Saving history

As soon as the British annexed Punjab in 1849, they undertook an extensive study of the newly acquired colony, travelling to every village and gathering information about it, as they had already done in other parts of India. With the help of local translators, British officials collected oral histories explaining each village's origin; recorded the number of temples, gurdwaras and mosques there; detailed the surrounding land, flora and fauna; and noted the caste composition of every village's population. Their reports also included information from archaeological surveys around certain villages, along with handmade maps. The information was collected in Urdu, and occasionally in Persian, the former official language that was still spoken by the native elites. The British administration then opened a file for every village, where they collated all related documents. These were the 'Settlement Reports'.

Separated by district, the records were kept at the office of the Tehsildar – the district's revenue officer. In Lahore, the office contained a detailed record of 382 villages that are part of the district today. All these records were burned in the early nineties when the office came under attack by a mob, protesting against the rise of the Shia-Sunni conflict in Pakistan and the government apathy towards it. The office became a symbol of the state, and hence a victim of people's wrath. As the office burned, so did the records containing precious, century-old information.