Ramachandra Guha: In Lahore’s banishment of its pluralistic past lies a sharp warning for India

Many years ago, while working on a social history of sport, I came across some news reports of a Test match played in Lahore in 1955. The cricket itself was boring in the extreme. It was one of five draws in a five-match series between India and Pakistan, with runs scored at less than two an over. What was far more interesting was the social context. For this was the first time since 1947 that the city of Lahore had been allowed to recapture its multi-cultural past. As many as 10,000 tickets for the Test were set aside for citizens of India, who came across the Wagah border every morning and returned to Amritsar the same night. This constituted what one eyewitness termed “the biggest mass migration across the frontier since Partition”.

The Test began on January 29, 1955. The next day, the Dawn newspaper spoke of how, as the turnstiles opened, “Ladies, Sikhs, Hindus and the local population waited patiently and decently for their turn in the serpentine queue lines running two to three furlongs in length sometimes even more. The city itself was in a gay holiday mood. The early morning bustle was reminiscent of the Shalimar Mela, excepting that the...

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