Bela Plantation on the Yamuna

So, I was asked whether this blog is really a history of Delhi’s transport and whether the tram and car posts are leading up to something. In short, no. This isn’t just a blog on trams or cars in Delhi. In fact, these didn’t feature prominently in my thesis and subsequent book and I’ve been meaning to write about them. I expect to take up various themes connected with Delhi’s history that I am interested in, and perhaps, the reader is as well. 

 

That brings me to my current post on the creation of a Kikar (Prosopis Juliflora) Plantation in Delhi which was created on the river bank (Bela lands) of the Yamuna. I came across material on this when doing my research in the archives in Delhi and they make a fascinating read. 

 

For the greater part of the 19^th century the Kikar trees that lined the north of Shahjahanabad became a huge topic of debate. They were planted as timber was needed to fuel the railways since the cost of importing coal from England was prohibitive. Anyway, there were all sorts of problems between who was going to manage the Bela Plantation, as it was called. Colonial officials began to accuse each other of dilettantism and mismanagement, agencies came and went, as the archives attest. Delhiwallas were also incensed about there being a barrier to their use of the river. The bathing and burning ghats (area and steps leading to the river) were barred for ritual purposes so petitions were filed and requests made to restore entitlements. 

 

And of course, there was Malaria. Despite discovering that the anopheles’ mosquito was the vector for transmission, for a while the authorities hung on to the notion that Shahjahanabad’s residents were fouling the river and therefore causing malaria -instead of the breeding grounds that were the Bela Plantation. Even Maulvi Zakaullah, one of Delhi’s famous residents couldn’t help but complain of malarial sickness in his reminisces of Delhi. Eventually, the Bela was removed, just in time for the Durbar of 1911! 

Here is a page from my book with an image of the area kept for the Bela Plantation. More on related topics in the future...