Reference of Article and information Majid Shikeh (Dawn Newspaper)
07-10-2018
Who was Dina Nath? Well … he was the most important man in the
Sikh era who quietly behind the scenes controlled all the money collected in
the reign of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, and later till Sikh rule ended in 1849. He
designed the revenue collection system of Punjab, which it must be said even
the British studied and applied when imposing their codified rules. In this
piece we will talk about the man, his role in the rule of Lahore, and about his
disputed legacy.
Dina Nath Madan was born in 1795 in the Chowdhary Bagh area of
Rainawari Mohallah in Srinagar. He belonged to a family of Kashmiri pandits and
his family used the name ‘Razdan’ when writing. The Razdan pandits in
pre-Partition Lahore were among the leading families of the city. In 1815
following the Dogra massacres he moved from Srinagar to Delhi and worked as a
finance and accountancy person. Dina Nath was related to Diwan Ganga Ram Raina,
the head of military accounts of the Lahore Darbar, and he introduced the young
Dina Nath to the maharaja who appointed him a ‘mutsaddi’, or final writer of
accounts. The accuracy and clarity of his work soon became well known and when
Diwan Ganga Ram died in 1826, the 31-year old Dina Nath was made head of
military accounts.
Eight years later when Diwan Bhavani Das, the head of civil
accounts, died, Dina Nath took over as head of both military and civil
accounts. His command over his work led him to be made a Diwan in 1838.
During
his life he built three ‘havelis’ inside the walled city, as also a beautiful
garden near Mughalpura just to the West of the ‘samadhi’ of Maharajah Sher
Singh in Kot Khawaja Saeed. That garden, which after 1947 has been heavily
encroached upon by influential land-grabbers, was where he had a small ‘haveli’
and in that died Raja Dina Nath. The ancestors of Raja Dina Nath retain their
original name of ‘Madan’ and still use the pen name of ‘Razdan’.
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| Shrine of Shah Bilawal Built inside the Dina Naath Garden |
After sometime river Ravi again change the course there is also a tomb constructed at that location.
