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ATTOCK, a city and district in Punjab, was named ‘Campbellpur’ during the British Raj and a common misconception is that it was named after Sir Colin Campbell (1792-1863), the British commander-in-chief.
But W. W. Hunter wrote in the second volume of The Imperial Gazetteer of India that the name Campbellpur was derived from the village named Kamal Pur, where stood the tomb of a Sufi Saint named Kamal Shah (London, 1885, p.335), says Dr Arshad Mahmood Nashad in his Raushni Ki Aik Sadi: Government College Attock Ki Tareekh, a commemorative volume published to celebrate the centennial of the institution.
Another gazetteer says the name of the village was Kamil Pur: “Campbellpur (Kamil Pur), cantonment in the Attock tehsil and headquarters of Attock district in Punjab … population (1901) 3,036. It took its name from Kamil Pur, a small adjacent village” (Calcutta, 1908, p.184), as quoted by Dr Nashad. It may be inferred from these statements that the correct pronunciation must have been ‘Kaamil’ and ‘Kaamal’ may be the incorrect but popular pronunciation, which gave its name to Campbellpur. Attock was made a district in April 1904 and the name Attock was officially restored in 1978.
Attock has a history that is rich and dates back to, as some put, ‘thousands of years’. But Dr Nashad thinks the exact era, to which the district’s archeological sites belong and which are strewn over a large area of the district, cannot be ascertained unless proved by the experts, albeit there is no doubt that these remains date back to ancient times, he adds.
Compiled by Dr Nashad, the compendium first describes the history of Attock and then tells how education fared in this district during the last 120 years or so. When Attock was made a district, says he, mostly religious seminaries imparted education in the area and the other educational institutes were next to none. According to Punjab’s Gazetteer 1907, Attock district was called “the most illiterate district in Rawalpindi division”, with a literacy rate of about four per cent. In 1907, the district had only seven middle schools and no high school. The first middle school in Campbellpur, established in 1907, was upgraded as a high school and got its own expansive building in 1912.
Attock’s Government College building was constructed in 1914-15 and used, later on, as normal school and middle school for teachers’ training. An intermediate college was established here in 1924. Syed Mohsin Mirza was the first principal. In 1924, these teachers were appointed: Lala Lal Chand Nayyar (vice principal), Qazi Muhammad Aslam (philosophy), Lala Haresh Chandr (English), Bhai Sachdev Singh (chemistry), Lala Ganga Sahae (Sanskrit) and Qazi Zia Muhammad (Persian). The first batch consisted of just 23 students. Within a year the total number, including the students of the school, rose to 146. In 1942, Government College, Attock, was upgraded to the status of a graduate college.
Dr Nashad has meticulously described how the college progressed each year, giving brief life sketches of teachers and students, along with details of curricular and co-curricular activities with the help of annual reports. Some glimpses of how the college was run and what extra-curricular activities took place is reproduced from a hitherto unpublished diary of Dr Muhammad Jahangir Khan (1910-1988), the principal of the college and a cricketer who had toured England, along with All India Cricket Team.
Other notables who joined the college as principal and/or teacher at various stages include: Ashfaq Ali Khan, Ghulam Jeelani Barq, Prof Muhammad Usman, Allama Zahidul Husaini, Hameedullah Shah Hashmi, Razmi Siddiqi, Shareef Kunjahi, Siddiq Kaleem, Sufi Gulzar Ahmed, Dr Muhammad Ajmal, Mirza Hamid Baig, Sa’adullah Kaleem, Majid Siddiqi, Mushtaq Qamar, Muneer Ahmed Sheikh, Nazr Sabri, Vaqar Bin Ilahi, Muhammad Ayub Shahid and many others.
Government College, Attock, has also produced some brilliant students who have made their mark in different spheres of life, for instance, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, Syed Zameer Jaferi, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Devendar Issar, Fateh Muhammad Malik, Anwer Shamim, Parveen Malik, Khursheed Nadeem, Shafqat Tanveer Mirza, Abdil Aziz Sahir, Ghulam Jeelani Asgher, Arshad Mahmood Nashad, to name but a few.
College’s library and reading room were given great importance from day one and it was built up from scratch. Every year new books and periodicals were added almost every year for the last 100 years and today the college library boasts of about 35,000 publications.
Arshad Mahmood Nashad is a well-known scholar and heads Allama Iqbal Open University’s Urdu department. He has produced an authentic history of his alma mater in the shape of this 832-page work, complete with pics.
Transforming one of the most illiterate villages into a well-educated town takes some guts and this college has indeed played a vital role in this journey of light during the last 100 years.
Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2025
