This article by Siddhanta Mishra was originally Published in The Sunday Standard (online), 22 May, 2016.
NEW DELHI: In order to relive and experience the rich heritage around the Northern Ridge area, the Delhi University (DU) will start an institutionalised set of heritage walks. The university, which has many British-era sites at its North Campus, starting from the Vice-Chancellor’s (V-C) office, is ready to walk you down the memory lane of the 1857 uprising in Delhi.
This article by Siddhanta Mishra was originally Published in The Sunday Standard (online), 22 May, 2016.
NEW DELHI: In order to relive and experience the rich heritage around the Northern Ridge area, the Delhi University (DU) will start an institutionalised set of heritage walks. The university, which has many British-era sites at its North Campus, starting from the Vice-Chancellor’s (V-C) office, is ready to walk you down the memory lane of the 1857 uprising in Delhi.
Part of a project undertaken by the DU and Ministry of Culture, the walk is set to give a facelift to all historical sites and provide a holistic perspective of India’s First War of Independence. In the initial stages, the walk would be for students, who after procuring the requisite trainings will be assisting similar tours for school children and general public.
Starting from the Vice-Regal Lodge Estate, which is now the V-C’s office, the heritage walk will proceed to the Flagstaff Tower. The third halt will be at Khooni Lake, meaning blood lake, where several Indian and British soldiers, women and children had died during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The last stoppage will be at the Mutiny Tower, a Gothic style monument built with red sandstone.
“An attempt is being made to relive the historical past of the varsity in order to change imperial ways of showcasing it. People should know how the Mutiny of 1857 unfolded in Delhi. DU being the place where the battle went on for three months has a lot of history around it to which the students should be able to relate,” said Amrit K Basra, who has been designated to the Tantya Tope chair.
In 2010, the ministry created two positions for Aruna Asaf Ali chair and Tantya Tope chair, which were supposed to work on the varsity’s historical aspects. In the same year, a corpus fund of `4 crore was allocated for the project, which included seminars, national conferences and heritage walks. But the university was not satisfied with the amount and hence nothing moved till 2013.
The first project was the revamp of the room dedicated to Bhagat Singh at the Vice-Regal Lodge, which was recently inaugurated by V-C Yogesh Tyagi. The dungeon was turned into a museum on March 22, the death anniversary of the freedom fighter with the presence of around 100 historians, teachers and history enthusiast from across the country. “This is definitely a beginning where our university students, research scholars and even schoolchildren will get an opportunity to learn from the writings of the martyr and scholarly works on him (Bhagat Singh),” said Tyagi.
The varsity administration is in the process of chalking out a detailed plan, to send to the Delhi government’s Tourism Department and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). “What we have in bits and pieces will get a more condensed form through the walks,” added Basra.
Northern Ridge Area
The Delhi Ridge is divided into four zones where Northern Ridge, near DU, is the smallest. It was declared a reserved forest in 1915.
1 Vice-Regal Lodge Estate (now V-C’s office)
The estate has dungeons where Bhagat Singh was confined. There is a resource centre that displays a compilations of handwritten letters by Singh. This lodge housed five V-Cs from 1912 to 1931. It was handed over to the varsity in 1933.
2 Flagstaff Tower (across the VC’s office)
Built around 1828, it was a signal tower. During the mutiny, many Europeans and their families took shelter here for safety.
3 Bodies of British and Indian soldiers, killed during the revolt, were dumped in this lake. It is said to be haunted.
4 The British built this Victorian tower to honor its officers and soldiers of the Delhi Field Force martyred in the uprising.