Rawalpindi Development

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About RAWALPINDI
Rawalpindi !#" %$ ')(& *+,, commonly known as Pindi !#" %$ -&( ,, is a city and capital of Rawalpindi
Division located in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Rawalpindi is the fourth-largest city
proper in Pakistan, while the larger Islamabad-Rawalpindi metropolitan area is also the
country’s fourth-largest metropolitan area. Rawalpindi is adjacent to Pakistan’s capital
of Islamabad, and the two are jointly known as the “twin cities” on account of strong
social and economic links between the cities.

Rawalpindi is located on the Pothohar Plateau, known for its ancient Buddhist heritage,
especially in the neighboring town of Taxila – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city
was destroyed during the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni before being taken over by
Gakhars in 1493. In 1765, the ruling Gakhars were defeated as the city came under Sikh
rule, and eventually became a major city within the Sikh Empire based in Lahore. The
city was conquered by the British Raj in 1849, and in 1851 became the largest garrison
town of the British Indian Army. Following the partition of British India in 1947, the city
became home to the headquarters of Pakistan Army hence retaining its status as a
major military city.

Construction of Pakistan’s new purpose-built national capital city of Islamabad in 1961

led to greater investment in the city, as well as a brief stint as the country’s capital
immediately before completion of Islamabad. Modern Rawalpindi is socially and
economically intertwined with Islamabad, and the greater metropolitan area. The city is
also home to numerous suburban housing developments that serve as bedroom-
communities for workers in Islamabad. As home to GHQ of Pakistan Army & Benazir
Bhutto International Airport, and with connections to the M-1 and M-2 motorways,
Rawalpindi is a major logistics and transportation centre for northern Pakistan. The city
is also home to historic havelis and temples, and serves as a hub for tourists visiting
Rohtas Fort, Azad Kashmir, Taxila and Gilgit-Baltistan.

History
The region around Rawalpindi has been inhabited for thousands of years. Rawalpindi
falls within the ancient boundaries of Gandhara, and is in a region littered with Buddhist
ruins. In the region north-west of Rawalpindi, traces have been found of at least 55
stupas, 28 Buddhist monasteries, 9 temples, and various artifacts in the Kharoshthi
script.

To the southeast are the ruins of the Mankiala stupa – a 2nd-century stupa where,
according to the Jataka tales, a previous incarnation of the Buddha leapt off a cliff in
order to offer his corpse to seven hungry tiger cubs. The nearby town of Taxila is
thought to have been home to the world’s first university. Sir Alexander Cunningham
identified ruins on the site of the Rawalpindi Cantonment as the ancient city of Ganjipur
(or Gajnipur), the capital of the Bhatti tribe in the ages preceding the Christian era.

Medieval
The first mention of Rawalpindi’s earliest settlement dates from when Mahmud of
Ghazni destroyed Rawalpindi and the town was restored by Gakhar chief Kai Gohar in
the early 11th century. The town fell into decay again after Mongol invasions in the 14th
century. Situated along an invasion route, the settlement did not prosper and remained
deserted until 1493, when Jhanda Khan re-established the ruined town, and named it
Rawal.

Mughal
The 16th century Rawat Fort offered military protection to Rawalpindi.
During the Mughal era, Rawalpindi remained under the rule of the Ghakhar clan, who in
turn pledged allegiance to the Mughal Empire. The city was developed as an important
outpost in order to guard the frontiers of the Mughal realm.Gakhars fortified a nearby
caravanserai, in the 16th century, transforming it into the Rawat Fort in order to defend
the Pothohar plateau from Sher Shah Suri’s forces. Construction of the Attock Fort in
1581 after Akbar led a campaign against his brother Mirza Muhammad Hakim, further
securing Rawalpindi’s environs. In December 1585, the Emperor Akbar arrived in
Rawalpindi, and remained in and around Rawalpindi for 13 years as he extended the
frontiers of the empire, in an era described as a “glorious period” in his career as
Emperor.

With the onset of chaos and rivalry between Gakhar chiefs after the death of Kamal
Khan in 1559, Rawalpindi was awarded to Said Khan by the Mughal Emperor. The
Emperor Jehangir visited the royal camp in Rawalpindi in 1622, where he first learned of
Shah Abbas I of Persia’s plan to invade Kandahar.

Sikh Misl
Rawalpindi declined in importance as Mughal power declined, until the town was
captured in the mid 1760s from Muqarrab Khan by the Sikhs under Sardar Gujjar Singh
and his son Sahib Singh. The city’s administration was handed to Sardar Milkha Singh,
who then invited traders from the neighboring commercial centers of Jhelum and
Shahpur to settle in the territory in 1766.The city then began to prosper, although the
population in 1770 is estimated to have been only about 300 families. Rawalpindi
became for a time the refuge of Shah Shuja, the exiled king of Afghanistan, and of his
brother Shah Zaman in the early 19th century.

Sikh Empire
Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh allowed the son of Sardar Milkha Singh to continue as
Governor of Rawalpindi, after Ranjit Singh seized the district in 1810. Sikh rule over
Rawalpindi was consolidated by defeat of the Afghans at Haidaran in July 1813 The Sikh
rulers allied themselves with some of the local Gakhar tribes, and jointly defeated Syed
Ahmad Barelvi at Akora Khattak in 1827, and again in 1831 in Balakot. Jews first arrived
in Rawalpindi’s Babu Mohallah neighbourhood from Mashhad, Persia in 1839, in order to
in Rawalpindi’s Babu Mohallah neighbourhood from Mashhad, Persia in 1839, in order to
flee from anti-Jewish laws instituted by the Qajar dynasty. In 1841, Diwan Kishan Kaur
was appointed Sardar of Rawalpindi.

On 14 March 1849, Sardar Chattar Singh and Raja Sher Singh of the Sikh Empire
surrendered to General Gilbert near Rawalpindi, ceding the city to the British. The Sikh
Empire then came to an end on 29 March 1849.

British
Rawalpindi’s Fatima Jinnah Women University is housed in a Victorian mansion.

Following Rawalpindi’s capture by the British East India company, 53rd Regiment of the
company army took quarters in the newly captured city. The decision to man a
permanent military cantonment in the city was made in 1851 by the Marquess of
Dalhousie. The city saw its first telegraph office in the early 1850s. The city’s Garrison
Church was built shortly after in 1854, and is the site where Robert Milman, Bishop of

Calcutta, was buried following his death in Rawalpindi in 1876. The city was home to
15,913 people in the 1855 census. During the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, the area’s Gakhars
and Janjua tribes remained loyal to the British.

Rawalpindi and its environs, 1923.

Numerous civil and military buildings were built during the British era, and the
Municipality of Rawalpindi was constituted in 1867,while the city’s population as per the
1868 census was 19,228, with another 9,358 people residing in the city’s cantonment.
The city was also connected to railways that offered connection to India and the
northwest frontier in Peshawar in the 1880s. The Commissariat Steam Flour Mills were
the first such mills in Punjab, and supplied most of the needs of British cantonments
throughout Punjab. Rawalpindi’s cantonment served as a feeder to other cantonments
throughout the region.

Rawalpindi flourished as a commercial centre, though the city remained largely devoid
of an industrial base during the British era. A large portion of Kashmir’s external trade
passing through the city; in 1885, 14% of Kashmir’s exports, and 27% of its imports
passed through the city. A large market was opened in central Rawalpindi in 1883 by
Sardar Sujan Singh, while the British further developed a shopping district for the city’s
Sardar Sujan Singh, while the British further developed a shopping district for the city’s
elite known as Saddar with an archway built to commemorate Brigadier General
Massey.

Rawalpindi’s cantonment became a major center of military power of the Raj after an
arsenal was established in 1883. Britain’s army elevated the city from a small town, to
the third largest city in Punjab by 1921. In 1868, 9,358 people lived in the city’s
cantonment – by 1891, the number rose to 37,870. In 1891, the city’s population
excluding the Cantonment was 34,153. The city was considered to be a favourite first
posting for newly arrived soldiers from England, owing to the city’s agreeable climate,
and nearby hill station at nearby Murree. In 1901, Rawalpindi was made the winter
headquarters of the Northern Command and of the Rawalpindi military division. Riots
broke out against British rule in 1905, following a famine in Punjab that peasants were
led to believe was a deliberate act.

During World War 1, Rawalpindi District “stood first” among districts in recruiting for the
British war effort, with greater financial assistance from the British government
channeled into the area in return. By 1921, Rawalpindi’s cantonment had overshadowed
the city – Rawalpindi was one of seven cities of Punjab in which over half the population

lived in the cantonment district. Communal riots erupted between Rawalpindi’s Sikh and
Muslim communities in 1926 after Sikhs refused to silence music from a procession
that was passing in front of a mosque.

HMS Rawalpindi was launched as an ocean liner in 1925 by Harland and Wolff, the same
company which built RMS Titanic. The ship was converted into an armed vessel, and
was sunk in October 1939. The British government carried out poison gas testing on
Indian troops during the Rawalpindi experiments over the course of more than a decade
beginning in the 1930s.

Partition
On 5 March 1947, members of Rawalpindi’s Hindu and Sikh communities took out a
procession against the formation of a Muslim ministry within the Government of Punjab.
Policemen fired upon protestors, while Hindus and Sikhs fought against weaker Muslim
counter-protestors. The area’s first Partition riots erupted the next day on 6 March
1947, when the city’s Muslims, angered by the actions of Hindus and Sikhs and
encouraged by the Pir of Golra Sharif, raided nearby villages after they were unable to
do so in the city on account of Rawalpindi’s heavily armed Sikhs.

At the dawn of Pakistan’s independence in 1947 following the success of the Pakistan
At the dawn of Pakistan’s independence in 1947 following the success of the Pakistan
Movement, Rawalpindi was a 43.79% Muslim, while Rawalpindi District as a whole was
80% Muslim. The region, on account of its large Muslim majority, was thus awarded to
Pakistan. Rawalpindi’s Hindu and Sikh population, who had made up 33.72% and
17.32% of the city, migrated en masse to the newly independent Dominion of India after
communal riots in western Punjab, while Muslim refugees from India settled in the city
following anti-Muslim pogroms in eastern Punjab and northern India.

Modern
In the years following independence, Rawalpindi saw an influx of Muslim refugees,
Pashtun and Kashmiri settlers. Having been the largest British Cantonment in the region
at the dawn of Pakistan’s independence, Rawalpindi was chosen as headquarters for
the Pakistani Army, despite the fact that Karachi had been selected as the first capital.

In 1951, the Rawalpindi conspiracy took place in which leftist army officers conspired to
depose the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan. Rawalpindi later
became the site of the Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination, in what is now known as
Liaquat Bagh Park. In 1958, Field Marshal Ayub Khan launched his coup d’etat from

Rawalpindi. In 1959, the city became the interim capital of the country under Ayub
Khan, who had sought the creation of a new planned capital of Islamabad in the vicinity
of Rawalpindi. As a result, Rawalpindi saw most major central government offices and
institutions relocate to nearby territory, and its population rapidly expand.

Construction of Pakistan’s new capital city of Islamabad in 1961 led to greater

investment in Rawalpindi. Rawalpindi remained the headquarters of the Pakistani Army
after the capital shifted to Islamabad in 1969, while the Pakistan Air Force continues to
maintain an airbase in the Chaklala district of Rawalpindi. The military dictatorship of
General Zia ul Haq hanged Pakistan’s deposed Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in
Rawalpindi in 1979.

In 1980, tens of thousands of Shia protestors led by Mufti Jaffar Hussain marched on
Rawalpindi to protest a provision of Zia ul Haqs Islamization programme. A spate of
bombings in September 1987 took place in the city killing 5 people, in attacks that are
believed to have been orchestrated by agents of Afghanistan’s communist government.

Modern Rawalpindi is socially and economically intertwined with Islamabad, and the
greater metropolitan area. The city is also home to numerous suburban housing
developments that serve as bedroom-communities for workers in Islamabad. In June
2015, the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metrobus, a new bus rapid transit line with various
2015, the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metrobus, a new bus rapid transit line with various
points in Islamabad, opened for service.

About RDA

Rawalpindi (!#" %$ '()& *+,, Rawalpindi) is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan in Punjab province near
Pakistan’s capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi Development Authority
(RDA) is striving hard for the betterment of this culturally rich historic city

Contact

RDA Headquarters Murree Road Near Liaqat Bagh, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Tel.:
051-5555490-92(tel:051-5555490-92)
Mail : info@rda.gop.pk

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