Aitchison College, Lahore

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Partition of India, 1947

HS Brar

Ismat.Ara, June 21, 2026: The Times of India

Nearly eight decades after Partition, a classroom in Lahore’s Aitchison College has become an unlikely bridge between India and Pakistan. On June 10, ‘Classroom No. 108’ at the 140year-old institution was dedicated to Harcharan Singh Brar, a pre-Partition student who later became CM of Punjab (1995-96). The plaque, bearing the words ‘God is One’ in English, Urdu and Gurmukhi (‘Ik Onkar’), was unveiled by Brar’s daughter Babli Brar.

The tribute was funded by Brar’s schoolmate and lifelong friend, Syed Babar Ali, 100 now, believed to be Aitchison’s oldest living alumnus, a prominent industrialist, former finance minister of Pakistan, and the longest-serving member of its board of governors. Their friendship, forged in undivided Punjab, survived Partition, wars, and decades of hostility until Brar’s death in 2009.

Partition story of Lahore’s ‘Eton’: Hindu, Sikh boys left for summer holidays, never returned

Founded in 1886 and known as Pakistan’s ‘Eton‘, Aitchison has educated generations of leaders, including former PMs Imran Khan, Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Feroz Khan Noon. 
Brar joined Aitchison in 1937, excelling as a student, prefect and sportsman. During his last visit to Lahore in 1989, he inaugurated a library there and dedicated it to Ali. More than three decades later, Ali returned the gesture.


The Brar plaque is part of a wider remembrance project through which Ali has funded classrooms and plaques honouring classmates and teachers from 1934-43. The project re calls an undivided Punjab before Partition scattered its people across borders.


Muhammad Mohsin Khan Leghari, a fourth-generation Aitchisonian, former senator and Punjab minister whose family includes former president Farooq Leghari, said the honour reflected the school’s tradition of dedicating rooms and facilities to distinguished alumni. “Sons of rajas, maharajas, nawabs and tribal chiefs studied here. It was about grooming leadership.” 


The commemorations coincide with a wider effort in Lahore to revisit aspects of its prePartition past. Historic names, such as Krishan Nagar for Islampura, Ram Gali for Rahman Gali, and Sant Nagar for Sunnat Nagar, have been restored, while discussions on memorialising Bhagat Singh continue. 


The trend gained momentum after the Lahore Heritage Area Revival project launched in 2025 under Pak Punjab CM Maryam Nawaz. 


For descendants of former students, Aitchison’s story remains inseparable from Partition. “Hindu, Muslim and Sikh boys studied together here. After Partition, they lost contact, but we have tried to preserve their stories,” said Dr Tarunjit Singh Butalia, the college’s honorary envoy. 


Of Aitchison’s roughly 245 students in 1947, around 160 were Hindu and Sikh boys, many of whom left for summer holidays and never returned. 


Today, only a handful of prePartition Aitchisonians are believed to be alive in India, but many whose names now line Aitchison's red-brick corridors left Lahore in 1947 and never returned — until now.