July

Lahore was Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s capital city with a population of some 100,000 residents comprising Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. In 1858 the Illustrated London News described the city as being “on the highroad from Central Asia to the rich plains of India, which have been the desire of every conqueror… constructed almost entirely of brick, the streets narrow and the houses lofty; the quarter for the shops or bazaars being separate from that inhabited by the rich, whose houses, within gates resemble French hotels…”

The city boasted a fortified palace and a protective walled perimeter and moat, punctuated by twelve gates. Thus armed with one of the few strongholds capable of resisting the onslaught of the British Empire, the Sikh Kingdom kept the Raj at bay for some 40 years after other parts of the sub-continent had long been conquered, some for more than a century and a half. This image depicts Lahore as a thriving, diverse cultural city.