SA Travel Diaries: The Mubarak Mandi Palaces

August 2015

If you were to pass by Jammu City in the Northernmost Province of  India, buzzing busily with traffic and streets bustling with people, yoh wouldn't expect the city to hide one of the most beautiful palatial ruins of Dogra Architecture.

No, not even the locals could tell you if there's such a place at all! There are temples, here, oh yes! And an old Fort. And some old Royal Gardens.  And of course, the famous twin palaces of Amar Singh and Hari Singh, which serve as a library and a hotel respectively but that's it! Off you go, now!  Chop, chop!  Move your car, you're blocking traffic!

Jammu is a city with maddening crowd milling over and pouring down on you from everywhere.  For most Indian Army Brats like myself, however, Jammu has been a second home and no matter how many times you've been there, you'll find your way back in there, one among the many, lost in that crowd. Everything changes in Jammu with every visit and yet, nothing does.

So, imagine my surprise, just a few days ago,  when one of those many emails that had been flooding SA's inbox talked of the Mubarak Mandi Palaces, one of which housed a Dogra Museum. 

-Do you mean the Amar Singh Palace?

-No, Ma'am!  The Mubarak Mandi palaces.  Amar Palace is just one of them.

-Where are they?

-By the River Tavi, on the Eastern Bank.

"There's no such thing in Jammu," my father declared resolutely. "I've been stationed here nearly all my life and I've never heard of them."

Turns out one never hears of Mubarak Mandi Palaces. One has to look for them in the Midnight in Paris way...weave through the concentric circles of Jammu to enter that time warp that suddenly transports you to the Jammu City of the 1700s, with narrow roads flanked by grand Indo-Saracenic manors, that once belonged to the concubines and courtesans the Dogra Royals and the illegitimate children of the Kings. It's like the Third Task of Triwizard Tournament.  There's no end to the maze and at each intersection, History pulls you in deeper into its thrall, until, you finally hit the narrow gate and enter Mubarak Mandi (the Auspicious City) of the Jammu Dogras of the 1700s.

No, it isn't a palace...it's a set of palaces! The Marble Room of one of the Queen's is now a part of the Dogra Museum, which houses every artefact ever excavated in Jammu from prehistoric times to Modern Age. The Ministerial offices house the Mubarak Mandi Heritage Society, which ails from the neglect of the archaeological authorities of the area (also housed next door). 

What would have been an area of glory and honour, now begs for people to return some of its lost splendour because no one does anything about Mubarak Mandi. No books are written, no research is carried out and whatever archives exist are shielded callously by red tapism! 

A fire  on the 1980s half destroyed the Gol Ghar, the first of the Mubarak Mandi Palaces. Its pietra dura flanks and painted door jambs lie neglected, languishing and rotting with age. Discarded kites, dead birds, and bees now haunt the area where the two most powerful Dogra Kings were born and died.

What does the state do? Nothing.  They have a Constitutional Provision to have a separate Constitution,  so, they are going to ignore it completely!  They'll sell the better, less dilapidated parts of the Mubarak Mandi palaces to restauranteurs and resort builders, what was burn can ache and break from the want of restoration.  They don't care! 

Pleas of Insurgency are a poor excuse for this harsh neglect of the past simpky because historic temples thrive and so does Amar Palace in the very city, while the rest of Mubarak Mandi rots. Closed excavations on erstwhile Indus Valley sites always go on. Kushana coins are found and inscriptions are translated.

Worse still, Kashmir and Ladakh, that are probably worse affected from this insurgency still manage to preserve their mosques, the sun temples, the monasteries and the culture. As someone who grew up in every part of the state, I refuse to believe every excuse and lie Jammu city offers me as a plea for its neglect of Mubarak Mandi. 

At SA, we featured and refeatured this site twice: first in August 2015 and then again in January 2016. Mubarak Mandi needs to return on the archaeological map of the world, so that not just Government of Jammu or of India but the whole world, the entire archaeological community and the complete history loving people reaches out to protect, restore and resurrect what is possibly the most important set of monuments  of the area. 

If you're reading this, join hands with us and raise your voice against this sheer and voluntary murder of culture. Say something.