ISLAMABAD: A Sikh worship service was held today, Friday, at the historic gurdwara inside Lahore’s Aitchison College, reopening the shrine for prayer nearly eight decades after it fell out of regular use following the 1947 Partition.
Founded in 1886 to educate the sons of royalty and prominent families of undivided Punjab, Aitchison College once served students from Muslim, Hindu and Sikh backgrounds. After Partition, which created Pakistan and India and triggered mass migration along religious lines, Sikh enrollment ended and the gurdwara ceased functioning as an active place of worship, though the college continued to maintain the building.
Friday’s ceremony took place as part of events marking the elite school’s 140th anniversary.
“A historic and emotional Sikh worship service was held at the Gurdwara on the campus of Aitchison College,” the institution said in a statement announcing the ceremony.
The gurdwara was designed by renowned Sikh architect Ram Singh of the then Mayo School of Arts, now the National College of Arts. Its foundation stone was laid in 1910 by Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, a former Aitchison student who studied there from 1904 to 1908, and the Patiala royal family supported fundraising for its construction. Completed shortly afterward, it served as a daily prayer space for Sikh pupils attending the school.
About 15 Sikh alumni of Aitchison College are currently living in India and have recalled attending evening prayers at the gurdwara, describing its black-and-white marble flooring and castle-like interior architecture.
The campus also houses other pre-Partition places of worship, including a mosque built in 1900 by the Nawab of Bahawalpur and a Hindu temple whose foundation stone was laid in 1910 by the Maharaja of Darbhanga.
Over the decades, Aitchison College has educated prominent figures from across pre-Partition Punjab and modern South Asia, including former Pakistani prime ministers Imran Khan, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Feroz Khan Noon, as well as Indian cricket captain Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and members of princely families such as the Maharaja of Patiala.
