Delhi's Lahore Darwaza and the 'Lahore Gate Improvement Project', 1880s.

Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://tinyurl.com/3v7kk6sc)

This is possibly the only known photograph of the Lahore Darwaza (Gate), not to be confused with the Lahori Darwaza of the Red Fort, which is a different structure altogether. The photograph was taken shortly after the Rebellion of 1857 and shows the Raja of Patiala’s mounted camel encampment outside the gate. The Raja had come to the aid of the East India Company with his camel-mounted troops.

Two decades after the Rebellion, the Lahore Gate was dismantled by the British Crown Government to make way for a city-extension scheme, later known as the 'Lahore Gate Improvement Project'. This plan was proposed by Robert Clark, then Deputy Commissioner of Delhi, with the aim of creating a continuous commercial corridor running from Chandni Chowk to Saddar Bazar, beyond the Lahore Gate.

To cut a long story short, Clark’s extension scheme proved to be a failure for the government. Its intended objectives were never realised, and the entire project was beset with problems. Plot holders sublet their plots; the government struggled to evict unauthorised tenants; there had never been a plan in place to reclaim the land for public use if required; and officials failed to ensure compliance with regulations regarding the dimensions and use of plots.

Though both the Lahore Gate and Clark’s Lahore Gate Improvement Project have long vanished from public memory, traces of their existence remain in the archives.