This is another stereoscope image showing the back of the Jama Masjid in Shahjahanabad/Delhi. I have discussed stereoscopes and their uses, particularly in Delhi previously. The reason I find this interesting is that this typical ‘street view' captures cart traffic in Delhi in the foreground. There are men on left pushing cart out of the way while those on the Ox cart behind wait to clear. Whether capturing this form of traffic was an intentional part of the picture or not, we do not know. However, it gives me a good opportunity to write about the carting of goods in Delhi, and in today’s case- the carting of ‘night soil’, a Victorian euphemism for human waste.
You might ask what made night soil a part of ‘goods’ traffic? Well, during the 19th century the Delhi Municipality sold the rights to collect night soil from the city to the zamindars (landlords) of Chandrawal, an area, largely agricultural at the time, just outside the city. In a nutshell, villagers would cart it to their fields, treat and use it as manure to fertilise the soil. This was a lucrative trade for the municipality who had wrested it away from the poorly paid sweepers of Delhi. Sweepers previously had the monopoly to sell the night soil but when they became (or rather, were forced to become) employees of the municipality, they had to forgo such benefits.
Nightsoil cart traffic would have made its way out through the Nigam Bodh and Kela ghat gates of Shahjahanabad (two of its 14 gates) and then further northwards to Chandrawal. With the exception of nightsoil being transported away by trams in the 1890s, the cart system remained a feature of waste collection in colonial Delhi.
Signing off until next Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment