transit point for trade and commerce throughout historical eras. Being on the route of many of the hordes that ravaged the area, the town and territory seem to have suffered even more than the rest of the region bordering on the Sutlej.

The many visitors and inhabitants of the place have left an indelible imprint on the city. Looking at the past from the present, it is easy for a visitor’s vision to get muddied and hazy by the many layers of physical encroachments on heritage and its metaphorical obliteration. Imagine! It was here that a walled city of 10 gates existed. Like other such structures, these were christened to indicate the name of the destination they would lead to. 

The present-day circular road in the city was dotted with these gates. The Delhi and Ludhiana (Baghdadi) gates were towards the south; Makhu towards the east; Bansawala towards the north; and the Kasur and Multan Gates on the west. Others included the Zira Gate, the Amritsari Gate, the Kasuri Gate, and the Magazine Gate. The present-day Baghdadi Gate on Mallanwalla road houses timber merchants like Jit Singh, whose family has been in the business for centuries. Odd bric-a-brac wood shops now line the road and what was once a structure, constructed under the supervision of a Mr Knox, who was inspired by the Afghan architecture. It is hidden under a motley set of ‘new’ pink-hued, edifice, which proudly displays martyrs’ busts and garish advertising billboards. 

The old town was divided into two parts by the main bazaar, which ran from the Delhi Gate in the south to the Bansawala Gate in the north. ‘A metalled circular road girdles the wall around the city and is 23,870 feet long. Outside the periphery are well-maintained gardens along the road on the west of which is the present-day city railway station. The town was surrounded on all sides by small hamlets or suburbs,’ notes the Gazetteer. The present-day Multani Gate hardly does justice to the centuries-old brick kiln’s construction, with electrical wires marring the view along with posters of political leaders seeking votes! 

The Deputy Commissioner Ferozepur, DPS Kharbanda has so far been successful in securing a ‘protected monument’ status for Bhagat Singh’s hideout in Turi Bazaar. They are awaiting a green signal to a proposal for a light and sound show at the National Martyrs Memorial, he says. There is, however, a need to move beyond the obvious places of tourist interest and preserve the decaying heritage.

Dr Subhash Parihar, author, historian and an authority on Punjab’s heritage, laments that it is societal apathy towards heritage at large that is to be blamed, along with a lack of administrative support from government bodies. A cursory stroll in the vast plains of Ferozepur might lead you to the largely unknown, Ferozepore Fort. Much of its history dates back to 1830’s when East India Company set up a military installation in a mud-and-brick frontier magazine that later was converted into an arsenal, the biggest, even at the time of World War II. 

Lt. AW Harker, R.G.A, writes, ‘An ordnance magazine was built on the present site in 1840, the rest of the ordnance buildings being at that time on the site of the present Supply and Transport Lines. In 1858, the arsenal was moved to its present position and that year, the dry gun cotton store, the powder magazine, and the ammunition stores were built. In 1860 the gun-sheds and a large number of the divisions of the arsenal were completed and the buildings of the Fort round the arsenal commenced. During the 1884-86  period, the Fort was altered to its present form. As built in 1858, the inner quadrangle was much lower than at present and the outer hexagon a very kachcha affair. Between 1884-86, the wall of the inner quadrangle was considerably raised and the outer hexagon made at present, the ditch and bastions, formerly non-existent, being added.’

In 1839, Sir Henry M Lawrence who was stationed at Ferozepur as the Assistant Political Agent to the NW Frontier, during the early years of British occupation along with his wife Honoria used to stay in the fort’s two rooms. It is a star fort also called bastion fort or trace italienne, ‘which is a fortification in a style that evolved during the age of gunpowder when the cannon came to dominate the battlefield’ such as the Fort Bourtange in Netherlands.

This European styled architectural marvel is replete with features such as three tiers including the core, the moat, the rampart and the battlements. One also finds features such as the ‘glacis’ which in ‘military engineering is an artificial slope as part of a medieval castle or in early modern fortresses’. 

Another striking feature is the existence of embrasures which are the openings in a ‘crenellation or battlement between the two raised solid portions’ and there was also provision of casemates, a fortified gun emplacement, at the Fort. 

The martial history of the town is unmistakable, as is the intermingling of it with socio-cultural legacy. In the National Martyr’s Memorial precincts, one finds the remains of Kaisar-i-Hind bridge, built in 1885-87. This fort-like engineering marvel was once a broad-gauge railway lifeline from Lahore, across the river Sutlej to Ferozepur. It bears the hallmark of time travel with the carefully preserved railway tracks and a bridge that finishes midway, going nowhere. 

One doesn’t have to be a history student to notice the rich heritage of the place and can only hope to re-live those lives that were lived years ago!