Muzzumil Ruheel

Son of Punjab (Rai Abdullah Bhatti Shaheed), sculptural installation, new commission

Rai Abdullah Bhatti known as Dullah, was a revolutionary from the region of Punjab in the Indian Sub-continent. His revolts were aimed at the Mughal empire during Akbar’s rule.

As the courts recorded everything then; Dullah has been omitted from our history, only to be remembered as a bandit. However, he lives in our local folklores as a freedom fighter who stood against the rich for the oppressed.

Akbar’s paranoia to eradicate him resulted in shifting the capital to Lahore and the ensuing development of the city stand testament to the threat Dullah posed. Lahore owes a great debt to this man and so does our history which is the reason to create this monument.

This is a proposal for a memorial, designed to be built in the future. A symbol to commemorate Dullah and to immortalise his defiance of cruelty and injustice. The monument reads as ‘DULLAH’ from the top. The structure’s different sides will have all the contradictory accounts that can be found about Dullah so that the man may be remembered in whatever shade one believes to be true. The installation includes all architectural drawings so that in the future these could be used for the monument’s construction.

مزمل روحیل