New Delhi: The sprawling lawns and flower beds inside the perfectly symmetrical garden of Rashtrapati Bhavan, popularly called the Mughal Gardens, was last month renamed as Amrit Udyan, located in Delhi. Caravan: The Heritage Exploration Initiative Decided it was time for a history lesson – even if not through a seminar or lecture but a heritage walk.
Titled ‘The Idea of a Mughal Garden’, the heritage walk through the Sundar Nursery explores the concept of the Mughal garden and its various examples in the city.
“The garden behind Rashtrapati Bhavan has nothing to do with the Mughals. It was a completely British creation. Why they named it Mughal Gardens and why Mughals are generally associated with gardens, you will understand in this walk. A visiting faculty at NIFT Delhi, he is one of the many resource persons in the initiative.
Designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1917, the then Mughal Garden blends elements of the Mughal style, reflected in water canals and terraces, with English flower beds, lawns and hedges. The role of the Mughals was at best. had 15 acres of garden never officially named It was called so because of the Mughal Gardens, the style of architecture.
Sharma has been doing heritage walks since 2016 about various gardens built by the Mughals, but called it the “Idea of a Paradise Garden”. When the government renamed the Mughal Gardens, the tour was renamed to keep it relevant.
“The government picks up on things and tries to deny their existence, that is not the right way to look at your (Indian) past, that’s what we believe,” he said.
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How The Mughals Shaped the Indian Mind
Sharma said that only the name of the walk has changed, the content is the same. “In the Indian landscape, gardens are associated with the Mughals. No one, at least I can’t remember any other king before the Mughals built gardens on such a large scale,” Sharma told ThePrint.
“There were many kings in Kashmir before the Mughals, but none turned that landscape into gardens, that is what the Mughals did. He has done beautiful gardening in Delhi, Agra and Burhanpur. Wherever he used to go, he used to make gardens. By the time the British entered India the garden was only something the Mughals could conjure up in the Indian psyche,” he summed up.
He claimed that the British copied the Mughal-style gardens because they were afraid that people would think of the city as “white”.
During a walk of about two-and-a-half hours at the Sundar Nursery, Sharma took an animated tour of how the Mughal gardens were built.
He told how the Mughal emperor Babur was the first to build charbagh in India, A quadrilateral garden layout meant to resemble the Garden of Eden (Paradise) described in the Qur’an.
Akbar continued the tradition of his grandfather and charbagh Was built in different places like Delhi and Agra. But Akbar’s son, Jahangir, went to Kashmir, where the terrain did not permit the construction of a traditional charbagh,
“There he saw farmers doing terraced cultivation and making terraced gardens. For Kashmiris, the idea of a Mughal Garden is different from that of Delhiites.
He also said that buildings and landscapes are often geography-bound and not religion-bound.
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Mughal vs British Concept of Bagh
Sharma, who also leads another popular heritage walk.courtesan ‘ of Old Delhi noted that the gardens created by the Mughals were “suited to the local geography and local climate”. This was in contrast to British gardens which were “experimental”.
“The British wanted to make the city green,” he said, adding that he included invasive plants in the process because he planted without much thought.
Sharma remarked, “The grass was introduced by the British because they were missing their green gardens and lawns.”
Grass was “certainly not there” in Mughal gardens, he said, explaining that the Mughals preferred large trees because the garden was built as an escape during the hot summer months.
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‘History should be seen objectively’
Sharma stressed the importance of looking at history objectively to the 10 curious visitors who came for the walk.
“Any ruler, be it Mughal or any other, has to be seen objectively. You can criticize them for their political decisions, what they could have done given the resources they had, but it’s not the same for what they made or what people liked or enjoyed. Suddenly one day you cannot come forward and say it did not happen or deny its existence,” he said.
(Editing by Therese Sudeep)