An Old bungalow near the Church in Civil Lines in 1866 Note the Entrance and encircling Verandahs for meeting the visitors |
An old card showing the Allahabad Railway station in 1908 |
An Old page …….Allahabad City
Before 1858 ,the old city of Allahabad
had only two or three roads, and from these went a labyrinth of narrow streets
that went to different parts of Allahabad with some having gates closed in the
night.
The British laid the railway
line as the main strategic defense for the British Population cutting the city
into two, creating a barrier between the Civil Lines to the north. The railway
lines were laid out in 1858 immediately after the 1857 uprising.
The civil lines were
built on the confiscated land. It was all Pargana Chail (sometimes referred to
as Pargana Ba Haveli ) with 8 villages that comprise the entire Civil Lines of
today.
The civil lines of today,
is created out of those destroyed eight villages, owned and managed primarily
by Muslim landlords. All the 8 villages were destroyed; population was hanged,
shot or driven away. The remaining population ran away and the villages were remodeled
& replaced with paved streets set out on a grid pattern and lined with
trees. One of the old village was
Rasoolpur populated by Mewatis , they were asked to choose another place in
Allahabad and leave the original one. Eventually they moved towards north east
and chose a place for their abode and named it “Rasoolpur” again to have the
same name. Rasoolpur locality in Allahabad is the same displaced Rasoolpur.
The plots for bungalows
were as large as 10 acres. The civil lines was only for the European society, Government offices,
clubs, polo field , church etc and the social life revolved around visiting
ganges, playing polo, clubs, sport events, drinking parties, all modeled in the
upper class behavior with an European stamp on each of them.
Exactly north of the
old city was laid out the cantonment on a regular grid pattern, reassuring the European
population of their safety (especially from any disturbance from the Pargana of
Chail, the epicenter of 1857 uprising)
Between these two,
the Civil Lines & Cantonment, two buffer localities was deliberately adjusted:
(1) The
Anglo Indian population Or Eurasians – settled near the railway station. The
Anglo Indians were generally considered an embarrassment to the British but a
place was created for them in the jobs in Railway so that their loyalty could
be tested and trusted.
(2) The
second settlement was that of Bengalis , who were found in all ‘up-country ‘
cities as their literacy gave them an advantage in the govt employment
All these places,
Civil Lines, Cantonment, Railway Colony and Bengali Settlement were places of
defined and limited interaction between races. Europeans lived in the areas
intended from them only while the others had limited interaction.
A photograph of an
old Bungalow next to the church taken in 1866 is shown above with another one showing the Railway Station n 1908.
Was'salaam
Khalid Bin Umar
Nantes, France
WRITE TO ME @
khalidkoraivi@yahoo.com
OR
khalid.bin.umar@gmail.com
7 comments:
Thanks for the wonderful information ..
was anawre of it as a bengali Allahabadi. ..
Very Informative!
Thanks for sharing the knowledge with us!
Great Work!
Interesting Khalid Bhai , I was known made by British and prohibited for Indian for long time but not aware about the fact it was done distraction of 8 village .
Regards
Kashif
sir
is it pssible to have some old pics of Allahabad like that of civil lines during the british period and also of the other parts of allahabad
Good and informative article
Interesting read sir. For a person who loves the smell of Allahabad in its antiquities
Assalam alikum bhaijan, please give me your no. because I am a Ducumentary Director and Belongs to katahula Gauspur allahabad...
my cell phone no. 9889986849
I want to know History of Katahula and few books name....
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