Chunnamal haveli

Lala Chunnamal ki Haveli (छुन्नामल की हवेली) is a rare haveli (old-style Indian courtyard mansion) surviving in a well-preserved condition within the old Delhi area.

In the mid-1800s, Lala Chunnamal was an extremely wealthy merchant based in Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi. His family belonged to the Khatri caste of Punjabi tradesmen and were staunch Hindus.

During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Lala Chunnamal emerged as one of the wealthiest men in Delhi, having astutely read which way the wind was blowing, and made a vast fortune supplying provisions to the British. He had also refused a request for a loan from Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar himself. Having refused the Emperor, he had left the city overnight after having previously sent much of his wealth out of the city secretly. After the hostilities ended, the British ordered the exile (forcible removal) of all Muslims from the city of Delhi. At this time, Lala Chunnamal made another fortune by purchasing the properties of the departing nobility at throwaway prices. These events were viewed with dismay by the cultured gentry of the city, and the poet Mirza Ghalib specifically mentioned the name of Lala Chunnamal while lamenting that men of low birth and less honour, like Chunnamal, were crowing and exulting in their glittering "illuminated mansions," while honourable men of old and noble families were "sifting the dirt" after being trampled down by the British.

However, the tradesman was to prove the poet wrong in his estimation of the man. Among the properties which Lala Chunnamal acquired during this period was the Fatehpuri Masjid, a sprawling 17th century mosque built by one of the wives of Mughal emperor Shah Jehan, and located not far from Chunnamal's mansion in old Delhi. After the Muslims were expelled from the city in 1857, the mosque was deemed redundant, and was auctioned by the British with the intention that it be demolished and the land be used for building new houses and shops. Lala Chunnamal purchased the structure at auction for the massive sum of Rs. 19,000. However, and to his eternal credit, Lala Chunnamal, a Hindu belonging to an orthodox, upper-caste family, did not demolish the mosque but preserved it. He did this in spite of the fact that there were no Muslims in the area who could pray in the mosque. He just kept the mosque locked up and waited, like a philosophical Hindu, for times to change.

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Wikipedia