Shimla, Imperial Capital to shanty living

Ravinder Makhaik

Pampered and coveted by the mighty British imperial power, Shimla, an expanding and crowded hill city today, has lost most of its sheen within 200 years of its founding.

Feted for its place in history as the country leaped from a subjugated land to a free and democratic nation, many of the landmark buildings, malls, fashion shops, theatres, churches, parks, tennis courts, swimming pools and other civic luxuries soon fell into disuse or have undergone drastic changes.

Secured as an outpost of the expanding British empire in the early 19th century, it was Lieutenant Ross, an assistant political agent to the hill states, who set up the first wood and thatch cottage residence in Chotta Shimla in 1819. 

It was the 1815-16 Gurkha Wars that introduced the British military to the cool climate of the place, which soon caught their fancy. 

Lieutenant Kennedy, successor to Ross, built a house in 1822 and by 1827, Lord Amherst, the Governor General, was in Shimla for the summer.

To escape hot weather, the seat of government, first occasionally and then regularly, started temporarily being moved from Calcutta to Shimla. 

By 1864, with only about 290 houses, Sir John Lawrence elevated Shimla as the Summer Capital of India. In less than 50 years, it was a meteoric rise for a nondescript Himalayan hamlet to a global power centre of its day. 

As a stamp of imperial power, a golf course was laid out at Naldehra and a race course was developed at Annadale glade where polo was also played. India’s premier football tournament, the Durand Cup, was started in 1888. An engineering marvel built at a great cost, the hill station was connected by rail in 1898.

The nine-month long 1913-14 Shimla Convention with representatives from China, Tibet and India demarcated the McMohan Line border that India and China even a century later are still struggling to settle.

The Viceregal Lodge, a hilltop Scottish baronial style castle, as the Viceroy’s residence from 1888 to 1947 was where many of the strategies to suppress a nation’s aspirations for freedom were drawn up, and Mahatma Gandhi, Jawharlal Nehru with other national leaders were hosted to try and settle complex issues about the partition of India and Pakistan.

The 1972 Shimla Agreement, after the 1971 India-Pakistan War, was the last important date with history that the place was witness to.

Much like today, a large summer population stretched the town’s limited civic amenities even during the Raj days. Unlike other hill resorts around the world that are mostly sheltered in valleys, providing water to the hilltop locations is still a challenge for the municipality, like it was for the founding town planners.

The earliest 1881 Simla Gazetteer records a cholera breakout in 1875 after which improvements to the defective water supply were carried out.

A sewage-contaminated drinking water supply caused the 2016 jaundice breakout that left 10 dead and over 5,000 residents had to be treated.