The re-creation of Roshanara Bagh

 

I'm following up on a post I wrote a little while ago on 'monuments' in Delhi. In particular, this post is to do with Delhi's Roshnara Bagh, the garden/s built by their namesake Roshnara Begum, Emperor Aurangzeb's sister. I haven't been able to find a picture of the gardens from the colonial period so in its absence we have a print of Roshanara Begum above. This was made by the French traveller and author Antoine Prevost in his history of the world 'Historie general des Voyages' (1746 and 59).

To return to the garden/s, these were was created in 1650 and Rosharana Begum was intered there upon her death. In contrast to what exists today, the gardens were much bigger and without any defined boundary. We know that when they were created, the gardens were surrounded by water channels, trees and orchards of various descriptions, redolent in their display of paradisiacal imagery. Roshanara's tomb was of course, the centrepiece of the gardens. However, and this is where it gets interesting, the gardens were also created for the sustenance of the local area. For example, the residents of Sabzi Mandi and the locality of Mughalpura would frequently use the site and its facilities. Moreover, the gardens gave various entitlements to land and trees such as the Sardarakhti, which allowed cultivators to take their produce to wholesale markets like Sabzi Mandi without harassment. The latter meant that a cultivator or Sardarakhtidar was responsible for the maintenance of trees in a garden and could not be ejected from the land until the trees stood there. A small amount in rent was payable to the proprietor if fruit trees were involved. To return to the point, the gardens were essential to the livelihood of the local area and not a 'monument' in the sense they exist today. 

For want of a better word, the first step in the 'monumentalisation' of the gardens began in the 1870s when they shrank, became formally defined 'gardens' and their Sardarakhti entitlements were removed (the latter took ages however, because of the way these were assessed and the resistance of the longstanding sardarakhtidars who wanted better terms). From that point on, the Roshanara Bagh was treated as an idyllic retreat for those who wanted to enjoy the sight of a Mughal tomb in the midst of manicured gardens. More on this another day. 

See you next Friday.