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Who was Sir Ganga Ram and why does his legacy live on in India and Pakistan?

 


Few people in India and Pakistan have left such a lasting legacy on both sides of the border as the revered engineer and philanthropist Sir Ganga Ram.


Hospitals in Delhi and Lahore - built by his trust and his family in his name - still cherish his legacy today.


Although her home was in Lahore, Pakistan, when India was partitioned in 1947, her family moved to Delhi, India.


In August 1947, India gained independence from British rule and the country was divided into two new states - India and Pakistan. About half a million people died as a result of religious violence and 12 million became refugees.


Ganga Ram died in 1927, but Sadat Hasan Manto's short story Garland encapsulates the extent of the man's connection and legacy to the city of Lahore.


In the story, which is said to be based on a real incident during the partition, a mob attacked the statue of Ganga Ram outside the hospital to erase her Hindu name. But when a man was injured, people shouted, “Let's take him to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

Ganga Ram is a real pedagogue, a caring person too. Her work has focused on architecture, engineering, agriculture and women's rights. He particularly focused on the welfare of widows.


Most of what we know of him comes from the 1940 book Desert Harvest, The Life and Works of Sir Ganga Ram by Baba Pyare Lal Bedi.


Ganga Ram was born in 1851, in the village of Mangtanwala, about 64 kilometers from Lahore.


His father, Daulat Ram, was from Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India, where he worked as a junior police inspector.


The family then moved to Amritsar in Punjab, where Ganga Ram attended a government-run secondary school.


Ganga Ram traveled through northern India and Pakistan to study at a state university, then won a scholarship to study engineering at Thomason College of Engineering in Roorkee, in present-day Indian state of Uttarakhand. . .


Of the 50 rupees ($0.63; £0.52) he receives in allowance, he will send half to his parents in Amritsar to supplement their income.


After graduating with honors as an engineer, Ganga Ram became a student in the office of Rai Bahadur Kanhaya Lal, then Chief Engineer of Lahore. The "voice of Ganga Ram" in Lahore architecture started there. He was a very good civil engineer and built city buildings through his work.

He is credited with the design and construction of impressive buildings including the Lahore Museum, Aitchison College, Mayo School of Art (now known as the National College of Arts), General Post Office, Albert Victor of Mayo Hospital and. .. Govt College Chemistry Laboratory.


Ganga Ram used high ceilings and other Indian traditions using Western architectural materials to shield them from the heat and cold of the Punjab state climate and to ensure cleanliness that works well and flawlessly, Bedi wrote.


Prominent Pakistani journalist Khaled Ahmed has described Ganga Ram as the "father of modern Lahore", due to the indelible mark he left on the city.

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