By Aquila Ismail

With shifting rivers and a changed geo-political map, the once mighty outpost may not be there for long

NO matter how many times one may have seen their photographs, no one is ever really prepared for the breathtaking sight when one rounds that corner and the monuments of Uch appear on the hill.

Surrounded by swaying fields of the still young wheat, in mid-March, interspersed with trees laden with new mango flowers, dotted by palm trees, the barren mound with the three monuments and the shrine complex literally took my breath away. It was like entering a realm where nature and spirituality blended so perfectly. This sense is reinforced when going round the mound to the steps that lead up to it, one sees the huge ancient banyan tree that towers over the mound. The goats tied to the base of the tree add to the atmosphere. Thankfully there are no irritating cola stands, although a small tea stall does brisk business on Thursdays and Fridays we were told.

We were looking at the Bibi Jawandi complex comprising of remains of the tombs of Bibi Jawandi (15th century), Baha-ul-Halim (16th century) and Ustad Hazrat Nuria (15/16th century), forming one of the most impressive sepulchral complex of glazed tombs in Pakistan.

The complex is located on a mound that is considered the highest point of Uch city. Hundreds of small, unmarked graves lead up to the monuments and below beyond the fields is what was once the riverbed of the Sutlej. These tombs are said to be unique examples of the Indus Valley tradition of glazed tiles and brick revetment, including miniature architectural elements in glazed terracotta. The sheer drop of the ground level at the south and western edges adds a certain drama to the scenery and the shrine of Jalaluddin Bukhari gives it the liveliness that most sufi shrines engender in Pakistan. The monuments are contained in a cemetery which is still in use.

Taher, the young man who accompanied us on the three hour van ride from Lodhran, where we had gathered for the Community Development Network meeting, works for the Conservation and Rehabilitation Centre (CRC). The centre was setup in 1994 to look into the conservation of the Uch monuments. It succeeded in the getting Uch monuments listed by the World Monument Watch, New York, in the 100 Most Endangered Monuments of the World in 1998-99 and in 2000-2001. Subsequently the World Monument Watch awarded the Centre a grant for research and documentation of the Uch Monument Complex. The Centre got approval for integrated conservation in Uch from the Government of Pakistan and established a permanent office in Uch in 1998.

While walking through the city of Uch it was apparent that it was not just the monuments but the city itself that was part of the cultural heritage. Its many narrow brick lanes support traditional houses and shops still in their original brick and mortar form complete with exquisite fret-work. One comes across dozens of small tombs and shrines, decorated with the very familiar blue tile-work. The bazaar is exquisite especially a covered enclosure known as Chunnery Bazaar, which is to be rehabilitated. Small shops lining the narrow lanes of the covered bazaar sell bangles, dupattas, silver ornaments as well as items of every day use. There are shops along the way selling bottled water, and small restaurants filled to the brim with men following cricket on television. And in a nearby open space, preparations were underway for the annual mela.

Uch doesn’t matter much in the histories of the region prior to the 12th century Sultanate period. Counted among the major factors that have shaped the history and physical structure of the city is its location at the confluence of the Indus and its tributaries, the Sutlej and the Chenab. This meeting of the rivers now takes place at Mithankot, some thirty kilometres further downstream. In its heyday, between the 12th and 17th centuries, the meeting of the Indus and the Sutlej, joined already by Beas, and the Chenab that includes water of the Jhelum and Ravi, was at the place still called Panjnad, only 15 kilometres north of Uch. The city was therefore an important riverine port on the Indus and was of significant political importance. The changing course of the river resulted in changes in the expanse of the city along with its political and economic importance.

The other major influence of the city was its role as a frontier city on the western perimeters of the Delhi-based kingdoms and empires. Uch appears to have been on the routes that had to be conquered in order to gain access to the Indian plains. This led to it being vulnerable to attacks by invading armies and to its frequent destruction and rebuilding. During Emperor Akbar’s rule of India in the 16th century, it was absorbed into the Mughal administration.

Today, Uch is made up of three settlements — Uch Mughlan, Uch Bukhari and Uch Gilani. The last two reflect the institutionalization of the Sufi tradition in the city and the religious significance that came to be attached to it because of the arrival and settling of important scholars and Sufi saints at an early period of Islam in the subcontinent. The first Sufi sanctuary appears to have been founded in the late 10th century, at the time of the initial Ghaznavid incursions from Afghanistan, by Safi-ud-din Haqqani Gazruni. The Bukhari Suharwardi lineage was established in the late 13th and early 14th century. In the 16th century, the Gilani lineage was established with the advent of its patron Sheikh Abdul Qader II, the son of Hazrat Bandagi.

So in a living breathing city like Uch, whose importance as an economic hub died out with the shifting of the river course there arises the classic dilemma which many conservationists face: is the past to be preserved without thought of the present and future? Are the people who live around these exquisite monuments paying homage to the shrine, their children playing cricket along the open spaces around it with the city still burying its dead in its vicinity, is not a part of the living heritage? Is it not fair that improvement in their daily lives be a part of the broader cultural renaissance?

One sees built heritage in places where development is most needed, among Pakistan’s rural poor and residents of historic and traditional neighbourhoods of large cities. It is thus imperative that cultural needs be addressed simultaneously with the bringing about of the improvement in income, health, education and standards of civic life in these communities. Only such an approach will ensure the continuity of traditions.

To this end in 1999, the CRC initiated a community-based sanitation development and related activities with collaboration of Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), Karachi, initially supported by the United Nations Development Programme and now by Water Aid (a London based donor). The city has a population of 25,000. Disposal of sewage is a big problem in the settlement of the city.

When one walks into the city the transformation is apparent. Wherever the lane communities have undertaken up-gradation work the roads are clean, paved and the residents decidedly more cheerful. The CRC’s team comprises of young men from within Uch some of whom after working elsewhere in Pakistan gravitated back to their roots. Needless to say they have a personal stake in the uplift and ecological conservation of their city. The survey of the entire city was carried out by these young men, who had hitherto been unemployed. These men are now trained to carry out topographical surveys and are computer literate enough to run basic operations on sophisticated CAD software.

The map of the city that they prepared showed a total 725 lanes with mostly shallow open drains that frequently overflowed due to lack of or inadequate disposal. At the same time these young men initiated dialogue with local residents of the town to encourage them to take part in civic improvements through community involvement on the basis of component sharing. This means that the residents take care of primary disposal and lobby the government to undertake the secondary disposal. Seventy-two lanes had already taken care of their area at the time of our visit. The architect in-charge told us of the conceptual Master Plan for sewage disposal for Uch city prepared at the request of the CRC by OPP-RTI. The Master Plan has been presented to the government by CRC in efforts to mobilize government finances for external development (main sewers and sewage treatment plants). Earlier as per CRC proposal the government approved three projects for main sewer estimated at Rs1.18 million. The dialogue continues with the devolved local government with CRC engineers pointing out and monitoring defective work carried out by government contractors.

As for the monuments, a general consensus is that the monuments should be consolidated, not renovated. A great deal of work is needed to make sure that the weathering process does not cause any further damage. They are carrying out extensive research into the materials used in the construction (glazes, mortar, bricks) and the detrimental effects of the weather on the tile work and structure etc. These unique monuments are slowly crumbling. The tiles are slowly becoming loose and falling off, the retaining walls are weakening, the ground is being eroded by rainfall and water seepage from the neighbourhood open drains is destroying the foundations. A lot needs to be done to conserve this heritage for posterity. In Bibi Jawandi’s tomb, much has already been lost.

But even in its ruined state it has a strange emotive power. The structure sliced in half as it were lends wonderment and a drama to the ensemble.

The domes of Baha-ul-Halim and Bibi Jawandi together with a substantial part of their lower structures from the ground up, were destroyed in the early 19th century when the ravaging floods of the Sutlej River carried away the edge of the city on which the monuments stand. Perhaps a little later, the dome of Ustad Nuria and the northern and eastern portions of its structure were also destroyed, hence they do not exist any more. There is not much information available on the individuals who were buried in these tombs, the actual graves of Bibi Jawandi, Ustad Nurya and Hazrat Baha-ul-Halim are no longer marked by a cenotaph.

Ustad Nurya is said to be the architect responsible for Bibi Jawandi’s mausoleum while Hazrat Baha-ul-Halim was a direct descendant of Syed Jalaluddin Bukhari. Bibi Jawandi still remains a mysterious figure to historians, her mausoleum is the oldest of the three.

The shrine complex of Hazrat Jalaluddin Bukhari constitutes only one component of the two large cemeteries and shrines of the Bukhari silsilah. The other one being the cemetery contained in the shrines of Jahanian Jahangash, Rajjan Qattal and Abu Hanifa. The shrine complex comprises a beautiful mosque and a tomb complex overlooking an open rectangular courtyard. This is a serene site where one can sit under the trees and look over the fields. Inside the tomb complex is an area set for the burial of women. A curtain shields the area from men.

Many people come to Uch for spiritual renewal in the shadow of the shrine. The site, however, is more than that. It is an example of how the past and the present can live in harmony with nature and take care of the future as well. Every day hundreds of people visit the Jalauddin Bukhari shrine complex and many of them visit the monuments. On Thursdays and Fridays, days of ritual significance to Muslims, this number increases many times over. We were there on Sunday so there were relatively fewer people in the courtyard. The birds were chirping on the branches of the Banyan tree as they had for centuries. The timelessness was palpable. Maybe this was the city that is mentioned in the Chachnama as Iskandah, founded by Alexander the Great on the banks of the Sutlej at its confluence with Beas.