Lahore's celebrated status as the seat of several legendary Muslim rulers and the cultural capital of Pakistan stands in sharp contrast to the dilapidated state of the city's historic Mughal monuments. This article explores the discrepancy between images that capitalise on Lahore's esteemed reputation and concerns for the deterioration of sites associated with a Muslim past. By exploring the political and aesthetic potential of ‘ruins’, this article questions the function of a discourse on failure (in this case to preserve the nation's heritage), which turns on an aesthetic of ruins and its attributes: namely nostalgia, longing and desire. Mounting concerns over the future of Pakistan's heritage can be read as reflecting anxieties around preserving and promoting regional and national identities and critiquing ineffective and exploitative leadership, but they must also be understood in the context of experimentations with and responses to modernisation, globalisation, and Pakistan's image in the ‘war on terror’.
↧