Mohatta Palace Museum and Statues

Mohatta Palace has a storied history in a troubled environment, and its current use as a space to preserve history and art reflect those changes. 

The palace was built in the sparsely populated seaside neighborhood of Clifton, Karachi in 1927. Construction came at a time when the city had under 300,000 (now home to 25 million), and before Karachi’s now largest building, the Bahria Icon Tower, loomed over palace to reflect the rapidly changing landscape.

Designed by one of the first Muslum architects in India, Agha Ahmad Hussain, the building is noted for its exquisite designs, including peacock and other bird motifs throughout the windows and stonework. In order to recreate the style of the Anglo-Mughal palaces of Rajput princes, he incorporates pink stone from Jodhpur, but also including locally-mined Gizri stone for which Karachi architecture is famous.

A Rajasthan Hindu businessman, Shivratan Chandraratan Mohatta, established the palace as an aid to his ailing wife. Doctors theorized that the seaside breezes would cure her serious illness. There are rumors of hauntings dating to the British Raj.

After Partition in 1947, it served as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1964. It then housed Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, the sister of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, until her death later in 1964, before subsequently housing her sister Shireen Bai until 1980.

Transformed to the Mohatta Palace Museum in 1995 after fifteen years in closure, this space serves as a primary place for presenting international arts and culture expositions to Karachi citizens.

Most interesting now, however, is what lies hidden behind the palace. Sandwiched between privacy curtains, the back wall, and the back of the palace are the remains of a more controversial time in Karachi’s history—statues from the heyday of the Raj including Queen Victoria and King Edward VII.

First located at Frere Hall, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) buried them underground by a trench in the 1960’s to avoid destruction during rioting. They buried other bronze statues at KMC offices, though their safety was so feared that they bricked the windows shut and were soon forgotten. The statues now see the light of day, albeit still hidden. The museum houses them on permanent loan because museum director Nasreen Askari claimed “no one wanted them.”