A name foretold

My earliest memories of Lahore include the visit of the Turkish President, Celal Bayar, to the National Horse and Cattle Show at the Race Course in February 1955. The Horse Show was originally hosted at the Race Course and attracted visiting dignitaries, such as the Turkish President, each year. The pageantry of the heads of state arriving in a horse-drawn coach with the impressive bodyguards became a familiar sight even when the Horse Show was later relocated to the Fortress Stadium in the Cantonment. The hugely popular Tatoo during the evenings/nights of the Horse Show was added at the Fortress Stadium and, over the years, both these events attracted visitors from all over Pakistan, particularly foreigners and the diplomat community in Islamabad, who brought energy to an already pulsating life in Lahore. This popularity was matched in later years by the fervour of the basant celebrations in Lahore.

But the Lahore Race Course, which would lend itself to the holding of the Horse Show for a few days a year, continued to thrive as the country’s premier horse-racing track. I was introduced to horseracing decades later after my return from the U.S. – following post-graduate legal studies – in the late 1960s by my favourite brother-in-law, Tayab Hasan. I would go to the races once in a while with Tayab and while he would bet, and many times lose at the end of the day, I would take in the joys of the social events such as the Derby and other important cups. It was spectacular to sit up in the box and watch the horses go around in the well laid-out and well-maintained race track.

It was General Ghulam Jilani Khan who saved the Lahore Race Course

Fast forward: the PNA movement in the 1970s, Bhutto’s announcement of the banning of liquor and horse-racing and declaring Friday as the weekly holiday. Quietly, the horse-racing was moved from the Lahore Race Course to a new and less visible location in Kot Lakhpat.

For several years, the majestic expanse of the Lahore Race Club appeared, in local gossip, to be up for grabs. Its attraction as a prime real estate fuelled the rumour mills. These varied from the entire area of the Lahore Race Course to be converted to a housing colony for the Army to locate the Civil Secretariat there. But it was General Ghulam Jilani Khan, the then Governor of Punjab, who saved the Lahore Race Course from such plans and moved it towards its present use as a Race Course Park for the benefit of all of Lahore, and, particularly, the common man (and woman). Appropriately, Governor Ghulam Jilani Khan, himself, inaugurated the Race Course Park on October 3 1985.

Following my heart attack in 2004, I was advised a daily walk as a preferred exercise. For over a decade, I have been using the park for 5-6 days for each week that I am in Lahore. It is right opposite my house and I have thoroughly enjoyed this blessing.

The park has developed well with the original lay-out crafted by the horticultural vision of several “founding fathers” including Col. (Retd.) Faruki, a senior LDA official, in particular. The trees, plants and flowers were well chosen with due regard to seasons and colors. The flaming red of the Gold Mohar is as breath-taking in its flowering season as are the yellow Amaltas clustered together in theirs. An artificial lake has added pleasure for those that seek boating during the summer.

The greatest joy is the diversity of visitors that benefit from the park

But the greatest joy is the diversity of visitors that benefit from the park. Judges, bureaucrats, police officials, businessmen, lawyers, traders, sportsmen, and school children are a daily, and many times, recurring sight. What is impressive is that the visitors are also drawn from different economic and ethnic backgrounds. The park readily becomes a miniature Pakistan, a melting pot of sorts, particularly over national holidays such as Eid and Jashan-e-Baharan. It is a testimony to the excellence of the management of the Park that following this year’s Eid-ul-Fitr, when thousands of families had used and picnicked in the park, it had been cleared of all the litter by the next day to welcome the early morning walkers/joggers.

It was Governor Jilani who, in the final analysis, made this joy and happiness possible for Lahore. He almost solely is the architect of one of the best parks in in Pakistan. But for him, this crucial lung of the city of Lahore would have fallen to mortar and bricks. It was in recognition of this role that I initiated, and successfully carried out, a campaign to name the Lahore Race Course Park as the Jilani Park. And, this in spite of the fact that as a human rights activist, I have consistently opposed all martial laws, and the men in uniform who supported and helped these coups. I was also brutalized by Governor Jilani’s police/security forces as I led a lawyer’s march, as the Acting Chairman of the All Pakistan Lawyers National Co-ordination Committee that led the national movement against General Ziaul Haq in November 1983.

This notwithstanding, I organized the signatures of several of us, who regularly used the park, to petition the government to name it as the Jilani Park. In a letter dated October 14 2004, several of us including Mr. Nayyar Ali Dada, Ms. Sajida Vandal, Mr. Kamil Mumtaz, Mr. Arif Nizami, Mr. Parvez Masud, Mr. F.S. Aijazuddin and Mr. Tariq Sultan highlighted General Jilani’s support and leadership in the creation and strengthening of Lahore’s premier services and facilities such as Allama Iqbal Park, Race Course Park, Punjab Institute of Cardiology, Alhamra Complex, Quaid-e-Azam Library and proposed the naming of the Lahore Race Course Park as the Jilani Park. This would, we added, be an “overdue acknowledgement of his monumental contribution to Lahore”.

It was late night on November 30 2004 that the then Chief Secretary, Mr. Kamran Rasul, called me at his house – just before my travel that night for Tokyo – to inform that the formal decision had been taken by the provincial government to accept our request. I could have foretold the success of our effort because of the good name of Governor Jilani and his enormous contributions to protect and promote Lahore’s cultural and historical pre-eminence in Pakistan. I do add the post-script that because I had led this effort, I was invited by the provincial government to the formal opening/naming of the Jilani Park at a reception for his widow. The gratitude of the city of Lahore joined me in such attendance.