ARTICLES ABOUT DEPALPUR

Discovering Dipalpur 

By Asghar Javed
April 6, 2003

Once the centre stage of many battles for centuries, Dipalpur is now a quite town situated on the banks of old River Beas in Bari-Doab region. It is famous as an outpost that has played a significant
part in the defence of the kingdom of Delhi against Mongol invasions in the 13th and 14th centuries
 The coins of the Sakas (Scythian) period found in Dipalpur suggest that the place was inhabited in 100BC. After Multan, this is probably the oldest living city in South Asia. General Alexander Cunningham writes that the place figures out in the works of Ptolemy under different names. As per the tradition, Dipalpur was named after Raja Dipa Chand once he captured it.In 1285, Muhammad Tughlaq, son of Emperor Balban, was killed in a bloody battle with the Mongols and the famous poet Amir Khusuro was taken prisoner in Dipalpur. The dilapidated tomb of Muhammad Tughlaq stands neglected today. Under Ala-ud-Din, the town became the headquarters of Ghazi Malik. The Mughal Emperor Akbar made it the headquarters of one of the sarkars (revenue district) of the Multan province. The town was relegated to neglect during the colonial period. Partition led to changes and it is now a market town and tehsil headquarters of Okara district.A fortification wall surrounded Dipalpur in the past, which was strengthened by a deep trench and other defences. Feroz Shah Tughlaq constructed a grand mosque, palaces and excavated a canal from River Sutlaj to inundate the trench and irrigate gardens around the town. Wide and airy tunnels linked the royal residential quarters inside the fort to the adjoining gardens outside.There were 24 burgs (musketry holes) on the fortification wall, 24 mosques, 24 ponds and 24 wells in the town in its hay days.

The trench, ponds and tunnels have been filled but at places the location of the trench can still be defined. The fortification wall has vanished. Only two of the four massive gateways, with pointed arches, exist, though they are badly damaged and are without their wooden doors now.The old part of the town is now a jungle of houses and the remains of the once magnificent buildings of bygone days, adorned with beautiful wood engravings, can be seen in a few places. The narrow and winding streets lined by redeveloped and shoddily built new houses give Dipalpur a murky look.The most noticeable feature in old Dipalpur is a huge building that used to be a saray (inn). It was a spacious building with airy rooms on four sides, a big courtyard in the centre and four arched entrances. The interior of the inn is dark and has been divided and subdivided by its occupants so many times that one cannot make out its original layout. Even the verandas have been clogged to create additional rooms.Near the inn is the monastery of Lal Jas Raj, a guru much venerated by the Hindus. The dilapidated and empty chamber stands infested with bats and rats. Termite is eating its woodwork. One cannot open the doors to the chamber because they are jammed and a stairway is serving as storage for dried dung cakes kept by the neighbours.Baba Guru Nanak also stayed in
Dipalpur for sometime. A completely ruined Gurdawara is indicative of the place where Guru Nanak stayed. Muslim saints also came to this area. Hazrat Bahawal Haq, commonly known as Bahawal Sher Qalandar, came from Baghdad and settled in a nearby village. Grandson of the saint Hazrat Shah Muqeem continued
his mission. The village came to be known as Hujra Shah Muqeem — the place that is mentioned in the
famous Punjabi folk love story Mirza Saheban. However, there is no historical evidence that Jati Saheban came here.Dipalpur was declared as a notified area in 1949, and then raised to the status of Municipal Committee. Now it is a typical Pakistani town with all the hazards of urbanization: congestion, mixed traffic, encroachments, potholed roads and piles of domestic waste. The authorities do not seem to notice the plight of the residents, particularly those living in the old part of the city.The challenge of restoring ancient Dipalpur to its old magnificence might be too much to expect, but a survey could at least be carried out to record the places having essential, historic, social and architectural value.