A walk down Peshawar’s lost garden: Searching for the forgotten grandeur of Nasir Bagh

Experts have revived interest in the historical garden

PESHAWAR: Peshawar boasts a large collection of historical gardens. The city was billed as Shehr-e-Sabz (the city of greenery) by early visitors and vivid accounts of Peshawar’s gardens are quite popular. However, these gardens have been largely ignored and their history has gradually been forgotten.

Neglected by the government, the city’s historical gardens such as Wazir Bagh and Shahi Bagh have not been properly maintained. They have crumbled over time.

Located near the University of Peshawar (UoP), Nasir Bagh is considered one of the lost gardens of Peshawar. Development in the city has converted the once resplendent garden into a dust-packed road which starts from Jamrud Road near the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) office and stretches down to Police Colony and Regi village.

Towards decline

Two experts have tried to revive interest in Nasir Bagh. Dr Ibrahim Shah, associate professor at the department of archaeology at UoP, and Dr Shah Nazar Khan, former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa director of archaeology, have conducted a detailed study on the subject. In their research paper titled ‘In quest of Nasir Bagh: a lost garden of the late Mughal period in Peshawar’, they insist the road leads to a ‘pleasure garden’ associated with Nasir Khan II.

Nasir Khan II was the governor of Kabul and Peshawar during the reign of Muhammad Shah (1719-49). In 1738, Nadir Shah invaded India. Nasir Khan surrendered to the invaders but remained governor of Kabul and Peshawar.

In 1747, Ahmed Shah Abdali seized the reins after Nadir Shah was assassinated and founded modern Afghanistan. Abdali confirmed Nasir’s appointment as governor. However, Nasir’s allegiance to Mughal emperor earned Abdali’s ire and the former was forced to flee. The withdrawal of the governor’s patronage precipitated the garden’s decay. With the arrival of Sikh rulers, the garden was vandalised and eventually forgotten.

Search for the lost garden

Piecing together historical evidence, Shah and Khan have concluded neither of the modern gardens or orchards in the vicinity are known by Nasir Khan’s name. According to their research, there is a square southeast of Qissa Khwani called Chowk Nasir Khan. The citizens of Peshawar believe the square is named after Nasir Khan II. His final resting place is also located near the square.

The site has also been mentioned by HG Reverty in his paper on Peshawar in the Bombay Geographical Society’s journal in 1852.

According to Khan and Nazar, Munshi Gopal Das in his Tareekh-e-Peshawar mentions a place called Mughal Bagh where he came across the ruins of stone buildings.

In this area, Khan and Nazar have found the remains of a mosque surrounded by the debris of mud houses. According to their estimates, the mosque was built in the nineteenth century as the bricks found on the site belong to the British period.

For nearby residents, this area–which includes the locality of Gul-e-Bagh is known as Mughal Bagh. According to the paper, this provides concrete evidence which could lead historians and archaeologists to unravel the history of the lost garden.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2014.