Sir Ganga Ram. Father of Modern Lahore

 

Sir Ganga Ram (1851-1927) was a civil engineer and leading philanthropist of his times, who established the Renala Hydral Power Station in Renala Khurd in 1925.

Sir Ganga Ram, the great son of Punjab, was born in 1851 in Mangtanwala, a small town about 64 km from Lahore. From the beginning, he proved to be a brilliant student and in 1869, he joined the Government College in Lahore on a scholarship. In 1871, he obtained a scholarship to the Thompson Engineering College at Roorkee, India. He graduated in 1873 and was awarded with a gold medal.

In 1873, after a brief Service in Punjab P.W.D devoted himself to practical farming. He obtained on lease from Government 50,000 acres (200 km²) of barren, unirrigated land in Montgomery district, and within three years converted that vast desert into smiling fields, irrigated by water lifted by a hydroelectric plant and running through a thousand miles of irrigation channels, all constructed at his own cost. This was the biggest private enterprise of the kind, unknown and unthought-of in the country before. Sir Ganga Ram earned millions most of which he gave to charity.

In the words of Sir Malcolm Hailey, the Governor of Punjab, "he won like a hero and gave like a Saint". He was a great engineer and a great philanthropist.

 

Left: GPO Building, Lahore. Right: Lahore Museum

 

Left: Aitchison College, Lahore. Right: National College of Arts, Lahore

He designed and built General Post Office, Lahore Museum, Aitchison College, Mayo School of Arts (now the NCA), Ganga Ram Hospital, Lady Mclagan Girls High School, the chemistry department of the Government College University, the Albert Victor wing of Mayo Hospital, the Hailey College of Commerce, Ravi Road House for the Disabled, the Ganga Ram Trust Building on The Mall and Lady Maynard Industrial School. He also constructed Model Town, once the best locality of Lahore, the powerhouse at Renala Khurd as well as the railway track between Pathankot and Amritsar.

 

Sir Ganga Ram Hospital

He built Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lady Mclagan School and Renala Khurd Power House with his own money. 

He purchased a piece of land at the junction of Queen’s Road and Lawrence Road to construct a hospital building at a cost of Rupees 131,500 which was open to the needy, irrespective of caste or creed. In 1923 the hospital was taken over by the Ganga Ram Trust Society, and today it ranks second only to Mayo Hospital in its services to the people of Lahore.

He was a promising agriculturist, too. He purchased thousands acres of barren land in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) on lease and by using engineering skills and modern irrigation methods, turned the arid lands into fertile fields. He retired in 1903. He died in London on July 10, 1927. His body was cremated and his ashes were brought back to India. A portion of the ashes were consigned to Ganga River and the rest buried in Lahore on the bank of the Ravi.

Samadhi of Ganga Ram Lahore, Ravi Road, Lahore

Samadhi of Sir Ganga Ram is located on Ravi Road, in the locality of Karim Park, Lahore, Pakistan. It is an imposing structure built in 1927 in the style of a Mughal baradari and is topped by a raised bulbous dome. On the inside, it is a rather simple structure owing to renovation work following the damage done to the building during the riots of 1992, after the demolition of Babri Mosque in India. Currently, it is quickly being encroached upon and is in dire need of attention from the relevant authorities.

A statue of Sir Ganga Ram once stood on Mall Road in Lahore. Saadat Hasan Manto, the famous Urdu writer, in one of his stories on the frenzy of religious riots of 1947writes that an inflamed mob in Lahore, after attacking a Hindu residential area, ‘turned to attacking the statue of Sir Ganga Ram, the Hindu philanthropist. They first pelted the statue with stones; then smothered its face with coal tar. Then a man made a garland of old shoes climbed up to put it round the neck of the statue. The police arrived and opened fire. Among the injured were the fellow with the garland of old shoes. As he fell, the mob shouted: “Let us rush him to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital".