Where Edward VII lost his pedestal

Subhas Park, the erstwhile Edward Park, has been reopened to the public after five years. It was closed so that the Metro Heritage line could be laid for the Jama Masjid Metro Station. The park has an interesting history. It was here that the Akbarabadi Masjid, which rivalled the Jama Masjid and Fatehpuri mosques, once stood. Both Bibi Akbarabadi and Fatehpuri Begum were Shah Jahan’s wives and their constructions synchronised with his own creation on the once dacoit-infested Bhojla Pahari, the Jama Mosque. Bibi Akbarabadi (Aizz-un-Nissa) also laid the Shalimar Bagh, in imitation of the one in Kashmir, where later Sir David Ochterlony used to camp and where he caught a chill and died in Meerut.

One was Edward Park’s neighbour for 10 years and found it a convenient retreat, since it was just a two-minute walk from one’s hotel near Jagat Cinema. An old woman used to come and put cotton swabs on the bushes, which she collected the next morning after the dew had moistened them. She used the cotton to heal the vaccination marks of her grandchildren. Then there was an old shair who would sit on the pedestal of the equestrian statue of Queen Victoria’s son, Edward VII and recite the heroic role played by Mallu Khan when Taimur the Lame invaded India in 1399. The first lines of his poetic narrative began with the words, “Jab Mallu ne apni shamsheer keenchi aur Tatar siphanihon ko tittar-bittar kya Loni ke darya tat par, tab Taimur ki ankein hairat se phat gayin” (when Mallu Khan, the general of Mohammad Tughlak, drew his sword and attacked the Tatar hordes, Taimur’s eyes widened with astonishment).

Lovers’ spot

Close to the statue stood a huge bargad (banyan) tree (now cleft into half in a storm) under which at least 50 labourers could lie down on a summer afternoon and in the evening nurses from Victoria Zenana Hospital (renamed after Kasturba Gandhi) used to meet their lovers. It was also under this tree that the bodies of the son of a bullion merchant of Chandni Chowk and a dancing girl from Chawri Bazar were found after they had consumed poison as the boy’s father was dead-set against him marrying a tawaif. Gay lovers too found the shady tree a convenient spot for their meetings, but after a teenager was sodomised there and a young nurse brutally raped security steps were tightened and lovers found it hard to venture into “Cupid’s Bower”.

Incidentally, one wrote the following piece on Edward’s statue on October 23, 1967 and it’s worth quoting:

“The statue of King Edward VII could not be taken down even on Sunday (Oct 21) despite two days of Herculean efforts. It is so deeply riveted in its 30-ft-high stone pedestal that hammer, chisel and saw could hardly make any impression. The statue, therefore, is as firmly lodged as it has been these past 45 years. Deep cracks in the pedestal is the only effect of the workers’ sweat and toil. Seeing them work on Sunday, one could not help thinking that they were tired of their labours, and unless more scientific methods are used the possibility of the statue or the pedestal being damaged cannot be ruled out.

“To the large crowds which collect every day in Edward Park, the fact that the statue has not been dislodged is in itself cause for wonder. The people of the area have not only grown up with the statue but have come to believe in it as a presiding deity who, though mute shares their joys and sorrows. Many were heard saying that it would be better if it were left alone. The more imaginative could not help drawing parallels with Alexander’s famous horse Bucephalus and the wilder Rusk, which carried only the great Rustom and none else.

The superstitious swore by all that they held sacred that they had seen horse and rider get down from the pedestal at the dead of night and make a lively round or two of the park. The horse they hinted would break into two rather then let it and its rider be dislodged from the park. The labourers seemed infected with these feelings and perhaps felt easier in their minds when one of them climbed up and put a garland of fresh flowers around King Edward’s neck and another on top of the tall pulley standing against the statue.”

The statue was finally dislodged and taken away to the open ground now known as Pragati Maidan. It was then shipped away to Toronto in Canada, where it now stands in another park, which couldn’t be having the same atmosphere as Edward Park, renamed after Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, whose statue, along with his Indian National Army men, was installed there in remembrance of the events of the freedom struggle after the destruction of the Wahabi madrasa and Akbarabadi Masjid. The park is now a sad remnant after division into three parts and better known because of the Metro Station dominating it.