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A leftover of history

A 17th Century cannon on the grounds of Hardinge Library in Old Delhi used to draw a lot of attention at one time. It needed no expert to reveal that it belonged to the Moghul period. The name Qila Shikan written on it translated into Destroyer of F orts. This could place it between the reigns of Jahangir and Aurangzeb. That was the period when perhaps the largest number of forts was destroyed to subdue refractory rulers, Rajputs and those of the Bahmani Kingdom among them. But Haji Kallan thought it belonged to “Gardhi ka Waqt” when the Moghul empire was on the decline.

How did the cannon come to be displayed in what is now a huge car park? Because that ground was for years the “open air store” of the Delhi Municipal Corporation which obviously did not think much of the relic. Some old residents, however, remembered that it was once installed at the Town Hall and fired every afternoon – a practice that continued in the former princely states until quite recently.

The cannon which looked much like the one in the Red Fort museum, was either captured by the British in 1857 or it was probably housed in the offices of the East India Company, which are believed to have been situated at the site occupied by Delhi Main Station.

Be that as it may, the cannon is very much a piece of history even if it is not as ‘famous’ as the Zamzama, and as such worth preserving. A nice place for it would be the old museum in the fort. Last time when one passed by Hardinge Library, one failed to spot it. The Hardinge Library Park was at one time a rival of Pipalwala Bagh, which made way for Lajpat Rai Market in 1947 to accommodate refugees from West Pakistan. Before that, Pipalwala Bagh was the rendezvous of nationalists and religious preachers who addressed many a public meeting there — Gandhi, Nehru, Bishop Heber and Swami Shradhanand among them. Even Jinnah once addressed a gathering at the spot and pointing to the fort said that the legacy of the Moghuls would have to come back to the people after the British left.

But before the nationalist wave swept the country, Pipalwala had a different character. Its proximity to the fort made it an important place, and it was here that people wanting to present petitions to the king waited before making their way to the Dewan-e-Aam. During Shah Alam’s reign the residents of Delhi collected here on hearing that the king had been blinded by Ghulam Qadir Rohilla. Many of them were armed with swords, lathis and spears. That there was no confrontation between them and the Rohillas was perhaps due to the fact that they realised it would be an unequal combat with the ruthless freebooters.

At the time of Akbar Shah II the traders of Chandni Chowk gathered here to petition the king about the increasing debts of the members of the royal family, and during the reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar, it was here that merchants decided to offer financial help for the upkeep of the so-called rebels in 1857.

The British troops occupied vantage points in the park after they had recaptured Delhi, demolishing the huts and other structures that had come up at the entrance to the fort. After they went back to their barracks, the park became the meeting point of the Bankas of Chandni Chowk.

It was here that they exercised in the day at the “akharas”, which are now found on the other side of the road. In the afternoon the bhang was concocted in the park and in the evening people came to stroll and show off their latest clothes.

Pipalwala Bagh, where frenzied inter-religious debates used to take place, is now no more, and the huge peepal trees after which it was known, have been cut down to make way for the market that plies a brisk trade, unmindful of the story of the place and the long discarded cannon.

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