Bahawalpur

Bahawalpur owes its existence to the Abbasi family, Daudpotra chiefs who moved into the Sutlej valley from Sindh in the eighteenth century. Nawab Bahawal Khan I founded the town in 1748 and gave it his name, and his successors built a state that reached from the river deep into the Cholistan desert. Long before them the region had been settled: hundreds of Indus-era mounds lie along the dry bed of the Hakra in Cholistan, and Uch Sharif, south-west of the city, was a centre of Sufi learning from the twelfth century.

The Abbasis kept their independence by negotiating. A treaty with the British in 1833 made Bahawalpur a princely state under British protection, and its nawabs retained internal control for more than a century. Nawab Sadiq Muhammad Khan IV and his successors spent heavily on public works — the Sutlej Valley canal schemes, a railway, a library, hospitals and colleges, among them Sadiq Egerton College in 1886 and the Bahawal Victoria Hospital in 1898 — and on palaces: Noor Mahal in the 1870s, Darbar Mahal completed in 1905 and Sadiq Garh at Dera Nawab Sahib.

At independence in 1947 the ruling nawab acceded to Pakistan, and the state briefly retained its own administration before being merged into West Pakistan in 1955. The city's Hindu and Sikh communities left for India, while Muslim refugees from India were settled here in large numbers, and canal irrigation turned much of the surrounding desert into cotton, wheat and mango country. Since then the city has grown steadily as a regional centre for education, farming and administration, while campaigns to restore Bahawalpur as a separate province recur in provincial politics.

Bahawalpur belongs to the Saraiki belt, and Saraiki is the everyday language, with Punjabi and Urdu also widely spoken and a Marwari-influenced dialect heard among desert families. The poetry of Khwaja Ghulam Farid, who wrote in Saraiki about the Cholistan desert and its longing, is the region's literary touchstone. A Chishti Sufi, he spent years of retreat in the desert itself.

Something of the princely state survives in the city's manners: a formality about hospitality and titles, pride in the nawabs' schools and hospitals, and attachment to the palaces as symbols of a time when Bahawalpur governed itself. Shrine culture is strong, and the tombs of Uch Sharif draw pilgrims from far beyond the district, with urs gatherings, qawwali and free food.

Desert life sets the tone of the countryside. Cholistan's herders move with camels, cattle and goats between the tobas, seasonal rainwater ponds, and their crafts — camel-hair blankets, embroidered cloth, mirror work, khussa slippers, lacquered wood and pottery — are sold in city shops. Camel dancing and desert music appear at the February rally, the largest annual event in the district. Dress is conservative, heads are covered at shrines, shoes are removed at the threshold, and guests are fed before anything else is discussed.

More than 800,000 people live in the city, which anchors a district of several million spread across irrigated farmland and desert. Growth has followed the canals: the belt along the Sutlej is densely settled and intensively farmed, while Cholistan remains thinly populated and dependent on rainfall and tankers.

Agriculture and what it supports drive the economy — cotton, wheat, sugarcane, mangoes and dates, with ginning factories, sugar mills and a large fruit market. The Islamia University of Bahawalpur is among the biggest employers and brings students from across southern Punjab; government offices, hospitals and the army cantonment account for much of the rest. Many households depend on remittances from the Gulf.

The day is shaped by heat: early starts, a long afternoon pause in summer, and bazaars that fill again after sunset. Water is the permanent concern — falling groundwater, salinity on the irrigated land, and scarce drinking water in Cholistan, where supply schemes and tanker deliveries are a constant local issue. Heatwaves have become more severe, Sutlej flooding recurs in heavy monsoon years, and demands for a restored Bahawalpur province surface at every election.

Bahawalpur eats the food of southern Punjab, with a desert accent. Meat is central: mutton and chicken karahi cooked to order with tomato and green chilli, charcoal tikka and seekh kebabs, and slow-cooked stews eaten with thick tandoori roti. Dairy is everywhere, thanks to the herds of Cholistan — thick sweet and salted lassi, plain yoghurt with every meal, paneer, and doodh pati tea boiled with milk and sugar.

Breakfast follows the regional pattern of halwa puri, chickpeas and fried bread, or siri paye with naan on cooler mornings. Rice appears as biryani and pulao at weddings and on festival days, often with the sweet, saffron-coloured zarda to follow. Vegetarian dishes are seasonal and plain — daal, chana, okra, and in winter saag with makki di roti, maize-flour flatbread.

The district's own produce shapes the rest. Mangoes from the surrounding orchards ripen from June, dates are grown and dried in the same belt, and both are sold by the crate in the city's fruit market and taken away as gifts. Sweets are the Saraiki repertoire of sohan halwa, barfi and jalebi, and in the desert a guest is met first with tea and then with whatever milk the herd can spare.