The library that has outlived Kharak Singh

Tucked inside the Lahore Fort, behind layers of Mughal grandeur and colonial brickwork, lies a structure most visitors overlook: Haveli Kharak Singh. Most pass it by without knowing that this crumbling building once belonged to the crown prince of the Sikh Empire.

Today, though, the haveli’s quiet rooms are alive again—not with royal life but with paper. In 2023, a long-forgotten room changed the fate of this place. Workers clearing storerooms found thousands of files, glass plate negatives, photographs, and rare maps stacked within. The staff at the Walled City of Lahore Authority describe the haul as roughly 15,000 archival files and several thousand photographic negatives and glass plates. Some press accounts give slightly higher totals.

The finds were organized as the Akbari Mahal Kutub Khana and Archives. The holdings are housed in conserved ground-floor space within Haveli Kharak Singh and the adjacent Akbari Mahal area of Jahangir’s Quadrangle. Phased digitization is underway to widen access for researchers and family historians. What emerged was less spectacle, more substance: records that could redraw how we understand the Fort’s history.

The glitter of Mughal domes and Sheesh Mahal mirrors may charm tourists, but they will never outshine the moment when perhaps a man from New Jersey or a family from Toronto flies in, opens a ledger, and sees their grandfather’s name. Grandeur and glamour dazzle for a day; roots last much longer.

That institutional framing also means private searches can produce public evidence: a ledger here can support family claims, scholarly work, and policy debates. Though the real effect depends on thorough cataloguing and clear access rules.

The greatest kings may see their castles forgotten. Kharak Singh, an heir who never truly ruled, has his haveli remembered today not for power or splendour, but for the quiet survival of records and memory. Kharak Singh was a prince whispered to have been poisoned before his time. His haveli, too, seemed destined to vanish in silence. But now its rooms have taken on a different kind of power.

Instead of courtiers, there are archivists. Instead of gold, papers are carrying the names of people who once walked the streets we do today.

Libraries in South Asia have always evolved with the needs of power and people. Before books, there were oral traditions: stories, hymns, and epics carried by memory. Ancient courts kept palm-leaf manuscripts; Buddhist monasteries housed collections of sutras; Mughal emperors curated manuscript treasuries of Persian poetry and history.

Colonial rule introduced record offices, catalogues, and state libraries, shifting the focus from knowledge to governance. Today, digital databases promise new forms of preservation, but the principle remains the same: libraries are the vessels through which memory survives time.

Within the recovered material, there are surprises that link past work to present needs. The collection includes land and tax records, Archaeological Survey of India reports, early censuses, rare regional histories, historic maps, and extensive photographic material, including thousands of glass plate negatives.

Kharak Singh’s haveli has its own layered story. It sits in the Akbari quadrant of the Fort, a space built and rebuilt since the Mughal era. The Mahal has long been one of the most layered spaces of the Fort, as it was built under the Mughals, adapted under the Sikhs, and repurposed by the British—which makes its reuse today as an archive another chapter in its history of adaptation.

Sikh additions were made during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s rule. The complex later served British administrators who reused rooms as offices and stores. Practical repairs and additions are visible in the walls. They read like the Fort’s manuscript, a record of changing hands and changing needs.

Now, with the discovery of archives, the haveli continues that tradition as a library, adapting once again to new purposes.

The prince’s personal story adds texture. He was proclaimed ruler for a mere three months. Sources disagree about the exact cause and motives surrounding his death; contemporaries circulated gossip about poisoning, while other accounts point to illness and court turmoil. The point is not to settle an old court mystery but to note how rooms that were the backdrop to power and fear now hold registers and maps that quietly document the afterlives of empires.

Perhaps the most attractive feature of the library is its accessibility to common people. For a family with roots in the Punjab, an old ledger can act like a small miracle: a name confirmed, a plot of land mapped, an ancestor’s service recorded.

Beyond family histories, the collection also sharpens collective memory: it allows researchers, activists, and policymakers to ground current debates over heritage, ownership, or identity in verifiable records rather than myth or hearsay.

Such records have the power to inform how nations talk to one another. Disputed boundaries, heritage claims, even the way Pakistan and India remember the Partition can all be influenced by archival finds. A single census sheet or survey report can shift debates on matters like migration, population loss, or cultural ownership.

Kharak Singh was meant to inherit an empire, yet his life ended in quiet defeat as an heir who never truly ruled, remembered in history more for weakness than power. The irony is that his haveli now safeguards voices louder and more enduring than any king.

Inside its walls, ledgers and files preserve the names and traces of people who lived long after him. His inheritance may have slipped away, but in a strange way, his haveli became the keeper of everyone else’s.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/1346835-the-library-that-has-outlived-kharak-singh

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