Bulandshahr: or Sketches of an Indian District; Social, Historical and Architectural/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
THE REBUILDING OF BULANDSHAHR.
THAT architecture in India is still a living art, with unlimited capabilities of healthy expansion, is an axiom that ſew competent and unprejudiced critics would hesitate to accept. It is true that the fact of this vitality is often confidently denied, as by a recent writer in the Graphic, who, "after thirty years' experience of Indian life and character," declares that "all the indigenous art we have now to admire in Hindustan is ancient art, the art of people who lived hundreds and thousands of years ago." A similar opinion is still more deliberately expressed by a contributor to the Calcutta Review for January 1884, whose words are as follows: "If any one doubts the fallacy of an observation that has lately been made that 'architecture is still a living art in India,' we would only ask him to travel a little in the interior with his eyes open. He will find whole architectural provinces (if the term may be applied where the art does not exist) in which every rule of work, and every sense of the fitness of things has been lost sight of. He will see Hindu temples built in debased style of Muhammadan architecture, the debasements being so great that a further depth cannot be imagined. Or, where the proper Indo-Aryan forms have been adhered to, the superstructure will be found loaded with hideous ornamentation, in lieu of the chaste simplicity of the ancient types." Yet he goes on to say "even now a beautiful building occasionally rises up in a small district where foreign influence is away"; and this final admission virtually cancels the previous statement that the art is absolutely dead. Vitality is not extinct, but is only temporarily and accidentally suspended, and can be re-awakened. Both these critics and all who agree with them find an easy and a plausible argument for their despair of an Indian architectural revival in the undeniable hideousness of the vast majority of our modern buildings. But the induction is imperfect; it has not been sufficiently considered who are really responsible for these architectural enormities.
It is no matter for surprise that the people themselves, if questioned as to the existence and prospects of indigenous art, entirely fail to comprehend the purport of the enquiry; for, in any community, the masses are habitually as unconscious of the progress of national sentiment, as a man is of his own growth in stature. The development now actually in progress is no artificial novelty, for the importation of which a definite date can be assigned. It is rather the necessary result of an involuntary adaptation to the varying circumstances of modern life, and is the more unfelt because the laws so ceaselessly modified are oral and traditional, not written.
It is true that the Hindu Shastras include a series of treatises, which are professedly devoted to architecture and the other fine or mechanical arts; but manuscripts are exceedingly scarce, the text is often hopelessly corrupt, and the instructions are almost exclusively of a ritual character, concerning the selection of auspicious sites and days, and the proper location of images and altars. Hence it comes about that the only recognized standard of design is local custom, dating backwards it may be from immemorial antiquity, and thus fixed in principle, though ever varying in form with the variations of fashion and the requirements of modern civilization.
Beyond the buildings themselves, there is no record in existence of the new rules of proportion, and the foreign canons of taste, which were the necessary sequence of the Muhammadan invasion and the introduction of the arch. At Ahmadabad, in the Bombay Presidency, and at Jaunpur, in the North-West, the struggle between the old style and the new led to a singularly picturesque combination, which—despite the distance between the two cities and the absence of intercourse—in both places presents very similar features. The influences at work were precisely the same. A Muhammadan Court, at once bigoted and magnificent, was ambitious to embellish its capital and display its devotion, but was unable to carry out its ideas, except by the exclusive employment of Hindu craftsmen, of alien religion and opposite sympathies. The results, though highly interesting, are marred by the intrinsic incongruity of the component parts. This was soon felt to be a defect and was gradually toned down; but with its disappearance disappeared also the whole charm of the style, which was never more than a beautiful hybrid, doomed to early decay and with no power of reproduction.
The eclecticism of Akbar's reign was less forced in its origin, and has been more permanent in its effects, for they continue to the present day. In the three-and-a-half centuries that had elapsed since the death of the last Hindu Sovereign of Delhi, Saracenic art had become thoroughly naturalized, and its fusion with the older indigenous style was the inevitable outcome of the closer and more equal intercourse between the two races. In the new cities that sprung up on the long desecrated sites of Hindu pilgrimage—such as Mathurá and Brindaban—the temples were constructed on the same ground plan, and exhibited the same massive proportions as in the older examples that still exist at Gwalior. But the area of the interior was freed from its forest of pillars—no longer required as supports, when a vault was substituted for a roofing of stone slabs—and the walls were lightened in appearance by filling in the heads of the intercolumniations with decorative spandrels, which converted them into an arcade.
In places nearer the seat of Government, and more secular in sentiment, the predominant characteristics of the new architecture were far more distinctly Muhammadan, and the subsequent development has been entirely in that direction. What few buildings there are in Mathurá of the 16th century, are of strongly Hindu type, though built for Muhammadan uses; but even there the modification has been rapid and continuous, and the whole series of temples erected since 1803—the first year of British government and of settled peace—have domes and cupolas and arches, on the same constructural principles and with the same style of panel and moulding and surface-carving as in a mosque.
The distinctive Hindu spire, or sikhara, is still frequently erected especially in country places and over shrines of Mahádev, but it is often in connection with a dome over the porch or other secondary part of the building, and its proportions have become so debased that the days of its survival are evidently numbered. From shattered fragments of most of the religious edifices of the present day—provided they bear no inscription nor betray any reference to ritual uses—it will be as difficult for an archæologist of the future to determine whether they are of Hindu or Muhammadan origin, as it is now to decide between the claims of Brahmanist and Jain to relics of mediæval India. To speak of Jain architecture, as is generally done, is altogether erroneous. What is so called is simply the style of national architecture that prevailed throughout the country, and was used indiscriminately by both classes alike, at the time when the Jains happened to be most flourishing. Thus the larger temple in the Gwalior Fort is quoted by Mr. Fergusson as a specimen of Jain architecture and is said to be dedicated to Padma-náth, the sixth Tirthankar. A very slight amount of research has proved it to be dedicated to the Brahmanical Divinity, Vishnu, under his title of Padma-páni; whence the mistake.[1]
As the oldest Hindu architecture of which we have any remains shows clear traces of Greek influence, and as the longer predominance of the Muhammadan power has still more thoroughly subdued the indigenous art of medieval India, so it must be expected that English fashions will be largely represented in the artistic development of the immediate future, The change is inevitable, and, in so far as it is a witness to historical facts, its avoidance would not be absolutely desirable, even if it were possible; for all ultra purism is unnatural, unhealthy, and bad. "When the assimilation of new matter ceases, decay must begin." Still, the amalgamation to be complete, must be gradual. Most assuredly the interests of art will not be furthered by the hasty adoption of the Italian style in its supposed entirety, but too often without much knowledge of it, except in a very debased form, as exhibited in some of the new palaces of our greatest feudatories; nor yet by adding pseudo-Gothic tracery and pinnacles to a barrack shell, as in the Agra College; but rather by an assimilation, which is suggestive of foreign culture, but translates it into Indian language, instead of literally repeating it. That this can be done by the best of our native masons, if they are allowed to work out their own ideas without too minute instructions, is, I think, sufficiently attested by the very pleasing facade of a house built last year at Khurja for Lálá Jánaki Prasád, a rich banker of that town, and a member of the Municipal Committee. The correctness of the design is impaired by the insertion of some false stone doors on the ground floor, which are treated exactly as if made of wood. In themselves they are pretty enough, but they are still an offence against propriety, since solid stone is a material of which no real door would be made. The defect is characteristic of the old native habit of thought, which was seldom much distressed by the incongruous. In other respects the design appears to me to be eminently typical of the higher Indian civilization of the nineteenth century, conservative of the national genius, but open to European refinements. The lace-like tracery of the pierced panels, the surface sculpture of others, the general grouping, no less than the details of the ornamentation, are all oriental in character; while, at the same time, the colonnade could never have been what it is, but for the influence of Italian design. The building is still unfinished and wants its parapet, which will add greatly to its beauty.
The art revival, which in the minor luxuries and conveniences of life, has of late years effected so much in England, has even there as yet made no very profound impression on architectural methods. It is still almost as true as when Ruskin framed the indictment twenty years ago, that all the pleasure, which the people of the nineteenth century take in art, is in pictures, sculpture, minor objects of virtu, or mediæval architecture, which we enjoy under the term picturesque: no pleasure is taken anywhere in modern buildings; the reason being that modern European architecture, working as it does on known rules and from given models, is not aṇ art, but a manufacture. No true art, whether expressing itself in words, colours, or stones, says the same thing over and over again: the merit of architectural as of every other art, consists in its saying new and different things: to repeat itself is no more a characteristic of genius in brick and stone than it is of genius in verse or prose. In British India so little is this recognized, that "standard plans" are provided at head-quarters for every class of public building, and are forced upon universal acceptance throughout the length and breadth of the province, with little or no regard to local conditions as regards material, or the habits of the people, or the capacity of the workmen. Such uniformity is certainly not conducive to convenience of design, excellence of construction, or economy in expenditure; but it probably facilitates the orderly arrangement of the records in the central bureau, and is therefore highly approved by departmental authorities. As an example of the pitch to which this passion for stereotyped forms is sometimes carried, I remember noting in one large Municipality that the principal official buildings—the school, the dispensary, and the Committee-rooms—were all of exactly the same pattern, and were indistinguishable from one another, save by the inscription over the door.
It is scarcely necessary to observe that such soulless and depressing monotony is entirely the result of action from above. It is altogether uncongenial to the oriental mind, and is copied only for the same reason that induces a Marwari matron to blacken her lips and teeth, because it is better to submit to a disfigurement than to be out of the fashion and thus we come to an adequate explanation of the mistaken ideą, which so many people entertain, that architecture in India is no longer a living art. The native community, as has been already allowed, are not conscious of the artistic vitality that still animates their handicraftsmen, while many of the buildings that the latter erect are conspicuous examples of the very worst taste. But the mason who executes the work has seldom prepared the design; or, if he has done so, he has been hampered by the necessity of subordinating his own ideas to those of his employer. In every age and in every country, the upper and moneyed classes are too materialized to have any intelligent appreciation of art. They understand the fashionable, and are ready to admire the magnificent; but the more delicate refinements of design, which constitute the special charm of the artist's conception, and which it is the student's greatest delight to trace and interpret, are mostly lost upon them. There is no reason to suppose that the impressive attributes of St. Mark's at Venice were ever more appreciated by its ordinary votaries than at the present day, when its storied walls are unread and unheeded. The artist of old—as now—enjoyed the act of creation for its own sake; the populace takes over the finished product, and values it more from material than from æsthetic considerations.
In India, almost the only class in the native community that still encourages indigenous art, is the much abused trader and money-lender. Not that he is moved to do so by any artistic bias, but simply by force of habit. If he decides upon building a new porch to his house, he calls in the mason of most repute in the neighbourhood, shows him the site and explains what is wanted. Perhaps the materials in whole or in part are also supplied, but the workman is then left to his own devices, on the presumption that he best understands his own business; in the same way as a tailor, after taking his customer's measure, and being furnished with as much cloth as he wants, would be trusted to turn out a garment properly stitched, of the desired description, and of the same cut as other people wear. The result of this confidence is ordinarily most satisfactory to both parties: the workman's manual labour is relieved by the sense of independence, and is elevated by the exercise of thought; while the paymaster attends to his ordinary affairs during the progress of the undertaking, and in the end gets his money's worth as in any ordinary mercantile transaction. But having once dismissed the builder—as if to prove how little lie cares for art in the abstract—the owner generally proceeds to disfigure his new possession by blocking up a niche or two with mud or clumsy masonry, screening the arch with a piece of tattered matting, or smearing the jambs of the doorway with daubs of red paint and whitewash.
The gain to artistic interests, and the saving to the Exchequer, would be enormous, if a similar amount of reasonable confidence in its employés were exhibited by Government in the execution of its public works. It need not really regard æsthetic considerations any more highly than the typical baniya does; but it would get its work done well and cheaply, and thus would not forfeit its character for practical common sense, even though some traces of good design still survived after many years of utilitarian ill-usage.
A happy example of thoroughly Hindu treatment, as practised at the present day in the absence of any direction from without, is afforded by a small, but very elaborate, gateway, for which the town of Khurja is indebted to Lála Lachhman Dás, a well-to-do trader, who is remodelling his house in the bazar there; the work being designed and carried out by Dhúla, a Bráhman architect, who lives at the neighbouring town of Háthras, in the Aligarh district. A photograph would be impossible; for though the main façade of the house looks on to a fairly broad street, the porch stands in a little side lane which is scarcely broad enough for two foot passengers to walk abreast. The introduction of animal sculpture, the exuberance of surface decoration, and the unsuitableness of the site selected for its display, are all features curiously characteristic of the best and worst points in the Hindu craftsman. In his devotion to the perfect rendering of each separate detail, as it comes under his hand, he too little considers the ultimate destination of the whole; while any faculty for reproducing the beauty of the human or other animate form has been completely destroyed by ages of desuetude. He is thus content to repeat the archaic rudeness of his temple-gods, in which the discouragement of Muhammadan rule has so long forbidden improvement, that the eye has at last learnt to acquiesce in their familiar uncouthness.
If the mercantile classes of native society are distinguished by their conservative adherence to ancestral usage, the landed gentry, who are on visiting terms with European officials, cherish equally strong aspirations in the opposite direction. To relieve the monotony of their eventless life, many of them spend large sums of money every year in building, and keep a native architect as a regular member of their domestic establishment. But he is warned that nothing in Hindustani style can be tolerated; some Government office, in the civil station, or the last new barracks in the nearest military cantonments, are the palatial edifices which he is expected to emulate. To give an example: On the top of the Bulandshahr hill is a school, erected twenty years ago, with a small bell-turret which apears to have been designed by the engineer of the period as an exact copy of the Bethesda, or Little Zoar, that forms such a familiar sight in the back lanes of an English manufacturing town. The idea has been so successfully accomplished, that every European visitor at once concludes it to be a methodist place of worship, and enquires to what particular denomination it belongs. The style of architecture may be readily imagined without further illustration. But, as it is a Government building, it sets the fashion, and, not long ago, the native gentleman of highest rank in the district, intimated to me that he wished to add a clock-tower to his country house, and that he proposed to make it a fac simile of this delightful structure at Bulandshahr.
This little incident shows how important it is that the public taste should be correctly guided, not only by direct educational institutions, such as schools of art, museums and exhibitions, but still more by the persistent stimulus of practical example. So long as the necessity for the latter is ignored, the former tend rather to the isolation of the artist and the restriction of art influences to the connoisseur, instead of bringing them to bear upon society at large. In the words of the resolution, which prefaces the Indian Art Journal, "there can be no reasonable doubt that the upper classes of the native community would gladly follow the example of the Government, and cherish all that is best in indigenous art;" but in architecture, at all events, which is the mother of all the arts, the example unfortunately has as yet been never given.
A partial explanation of the neglect may perhaps be found in the fact that, so far as the Supreme Government is concerned, circumstances have allowed it no option. It has been obliged to import foreign models; for neither in the swamps of Calcutta, nor on the heights of Simla, has any indigenous form of architecture been available for adoption. The Bengali has simply a talent for imitation, and has never invented a style for himself in any branch of art; while the Himalayan mountaineer was too backward in civilization to feel any need for it. With most of the Provincial Governments the case is far different. They are seated in the centres of old Indian culture. But the fashion of occidentalism, however incongruous with the local environment, has permeated from above; and the only patronage hitherto vouchsafed to native architecture is limited to an artificial and purely scholastic form, in the restoration of the dead past, and is not extended to the development of the living present.
A shocking travesty of Italian, or rather French design, is exhibited in a gateway, which one of the principal Muhammadan gentlemen in the district has had under construction for the last three or four years. It forms the entrance to the courtyard of his family residence at Dánpur, and is of considerable dimensions, being 92 feet long and 70 feet deep. The cost will be in proportion, and it is truly lamentable that want of taste and the influence of bad example should be thus conspicuously illustrated. The incongruous quasi-Indian plinth, in conjunction with an attenuated order of tall rusticated pilasters supporting imitation chimneypots, and the clumsy carpentry of the windows with their jerky and most ungainly dressing and ill-proportioned pediments, make up a tout ensemble, which for rococo vulgarity, could scarcely be surpassed. The material is stone, but it requires a close inspection to realize the fact; the extreme coarseness of all the details being so much more suggestive of plaster. In spite of ridicule and remonstrance, and repeated offers to supply a design more in harmony with national precedent, my friend has an unanswerable rejoinder:—"The works, he says, which are carried out under your direction, however pleasing in themselves, have the one fatal drawback that they are not stamped with official approval. In fact, one of them was denounced by a competent departmental authority as an absolute 'eye-sore.' Nothing in the same style is ever undertaken by Government. Your buildings fitly express your own peculiarity of temperament, but the personal predilection for Indian forms is only a weakness or eccentricity; such designs would be out of harmony with my own more advanced views, which are all in favour of English fashions. The trading classes do well to adhere to Hindustani types, but the landed gentry prefer to range themselves with their rulers, and thus to emphasize their distinction from the vulgar." When I further object that his façade is incorrect even from the European point of view he cannot understand how that is possible. In the same way as Christianity is popularly identified with any denial of religious obligation, so the essence of European architecture is supposed to consist in a reckless disregard of all recognized canons of ornament and proportion. Any outcast is dubbed a Christian, and any ugliness in a building is accounted European. Now that I have had a special drawing made of his gate, he will be more than ever convinced that my criticisms were simply prompted by deficient intelligence, and that he has at last taught me to admire what I once ignorantly disparaged.
A gateway, in a very different style, has lately been added to his house at Bulandshahr by Maulvi Muhammad Bakhsh, the Honorary Magistrate of Chaprávat. It is of special interest as showing the readiness with which the upper classes would return to the true principles of indigenous architecture, if only it were more generally in fashion. The gate is in two stories, with a deeply recessed single arch below; the plinth, shafts and spandrels of which are covered with most delicate diapers and foliage. The balcony above has slender piers of pierced tracery, and its three arches have their heads filled in with stone fan-lights, below which they are fitted with doors of common-place English pattern. These are the solitary defect in the design, and fortunately it is one which admits of an easy remedy. The combination of depth and solidity in the mass with lightness of touch in the ornamental details indicates a true artistic faculty of conception, and the idea has been carried out with much technical skill.
Our engineers' buildings, as a rule, have the one merit of simplicity. They make no pretence of pleasing the eye, but neither do they often wilfully offend it by an obtrusive display of misplaced architectural embellishment. Considered as temporary makeshifts for the deposit of departmental returns, or the casual shelter of distressed officials, they might pass uncriti-_plate_facing_page_60.jpg)
CHAPRÁVAT GATE. BULANDSHAHR. 1882.
The most important Government building in the Bulandshahr district is the set of Law Courts and Revenue Offices at head-quarters. The façade, which is 170 feet in length, may be adequately described as a long low wall pierced with a uniform row of round-headed cavities. There is no porch, nor any other feature by which to distinguish the front from the back, nor on either side is any one doorway marked off from its fellows as a main entrance. The design would answer equally well, or indeed much better for a dry goods store, a barrack, or a factory. No stranger, unfamiliar with the economic eccentricities of Anglo-Indian administration, could for a moment suppose that a building of such a mean and poverty-stricken appearance represented the dignity of the Empire to about a million of people, and was the fiscal centre of a district contributing over fourteen lacs of rupees to the annual revenue of the State. It might, perhaps, be imagined that external dignity had been judiciously disregarded in order to secure a maximum of internal convenience; but if such was the intention, it has signally failed of attainment; the paltry appearance of the exterior only prepares the eye for the still greater shabbiness of everything inside.
The buildings, to which the remainder of this article will be devoted, have been designed and carried out in the hope of stemming the tide of utilitarian barbarism, which had swamped Bulandshahr as completely as every other part of the Province. In April 1878, when I took over charge of the district, the only two buildings in it, ancient or modern, of the slightest architectural pretension, were a ruinous tomb of Shahjahan's reign at Kásna, and an unfinished stone pavilion of somewhat later date at Shikárpur. The four Municipalities had each been provided, about twenty years previously, by the energy of the then Collector, with a complete set of public institutions—school, dispensary, and post-office—all substantially constructed of good brick and mortar, but on regulation patterns of the severest type, without any concession to local sentiment. The principal citizens, in their shops and dwelling-houses, had followed the example thus set, and were everywhere repeating the same dreariness of design, only in inferior materials and with less careful execution. It is too often forgotten by those in authority that it is only the perfection of its mechanical finish which, in European work, often compensates in part for the want of artistic originality. By combining the poverty of western invention with the clumsiness of eastern technique, the characteristic virtues of both races are sacrificed. Yet, this is the plan which is systematically adopted throughout British India. The design for a new church or town-hall is supplied by an English engineer, who openly avows his ignorance of architecture; while the execution is left to native workmen. The latter inherit the artistic traditions of the country, but are unskilled in the management of modern mechanical appliances, and are utterly untaught in the principles of European style, so that they cannot appreciate either the boldness of a Gothic moulding, or the elegance of contour and proportion upon which mainly depends the charm of a Grecian order.
It was not thus that the Muhammadans, the earlier conquerors of India, achieved those architectural triumphs in mosque and palace, which we now conscientiously restore with many expressions of idle admiration, but apparently without gathering much practical instruction from the method they inculcate. Their accurate reproduction is undoubtedly in itself an excellent undertaking and one that reflects the highest credit on the Government, but the functions of design are not vitally stimulated, nor is art adequately encouraged by an exclusive devotion to the past. The general outline of any large scheme of improvement, and the site and ground plan of the different buildings that are to be grouped together, are matters upon which the Hindu—with his overpowering passion for detail—does well to follow foreign guidance. The execution also will be largely benefited in evenness by European supervision; but the composition of the façade and all the details of the decoration are best left to the craftsmen who will have to execute them. In working out their own conceptions, or repeating the familiar types of local tradition, both mind and hand will act more freely than when they are set to copy forms and mouldings, which they have never practised and do not understand. The carpenters and bricklayers whom I have employed at Bulandshahr are, for the most part, the very same men who raised the bare walls, and set up the tasteless door frames that distinguish the older public buildings of the town. Nor do they ask any higher pay for the more decorative work upon which they are now engaged. If the present results are more attractive to the eye, the improvement is solely due to an improved method of direction on the lines above indicated. It is a sound maxim of administration, which holds good in small matters as in large, that it is well to trust the people you employ; if you cannot trust a man, do not employ him. An Englishman's function in India is to stimulate enterprize and direct the general course of affairs, but to abstain from interference with the details of execution. No character more lowers the prestige of Government than "the zealous official," who trusts no one but himself even in the pettiest details, for which subordinates are entertained, and who thus loses the broad view which he alone is in a position to command, and which, if he loses it, is lost altogether.
The architectural designs of the new buildings at Bulandshahr do not profess to exhibit any novel features of very remarkable artistic merit. On the contrary, whatever value attaches to them, is to be found in their easy and unconscious adherence to ordinary traditional practice, and in the consequent absence of any exceptionally striking effects. There has been no intentional imitation of older buildings, but, at the same time, there has been no straining after originality. The towers and gateways and arcades of modern Bulandshahr claim to be congruous and picturesque, but only in the same way as the streets of a medieval English town, which could be matched by others of similar character all over the country. Then—as still in India—the influence of the prevalent style was not so much inculcated in the studio as felt in the air. With some few local modifications, in matters of detail, arising chiefly from the ingenious utilization of local materials, such as the cut-flint panelling in Norfolk and Suffolk, and the Purbeck marble shafts of the western counties, the motif of Gothic work at any given period was similar in essentials from the Tweed to the Land's End. Between the sculptured decoration of a Cathedral and that in a village church there may often be a superiority of finish in the former, the result of the more extensive practice acquired by working in the midst of a large community; but this advantage of facile manipulation, with its tendency to stereotype invention, was often outweighed by the greater leisure and unconventionality of the rural artisan. Unless new inspiration and invention come to guide it, the predominance of technical skill in art invariably ends in degradation of the artist's function. Man was not intended to work with the accuracy of a machine; and, in architecture, slight irregularities, which an engineer would condemn as unpardonable defects, are on the contrary the inseparable accidents of individual effort, and as evidences of its exercise, please rather than offend the educated eye. Human faculties will never succeed in realizing their ideal; but still it is a nobler part to form an ideal and struggle towards it, than to rest content with the easy attainment of stereotyped mediocrity. If the system that I advocate, viz., the free employment of local talent, unhampered by departmental interference, were adopted throughout India, there might be occasional failures, but it is reasonable to expect there would also be brilliant successes; and the failures must be numerous indeed before they produced at all the same depressing effect as the present deadness of uniformity.
Of all the new improvements in the town, the first that I undertook was the construction of a terrace, which once a week is used for a market. The site was an untidy road-side strip on the top of the hill, immediately opposite the Tahsili Gate. It has been converted into a paved platform in two stages, 194 feet long and 28 feet broad, made of brick, with a cut-stone edging. An arcade at the back, which forms a convenient place of deposit for bales of cloth and other perishable goods in case of a storm, is also mainly of brick construction, and is a pleasing specimen of local skill. But so much time and labour were involved in cutting each separate brick into shape for the slender rounded and fluted shafts, that the ultimate expense was scarcely, if at all, less than if stone had been employed. I have therefore never repeated the experiment on a similar scale, and have restricted the application of ornamental brick work to small niches and similar details, where it has an excellent effect. The cost of the work was Rs. 1,600, the whole of which has been already recovered by the annual income from the market-dues. The money for this improvement was obtained by the sale of a small plot of confiscated ground close by, which had belonged to the rebel Abdul Latif. The purchaser, Kunvar Maháráj Sinh, intended to build a house upon it, which would have been an additional improvement; but he died before the walls were more than a few feet above the ground.
The next enterprise was the Bathing Ghat on the river bank. The foundation stone was laid on the 1st November 1878, but the completion of the work was delayed for two years by the officiousness of an Executive _plate_facing_page_64.jpg)
MARKET TERRACE, BULANDSHAHR. 1879.
spectators throng the steps. Here too, a display of fireworks takes place during the week of the Annual District Show, some of them being let off at the foot of the steps, and others from the opposite bank, whence they are reflected in the stream. With the arches and parapet of the bridge marked out with lines of tiny lamps and the elegant architecture of the kiosques illuminated by hanging globes and chandeliers, the restless crowd as it breaks up into ever-changing groups and bright-coloured masses amidst the tinselled torch stands and flaring flambeaux, produces a series of kaleidoscopic effects before the eyes of the European spectators, who witness it from their seats at the top of the steps, which could only be imitated in England on the stage of a London theatre.
In addition to the main ghát, the opposite side of the stream is also provided with a short flight of stone steps, of equally substantial construction; and above the bridge are a Go-ghát, or slope for watering cattle, and two arcaded rest-houses, of good and ornamental brick masonry, which are generally crowded with poor travellers, who are allowed to stay there for 24 hours. These two buildings cost a further sum of Rs. 944, about half of which was a wedding gift from a Thakur, who preferred to spend the money in this way, rather than waste it in feeding a horde of lazy Brahmans, as is the custom on such occasions. No where else in the whole length of its winding course can the little river boast of possessing so handsome and complete a set of artistic adornments.
In imitation of the precedent thus established, the Hindu residents of the town are now building a second Ghát, a little higher up the stream, in connection with the temple of Rámesvar. This they propose to call 'the Lachhman Ghát,' in honour of Rája Lachhman Siṅh, who has been a Deputy Collector in the district for the long period of 17 years, and who is highly and deservedly esteemed by all classes of the community. He is not only one of the most able Revenue officers in the service, but he is also a man of scholarly tastes and literary acquirements: two of his vernacular translations from the Sanskrit—the Sakuntalá in prose and the Megha-dúta in verse are excellent specimens of pure and elegant Hindi composition. He has also compiled in English a Memoir of the district, which is full of accurate information on all matters of local interest.
From the town side the bridge and ghát are approached by a spacious thoroughfare, 150 feet wide, with a double row of trees, where a
market is held twice a week, which is largely attended by the people of the neighbouring villages, for dealings in cloth and miscellaneous petty wares _plate_facing_page_66.jpg)
BATHING GHÁT, BULANDSHAHR. 1880.
At the back of the shops, on the north side towards the open country, is a walled enclosure, comprising an area of nearly four acres, used as a paráo, or camping-ground for vehicles of all descriptions; and on the south side is a Saráe, or hostel for travellers. The shops, as seen from the central road-way, are only one story high; but from the low ground at the back they show a basement story besides, with vaulted cells, which are used as stables on the paráo side, and as travellers' quarters on the other. The entire cost of this extensive project up to the present time has been Rs. 56,416, including Rs. 9,800 for the actual embankment, Rs. 2,000 for the paráo wall and Rs. 900 for a masonry verandah to the Sarte rooms. The balance, viz., Rs. 43,716, was the cost of the shops.
Immediately opposite the ghát, the basement floor of the embankment is widened out into a spacious crypt-like building of five aisles, 70 feet long, which has direct access to the river by a subterranean passage carried under the roadway. This was constructed at a cost of Rs. 4,833. which was mainly defrayed by Chaudhri Lachhman Siṅh of Sikárpur, an Honorary Magistrate, and one of the wealthiest landed proprietors in the district, who made the donation as a thankoffering after recovery from a very severe illness. It is used as a Dharmsála, or rest-house for the poor, and is admirably adapted for the purpose from its coolness and its situation at the very entrance of the town. in close proximity both to the river and the market.
The shops on the embankment are divided into four blocks, of which three, containing in all 46 shops, have been completed; the fourth is postponed till such time as the increasing trade of the town may require it. Each line is broken in the centre by a gateway, one leading into the paráo, the other on to a new street, which communicates with the saráe and the main bazar of the town. The depth of both these gates allows of the construction of an upper room with the fair interior dimensions of 18 feet by 20. One room is on the point of completion, and will serve for the ordinary monthly meetings of the Municipal Committee, who have hitherto had no place of their own in which to assemble. It has a projecting stone balcony at each end, and the windows are filled with stone tracery. The cost thus far has been Rs. 4,000. The room over the opposite gate will be taken in hand next year.
The embankment was not quite finished on the 19th September 1880, when the heavy rain occurred which caused the fatal landslip at Naini Tál. The river rose suddenly from 13 to nearly 21 feet in height, the greatest recorded height for any previous flood being 16½ feet, and in order to save the bridge a breach was made in the road on the other side of the stream. This was rapidly widened by the force of the torrent into a chasm three furlongs broad. But for the embankment, the roadway to the west of the bridge must also have gone, and the greater part of the town would then have been destroyed. Even as it was, much damage was caused by the back-water which spread up into the streets from the lower bend of the river; exposure to the direct forces of the current would have had much more serious results. An insignificant rivulet mąde its way over the embankment through the spaces left for the gateways; but the masonry walls-though the mortar was scarcely dry-stood the shock well, and fully justified the cost of their construction even from a purely utilitarian point of view. It may also be mentioned that the shops let some for Rs. 4 and some for Rs. 5 a month each, which gives a return of over 6 per cent. on the outlay.
On emerging from the low land, the embankment is continued towards the west, first at the same width of 150 feet through a bazar, in which the frontage of the shops has been remodelled by the proprietor Munshi Gopál Ráe,[2] so as to assimilate it in appearance with the Municipal work, and then as an ordinary street till it reaches the Collector's house and grounds, which are the beginning of the European quarter. At this point of junction, a large masonry reservoir, called the Lyall Tank, has now been constructed by public subscription at a cost of Rs. 16,000. The first stone was laid by the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, Sir Alfred Lyall, on the 7th February 1883, when he reisited Bulandshahr for the first time after an interval of 26 years since the Mutiny, when he was attached to the district as a junior civilian, and greatly distinguished himself in the military operations against the rebels. The aqueduct, by which water will be obtained from a distributary of the Ganges Canal, about a mile distant, has not yet been commenced, but an allotment of Rs. 2,500 has been made for it in the Municipal Budget, and the tank itself is finished. It measures 230 feet square and is 14 feet deep. The whole of the earth procured by the excavation has been utilized in raising the level of the streets and open places in the town, thereby greatly improving its drainage and sanitation. Tiers of steps and platforms reach from the top to the floor of the tank, and on each side are broken up into three compartments by dwarf towers, based on the lowest platform and rising to the level of the outer margin, with which they are connected by screen walls. The top of these is broadened out by stone slabs over a bold cornice, so as to form footpaths for reaching the roof of the towers, which makes either a pleasant seat or a convenient projection for bathers to dive from. The central compartment, on the east side, has no steps, but is cut back into a long paved slope with flanking walls for watering cattle.
West of the tank is the Moti Bagh, an area of eleven acres, lately levelled and enclosed at a cost of Rs. 6,150, and now in process of conversion into a public garden. Part of it was formerly a broad and deep ravine, which brought down into the town the drainage of all the surrounding country and passed it out into the river through the arch which has been already mentioned, as now making the river gate of Chaudhri Lachhman Siṅh's Dharmsála. On the edge of this ravine was an extensive mound, known as the Moti Bazár, which, many hundreds of years ago, had been an inhabited site. In levelling it to fill up the ravine, besides other minor curiosities, a clay seal was found inscribed with the owner's name, apparently of the fifth century A. D., together with an immense number of large bricks, a cubit long, and half a cubit broad, and many curious specimens of a local terracotta manufactory. These objects are mostly of a cocoanut shape, and seem to have been intended either for vases or for architectural finials. A fine statue of Buddha, of the 8th century, had been previously discovered on the same spot.
In this new garden, close by the roadside, from which it is divided only by a low wall with stone posts and chains, is now being built the Town Hall, which, if I am able to superintend its completion, will be one of the most remarkable modern buildings in the Province. The cost will scarcely be less than Rs. 30,000, the whole of which is being defrayed by the munificence of a single individual, Rájá Bákir Ali Khán, of Pindrával. He received the decoration of a C. I. E. from the hands of the Lieutenant-Governor in the building itself on the 7th February 1883, when a temporary roof was thrown over the unfinished walls for the occasion. The hall, the lower end of which can be screened off as an ante-room, measures 80 feet by 25, and will be about 30 feet high, with a range of clerestory windows under the cornice. It is intended that in design, construction, and all its accessories it should form a complete epitome of all the indigenous arts and industries of the neighbourhood. The roof of the verandah is an elaborate piece of carpentry, and two pairs of doors, as specimens of wood-carving and inlaying, were contributed on loan to the Calcutta Exhibition, where they attracted much attention, and were awarded a certificate of the first-class and a gold medal. copy of another pair of its doors was made by request, and is now deposited in the South Kensington Museum. The stone work of the porch and verandah and of the great arches of the hall is of equally conspicuous merit, and a little wicket gate in the low roadside wall, immediately in front of the north verandah, is supported by ramps which are scarcely to be surpassed as graceful specimens of stone foliage.
In addition to this minor entrance in direct connection with the Town Hall, the Moti Bagh is provided with two great gates. The one in the east wall, immediately opposite the Lyall Tank, is being erected in memory of Mr. Elliot Colvin, the late Commissioner of the Division, whose sudden and untimely death, on the 3rd November 1883, was deeply felt by all classes of the community. It is estimated to cost about Rs. 4,000, and should be completed by the end of this year. The main gate is on the opposite side, towards the west, and will perpetuate the name of Ráo Umráo Siṅh of Kachesar, who has given Rs. 4,500 for its construction. Its archway, which towards the road is of white sand-stone, covered with delicate surface tracery, is flanked by two rooms of block-kankar masonry, with red-brick turrets at the corners, surmounted by domed and pinnacled stone kiosques 46 feet high. The rooms are intended as lodges for the gardener and watchman, and have an upper unroofed story with arcaded fronts of red brick, the whole being surmounted by a parapet of white stone posts and panels. The variety of colour afforded by the employment of so many different materials and styles of construction affords a pleasing effect, and is to some extent a novelty. There was formerly a superstitious prejudice in the native mind against the use of block kankar except for under-ground work, such as wells and foundations; and a trader, who built four of the shops on the embankment on his own responsibility, refused to conform in this respect to the specification with which I had supplied him, and in the back-wall, where lime-stone had been used for the other shops, he substituted brick. This was afterwards plastered and pointed so as to make it look, as much as possible, like the rest of the line, but the difference cannot be concealed, and it remains a disfigurement, though being at the back it is not greatly noticed. Since then I have used it so freely and with such obvious success, that the prejudice against it may be considered as almost extinct.
Another building, which occupies a corner in the Moti Bagh, is the Station Bath. Even this peculiarly English institution has furnished an opportunity for an ingenious adaptation of oriental architecture. The tank itself is open to the sky, but is surrounded by a corridor—made double at one end for a dressing-room—with brick arcades facing the water, and solid external walls of block kankar masonry. A flight of stairs leads to the roof which is flat, and can therefore be used for taking headers from, or as a terrace commanding a pleasant view of the garden. The windows have arched wooden frames with balustrades and shutters, all elegantly carved in a variety of patterns, and the doors are a still more elaborate piece of carpentry, like those in the Town Hall. Over the entrance is a stone niche with inscriptions in English and Hindustani, recording that this gift for the use of the European residents of the station was made by Saiyid Hasan Shah, the Honorary Magistrate for the town and the vice-President of the Municipality. The cost has amounted to Rs. 3,600. The site is most convenient as the Library and Racket Court are immediately opposite. These were built some years ago and are more useful than ornamental; but they have been brought into harmony with their new surroundings, by the insertion of stone traceried windows and a pair of handsomely carved doors. Even the Race Stard, outside the station, has been built on similar principles, and is thoroughly Indian in character. The material is block kankar with dressings of white sand-stone. The cost has been gradually defrayed by the annual sale of tickets at the time of the races.
The handsomest private house in the town was built for Saiyid Mihrbán Ali, the Honorary Magistrate of Gulaothi. It occupies a singularly favorable position at the east end of a broad street, which in front of the house first opens out into a small square, and then branches off into two bazars, running due north and south. Immediately at the back is the steep slope of the hill, on which the old Fort once stood, and the rise is so rapid, that the carriage-entrance, which is up a side lane, and the court-yard on to which it opens, are on a level with the roof of the shops, which from the Square appear as a basement story to the building, and thus give a great increase of dignity to the façade. It was under construction throughout the year 1880, and the house warming took place on the 26th of the following February, on the last day of the annual Show, when all the European residents and visitors sat down to dinner with their host in the large room on the first floor. A third story with a beautiful screen of pierced stone tracery was afterwards added, making the cost of the frontage amount to Rs. 4,200. The premises at the back are extensive and commodious, but of ordinary brick masonry, and are not yet fully completed.
The central area of the Square was formerly a dusty untidy waste, but now appears as a raised brick terrace with stone dressings, and carved stone lamp-posts at the four corners. It was constructed in 1879 at a cost of about Rs. 1,000. The people were at first opposed to the improvement, thinking it might interfere with the celebration of the Bharat Miláp, the meeting of Ráma, Lakshman and Síta on their return from exile with their brother Bharat, which forms the last scene in the popular miracle play of the Rám Líla acted throughout India during the festival of the Dasahara, and which at Bulandshahr is invariably performed in this particular Square. When I witnessed it in the first year of my incumbency, all the surroundings were of the poorest and most squalid appearance; now, on all four sides, brick and carved stone have been substituted for mud and thatch, and a more effective stage for an illumination or theatrical _plate_facing_page_72.jpg)
In a line with Mihrbán Ali's house is a temple with a high spire in the background, built by a Hindu widow. The front was first of brick, but in order not to be outdone in magnificence by her Muhammadan neighbour, it was no sooner finished than she pulled it down and rebuilt it in stone as it now appears.
On the north side of the square was a narrow strip of ground occupied by some miserable hovels, which I have pulled down, and in their place erected a handsome double-storied range of buildings, with seven shops in the basement, and a convenient set of rooms above which are let out as a Banker's offices. This façade also is of carved stone, with a slight inter-mixture of red brick. The property belongs to Munawar Ali Khan, who has the misfortune to be of weak intellect. His estate, which is a considerable one, lying chiefly in the Muradabad district, is therefore administered by the Court of Wards. The family, originally Hindu, has been connected with the town of Bulandshahr, ever since its very first settlement under the name of Baran, more than three thousand years ago. It was therefore only fitting that the scion of so ancient a stock should be locally represented by something more sightly and substantial than a ruinous line of mud hovels. Accordingly I drew attention to the matter in the proper official quarter, and eventually obtained sanction for the removal of the old tumble-down sheds—which were a disgrace to the administration of the estate—and for the expenditure of Rs. 9,000 on the new block, which was completed in 1882. The rental at present gives a return of only 4 per cent, on the outlay; the town so far as shops are concerned having now become a little over-built: for any sort of dwelling house there is a great demand; but the site was too contracted to be suitable for that purpose. The building, from most points of view, seems to be backed by the steep range of the castle hill, with the Tahsili on its top. This is a sombre jail-like pile, erected in 1866, at a cost of Rs, 14,187, on the site of the old Fort, the last relics of which were then demolished, and have ever since been regretted, as affording more comfortable quarters for the staff of revenue officials than their modern-substitute.
A little outside the Square, on the north side of the broad street, by which, as has been already mentioned, it is approached from the west, stands another conspicuously handsome private building. This is the town residence of Muhammad Ali Khan, the Honorary Magistrate of Jahángirabád. Here also—as in Mihrbán Ali's house—the carriage entrance is from a back lane, where the ground is on a level with the roof of the shops that form the basement story of the front. A spacious stone verandah overlooks the street, and runs the whole length of the principal reception hall, which was first used on the 25th February 1882 for a dinner that wound up the festivities of the Annual Show. A stone model of the façade was ordered by Mr. Purdon Clarke as a characteristic specimen of modern Indian architecture, and has been deposited in the South Kensington Museum. The chief peculiarity of the style, which is the same as that employed in the two companion buildings already described, consists in the great depth of the apparently slender shafts that support the arcade. They cover the entire thickness of the wall on which they stand, and are thus very substantial supports, though their front shows a breadth of only two or three inches. The back ground of the frieze and string courses, and the outlines of the panels in the balcony screens, are coloured with different tints which give prominence to the carving and a general air of brightness to the whole composition. This practice is comparatively a novelty, but has at once found imitators, and is now generally adopted in all new buildings in the neighbourhood.
At the west end of this street, on opposite sides of a small open place, stand the English School and the Dispensary, both substantial buildings, erected the one in 1864, the other in 1867, under the supervision of Mr. Webster, the then Collector. The materials and construction, for _plate_facing_page_74.jpg)
The designs were supplied by Government engineers, and have the usual departmental defects of low plinth, inadequate cornice, and the absence of any staircase on to the roof. The Assistant Surgeon's dwelling-house close by is a typical specimen of professional wrong headedness. It is absolutely uninhabitable, being sunk in a sort of well which prevents the possibility either of drainage or ventilation. The site was a mound, which common sense, instead of levelling, would have utilized as a plinth. I pointed this out to the Executive Engineer, but he blandly assured me that what had been done was quite according to rule, and that it was only the Babu's perverseness which made him refuse to live there.
As a benevolent institution, the Hospital and Dispensary yields to none in the Province. In 1882 as many as 898 surgical operations were performed in it, including 363 for cataract; and in 1883 the total number rose still higher, to 1,010. These splendid results were due to the skill and devotion of Dr. Willcocks, the Civil Surgeon, who, by his intimate acquaintance with the language, kindliness of manner and inexhaustible patience, combined with remarkable success in treatment, had acquired a great reputation, which attracted patients from all the surrounding districts.
The school is a spacious vaulted room with broad verandahs and a curiously ugly campanile, which, as in the Tahsili School already mentioned, suggests the idea of a non-conformist chapel. It was originally intended to accommodate only a hundred boys, and as the number of pupils at the beginning of this year had risen to 176, an additional class-room became imperatively necessary, and this has now been supplied. It covers almost exactly the same area is the old building, but is in a very different style of architecture, with a high flat roof—to which access is gained by a picturesque stair-turret—a well raised plinth, cut-brick arcaded walls, stone traceried windows, and handsomely carved doors. The cost will be about Rs. 4.500 of which sum more than half comes from an endowment bestowed upon the school by Saiyid Mihrbán Ali, who is always foremost in the support of every deserving local institution. The Superintending Engineer's official criticism of the new room is highly characteristic. He condemns it as "quite out of keeping with the original building and defective in design." Architects and art critics in London and New York apparently find something to admire in the new works at Bulandshahr, and gladly go to considerable expense in procuring models and drawings of them; but the taste of our provincial Vitruvius is far more fastidious, and can only be satisfied by the elegant refinements of his own departmental standards.
In the same compound stands a boarding house, where such of the boys are lodged as have no relations with whom they can live in the town. There is now accommodation for forty. The building is in the form of a quadrangle, of which about one-half was finished and occupied before I took charge of the district. It was simply a barrack of the very plainest description, and for the sake of uniformity I was obliged to continue it on somewhat similar lines. But I have given it character by adding a gateway in the centre of one wing, throwing out two stair-turrets at the corners of the front, and substituting pierced stone-tracery for wooden bars in the windows. An extension at the back has also been made this year and over this at some future time, when sanction has been obtained, it would give importance to the design, if a large dormitory were added as an upper story. The existing accommodation is still inadequate, and a house has to be rented in the town for some of the boys. There is an available fund of Rs. 2,000 invested in Government paper, the interest of which is spent upon scholarships. But the craving for English education among the poorer classes already amounts almost to a disease, and, in my opinion, ought not to be encouraged by a system of gratuitous education. From the very beginning of my career I have been an enthusiast for a certain kind of schooling, but I am convinced that the study of English has been pushed on too rapidly. Being regarded simply as a means for making a livelihood, it is not the leaders of native society, but only the struggling and the indigent who are anxious to secure Government education for their sons. When they have completed the first stage of the appointed curriculum, they can seldom afford to proceed any further, and—in order to support themselves—begin to look out for employment. As the general civilization of the country is only in the agricultural stage, native society does not require their services: the only patron to whom they can turn is Government, and every Government office is already besieged by a host of disappointed candidates. The ideal condition of things would be an English-speaking and highly cultivated aristocracy, with a proletariat able to read and write their own vernacular, and a middle class further instructed either in English, if they aim at being clerks, or in technique, if they would become intelligent artisans. The actual results of the system of low fees and profuse scholarships are the reverse of the above, and the whole framework of society is in consequence disorganized. The poor learn absolutely too much; the rich, too little; while the middle classes waste their time over what is relatively useless, being incongruous with their special role in life.
The mention of stone-traceried windows may have been noticed in the above description of the new school buildings, and the introduction of such a feature may possibly strike some people as an unnecessary extravagance. But the use of glass in a school-room is, to my mind, an example of the unthinking prejudice against oriental fashions which characterizes the whole action of the Public Works Department. Nothing could be more unsuitable with English boys running in and out, the window-doors of the regulation pattern would not have a whole pane left in one of them by the end of the first week after the holidays. Hindu lads are much quieter and more sedate, but—even so—breakages are frequent, and to obviate the cost of repairs the Superintending Engineer, in his inspection reports, always recommends that whenever glass is broken, it should be replaced with tin. A more clumsy expedient it would be difficult to conceive. The patch-work has a most beggarly appearance, and the tin of course is not transparent. The more sensible plan, and the one entirely in accord with eastern ideas, is that which I have adopted, in making the doors of solid carpentry and introducing light by means of windows set higher in the walls and fitted with ornamental tracery. In the Tahsili school, where the old windows were of large dimensions and reached to the ground, I have filled them in with wooden lattice-work as being cheaper than stone. They give free admission to the air and subdue without materially obstructing the light, while they are further provided with inside shutters, which can be closed in case of a storm. The initial cost is rather heavier, but it is eventually recovered by the saving on repairs. The artistic effect will probably be regarded as another objection by the typical engineer, who is possessed with the lamentable delusion, that nothing can be good unless it is also ugly, and who treats a school as a purely utilitarian building. It appears to me, on the contrary, that the cultivation of the taste is an important element in any system of mental training, and that it is a matter for unqualified regret that the natives of the country, from their earliest childhood, should be taught to associate the idea of all that is mean and shabby with the British Government. The effect lasts throughout life. Hence the educated natives' adoption of everything that is ugliest in European dress and equipment, and the necessity that he feels for an apology whenever he relapses into conformity with the prescriptions of oriental good taste. It is done—as he explains—out of regard for the prejudices of his women-folk, or of his less enlightened kinsmen.
The large and costly buildings, of which special mention has been made, by no means exhaust the list of improvements in the town. They are the most calculated to catch the eye of a complete stranger; but a former habitué, who returns after an interval of eight or nine years, is perhaps still more struck by the astonishing transformation of the ordinary shops and dwelling houses. As many as 870 of these have been pulled down and rebuilt. Formerly they were of mud with the floor a foot or more below the level of the street, and with thatched roofs always liable to catch fire. The debris of the old structure now forms a raised plinth, the walls are of brick, and beams support a flat roof which forms a healthy sleeping-place. Many of these tenements are occupied by the labouring classes, who have built them with their own hands, and of course their architectural pretensions are very slight. But a little simple ornamentation about the doorways or the eaves generally redeems them from absolute bareness, and renders them not unpleasing to the eye. In fact, many a Lodha and Chamár has now a more serviceable and a better looking house of his own construction, than is provided by Government for its subordinate officials.
As the Supreme Government has greatly at heart the check of epidemic disease among the urban population by the introduction of more adequate sanitary arrangements, it is not unusual for its periodical review of Municipal administration to conclude with a paragraph, urging Committees to devote a larger part of their annual income to drainage schemes. This is passed on through the regular official channel, and eventually reaches the District officer with a docket from his immediate superior, calling his special attention to the subject. As the Service prides itself on its loyalty, and a character for unquestioning submission to authority is considered one of the most approved claims to promotion, he at once allots a large sum for new drains in the next year's budget. The project is forthwith sanctioned as a commendable indication of public spirit, the drains are dug, and remain a nuisance ever afterwards. It is entirely forgotten that there is a vast difference between drains and drainage. In a dry climate, like that of Northern India, where it rains on an average only about twenty-five days in the year, there can be no constant excess of moisture to provide against. A covered drain is at all times and in every country the chosen home of typhoid, while a deep open drain is for 340 days, out of the whole 365, a dangerous pitfall or a slovenly dust-bin. Even when the rare and sudden flood does come, it has its own way very much as before, for any ordinary channel must be inadequate to contain it. The proper method is to have broad paved or metalled streets with an almost imperceptible slope from one end to the other, and also from the centre to the sides, so that the water may rapidly run off without the necessity for any drain whatever. Every improvement in the town of Bulandshahr during the last six years has had a beneficial effect on the drainage; but on actual drains nothing has been spent except in closing, or at least raising the level of those which had been constructed by my predecessors, and upon which the whole Municipal income would appear to have been squandered. Certainly, beyond drains and latrines, there were no other visible results of Municipal administration: for the dispensary and school had been built out of special funds, to which the Municipality did not even contribute.
All the new improvements have been designed and successfully carried out by independent local agency, never with the slightest assistance from departmental quarters, but for the most part in the face of much professional opposition. On the other hand, the performances of the trained engineers in Government service make a very insignificant appearance. The local works, which they have executed during the last fifty years, have been simply as follows:—The Jail; the District Law Courts; the Lowe Memorial; the Assistant Surgeon's official quarters; the Church and the Church Chaukidar's Lodge. The last named can only be regarded as a practical joke. The Church itself, which stands at the extreme west end of the station, was completed in 1864 at a cost of Rs. 5.750, on which the contractor, Mr. Michell, now a large landed proprietor in the Merath district, is said to have been a considerable loser. The money was raised by a subscription, which had been headed by Mr. Lowe, the then Collector, a son-in-law of the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir William Muir. He died in July 1862, and is buried in the Chancel. His name is further commemorated by a colonnaded building in the Cucherry compound, called the Lowe Memorial, which is used as a place of shelter for people attending the courts. They, no doubt, find it a convenience, and the design is for the most part too simple to criticise, except for the low square clock-tower, which is obtrusively ugly and ill-proportioned. The diminutive battlements, with which it is crowned, were doubtless intended to give it a Gothic character, but only emphasize its want of any architectural character whatever. The cost was Rs. 6,936. As usual, there was no access to the roof, except by a break-neck ladder, till 1878, when I added a corner stair-turret. The Church is rather a pretty little building, and as a far-away imitation of Gothic, is more successful on the whole than Indian churches frequently are. It is crushed by a low vaulted roof of very un-Gothic type, and in order to resist its thrust, the buttresses, which are very short, have such a wide straddle as to give the whole composition a touch of the grotesque. The Lodge, added in 1883, is a reproduction of the mother-building on the most diminutive scale, and is more like a doll's house than a structure intended for human habitation. It has a very high-pitched roof, with miniature buttresses and pointed arches to the doors and windows, and is divided into two rooms, corresponding to a nave and chancel, the internal dimensions of which are respectively nine and six feet square! As a fanciful addition to the Church grounds it may have its merits; but it is quite certain that the Chaukidar, for whose comfort it was built, will never consent to immure himself in such a cramped and stifling prison. As regards the other engineer-works: the Jail, first built in 1835, but enlarged in 1845 and again in 1883, is a straggling range of barracks, which the most ordinary village mason could have constructed; the Law Courts are not only of the meanest appearance, but are also altogether inadequate in accommodation: the rooms provided for the Sessions Judge may be specially mentioned as in the hot weather absolutely uninhabitable. The same is the case with the Assistant Surgeon's house. In the schools, dispensary and post-office, the workmanship, which is good, was non-professional; the designs were supplied by the department and are certainly, open to exception. Such are the facts, and the conclusion to which they point is surely this, that the district would have been a direct gainer, both as regards the possession of more sightly public buildings and in the greater encouragement of local industry and
talent, if it had been allowed to provide for its own wants in its own way, without any inter-meddling at all on the part of the Government bureau.In the three outlying Municipalities of Khurja, Anupshahr and Sikandarabad, it has not been found possible to insist upon an equal attention to minutiæ, or to secure the same air of congruity as pervades the streets and bazars of Bulandshahr. Though Khurja is by far the largest and richest town in the district, and several of its principal citizens have handsome dwelling-houses with gate ways and façades of carved stone, these indications of wealth are, for the most part, buried away in the back lanes and alleys, while the sides of the main thoroughfares continue to be disfigured with mud walls and unsightly excrescences, which the native members of the Committee are too apathetic to set themselves to abolish. In each of the three towns, however, some one large scheme has been successfully accomplished. Even at Anupshahr, which has an annual income of little more than Rs. 6,000, by dint of economy it has been found possible to provide funds for the construction of a large and handsome Saráe in the form of a quadrangle, with vaulted cells and corridors and a fine entrance gateway, over which will be built a Committee Room as at Bulandshahr. The cost has been Rs. 9,200, and it brings in an annual return of Rs. 250. At Sikandarabad, which lies in a hollow, and had suffered terribly from fever, a great improvement in the public health has been effected by an expenditure of Rs. 4,150 on an extensive system of drainage. The channel, which is in five branches, with a total length of 7½ miles, makes a complete circuit of the town and has its ultimate outfall in a natural water-course. The large sum of Rs. 12.500 has also been allotted for a Town Hall, still in course of erection. The doors, which are entirely the work of local carpenters, are of remarkably handsome design and careful execution. Being greatly admired by visitors, they have had an important effect in stimulating the revival of a decaying art, and now the traders in the principal bazar are vying with one another in the excellence of the carved arcades with which they are ornamenting their shop fronts, and which promise to render the street one of the most picturesque in the district. The movement is entirely spontaneous, and shows what an immense influence for good in the encouragement of indigenous arts and industries might be exercised by Municipal Committees if only they had more liberty of action than is often accorded them, and were not compelled to submit their designs for the sanction of a department which abominates individuality.
At Khurja the new market-place and bazar may fairly claim to be the finest modern architectural group of the kind in the Province. The market is in the form of a quadrangle, entirely fronted with carved stone, and has two entrance gates, of which the larger is 36 feet high, 40 feet broad, and as much as 60 feet deep, with a double story of arcades on either side under its lofty roof, as in the portals of the old Imperial Forts, at Agra and Delhi. In the centre of the square is a mosque, which on market days seriously obstructs the crowded area, and at all times is felt to be out of harmony with its environment, both because it stands at a different angle from the surrounding shops, and also because all the latter are occupied exclusively by Hindus. Before the site was cleared, a fakir had a mud hut here, which he represented to be a religious edifice and protested against its conversion to secular uses. The matter was taken up by an ignorant and factious crew of Patháns, who muster strong in the town; and for fear of being thought lukewarm in the faith, the more respectable and better educated members of the Muhammadan community were obliged to side with the multitude. In order to prevent a disturbance, permission to rebuild the mosque had therefore to be accorded, but it was accompanied with the condition that it should be of stone and of handsome design. The largest amount of ornamentation has been bestowed upon its back wall, for this is directly opposite the main gate. It is an elaborate piece of panelling, and from the street, under the great arch, looks well as a screen at the end of the vista. On any other site—and many others were offered—the mosque would have been more useful for religious purposes, and architecturally would have reflected credit on the good taste of the Muhammadan community; standing where it does, it serves only as a memorial of their irrational and intolerant fanaticism. The shops on one side of the square are of great depth and have a double frontage, looking out at the back on to a new street nearly two furlongs in length, which, beginning with a width of 40 feet, sweeps round in a curved line till it again joins the main thoroughfare. The end of it last completed had previously been only from 6 to 8 feet wide. Even so, it was the most frequented bazar in the town, and the shops were a valuable property, for which heavy compensation had to be awarded. The entire cost of this extensive undertaking has been over Rs. 80,000, of which Rs. 14,000 were spent on the gates.
Khurja can also boast of a spacious tank with an aqueduct, a mile in length, by which it is filled from the Ganges Canal. It makes a fine sheet of water, and at two of its corners has pretty stone kiosques, the gift of the resident Honorary Magistrate, Kunvar Azam Ali Khán. The two at the opposite angle are now being added at a further cost of Rs. 1,200 by the Municipality, which has also defrayed the total expenditure on the tank itself and the aqueduct which, together, amounted to Rs. 18,000.
Of all public improvements a tank is perhaps the one which the people of India most highly appreciate, and they are always ready to contribute to its construction to the full extent of their means. Besides the two at Khurja and Bulandshahr, eight[3] others have been made in smaller towns in the district, at an aggregate cost of Rs. 20,000; a nucleus in each case, large or small, being first collected by the people on the spot, and then supplemented by grants from local funds. The same system has been adopted with regard to new schools. If the people of any locality take sufficient interest in the matter to contribute half the cost, the District Board provides the other moiety, the school is built, and the villagers, having invested some of their own money in it, generally evince a more lasting zeal for its success than if it had been an entirely free gift. If a similar method were more widely practised throughout the country, local improvements and local public spirit would be developed on a far more solid basis, than by the institution of any number of elective committees.
The above long record of local improvements can scarcely be regarded as otherwise than a remarkable one for a single district to exhibit during the brief space of six years. Probably not one tithe of similar work has been executed in the same time in any corresponding part of the Province, where action has been strictly regulated by departmental routine. If so, the point for which I contend is practically established. The tyranny of departmentalism, and the servitude of the individual as now practised, are not only unnecessary in the interests either of the Government or the people, but are positively injurious to both. The remedy for present evils lies in local self-Government, which—rightly understood—is the greatest blessing that could be conferred on the country. Its requirements, however, are not satisfied by the mere introduction of an ingenious scheme for the election of representative members to form such a Board as that hitherto existing, which, when once constituted, has no further functions to discharge but such as are purely ornamental, with no resources to develope, no funds of its own to administer, and no independence of action. Its nominal servants are its actual masters, who are appointed by an external department, are under its orders and look to it for promotion. The control over accounts is so vexatiously minute, and the returns which have to be supplied are so voluminous, that their despatch to the central bureau at Allahabad costs the Committee Rs. 300 a year simply for postage stamps, while the pay of the clerical establishment makes an annual charge of at least Rs. 5,000. Such a Board is simply a screen for the most exaggerated form of centralization. The system is wasteful, demoralizing and inefficient. On the other hand, fiscal and administrative economy would be secured, the character of the people would be elevated, and material progress advanced, if every district had the management of its own funds, acting under the guidance of its natural leaders, unhampered by departmental interference, forming its own projects and employing its own agency. Projects, before commencement, would require the general sanction of superior authority, and on completion would be submitted to the severest scrutiny. But the details of execution should be trusted to local intelligence, without undue insistence on technical refinements; and the work itself, as inspected on the spot, should be the test of success, not the figured statements as deposited in the Central bureau. Bulandshahr is in no way an exceptionally favourable district for internal development. A precisely parallel work has been simultaneously in progress at Murár, where—under the direction of General Dunham Massy—the Regimental Bazar, which was formerly as mean and squalid as such places generally are, has been converted into a handsome town with broad and well-built streets. For cleanliness, convenience and architectural propriety, it is now a perfect model of what the native quarter of an Indian Cantonment should be. Similarly, throughout India there are hands ready to work, and money waiting to be spent on improvements that every one desires, but which for the most part are never undertaken for want of a little active sympathy and co-operation on the part of the local authorities, who—for all their good will—are cowed into inaction by the incubus of an arbitrary and overbearing department.
NOTE. Illustrations of some of the buildings mentioned in this Chapter appeared in No. IV of the Journal of Indian Art, edited by Mr. Kipling, the Principal of the Lahor School of Art.
- ↑ Mr. Fergusson speaks of this temple as 'the Sás Bahu,' which is an impossible designation. There are two temples close together on the Gwalior rock, and as one of them is a miniature of the other, natives call the two 'the Sás Bahu,' i. e. the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. But neither of the two can separately bear the double name. The expression that he required to meet his meaning would be 'the larger of the Sás Bahu temples,' or simply 'the Sás.' This eminent art critic boasts of having spent ten years in India, but he does not seem to have taken the trouble to learn a single Indian language, ancient or modern. Yet a smattering of Philology would have been of considerable service to him in his archaeological researches. Such a solecism as the above would then have been impossible, as also his misconception with regard to the title of the great Mártand temple in Kashmir.
- ↑ Munshi Gopál Ráe is a native of the town, where he has a fine house and owns a large amount of property, but being in Government service—he is now a Deputy Collector in the Gonda district—he is seldom resident. He is perhaps the only person who has been a sufferer by the recent improvements. Before the shops on the embankment were built, his were always let at a high rent—though they were very wretched places—Now most of them are unoccupied, though the rent has been greatly reduced and they have been put in much better order than ever before. However, he bears his loss with singular good-temper, and seems honestly to consider himself compensated by the improved appearance of the town, where he hopes to spend his old age and where his family has been settled for many generations.
- ↑ These eight towns are Aurangabad, Jewar, Dibhái, Járcha, Jhájhar, Kakor, Dankor, and Rabupura. At the last-named the work was a restoration of an old tank, which had fallen into ruin. The others were all entirely new.