On World Water Day 2021, taking a walk through Delhi and understanding its shifts of history through water

The history of Delhi can be story of water, where the many cities of Delhi represent an ever-shifting compromise between protection, providing drinking water, and, earlier, adapting to a wavering river.

Beginning at the River – Purana Qila

Let us begin our journey at Delhi’s earliest avatar, Purana Qila. Some say this was the site of the envy-inspiring capital of the Pandavas — the heroes of the Mahabharata who created their capital, Indraprastha, by clearing the Khandava forest. For now, let us leave aside whether or not this was historically true. Buddhist tradition speaks of a Kuru kingdom with their capital at Indapatta. Upinder Singh’s work, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India, makes note of mentions of a settlement called ‘Indraprastha’ in the 14th century Afif’s Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi as well as a 14th century stone inscription.

Two centuries later, the 16th century Ain-i-Akbari of Abul Fazl says Humayun’s fort was built at the location of the Pandava’s capital. The site has been continuously occupied from pre-Mauryan times to present day. In fact, Dr Vasant Kumar Swarnkar, superintending archaeologist, The Agra Circle, who led the excavations in Purana Qila in 2013/14 and again in 2017/18, told me that as late as the 20th century, there was a village called Indrapat inside the fort walls of Purana Qila.

While the Mahabharata poetically describes a palace with multiple ponds and of a city surrounded by ocean-like moats, archaeological evidence is more circumspect, limiting itself to speaking of the drains and ring wells from the 3rd to 4th century BCE. I asked if the presence of the ringwell implied that the river once flowed closer to the site. Dr Swarnkar replied that the excavation had found a rammed brick jelly floor around the ringwell with two post holes, possibly for bamboo poles to stand in. This would allow someone to mount a pulley on this structure, and pass a rope through it to draw water from the ringwell.

The unadorned presence of the ring well presence does show that the settlement had water readily available at shallow depths — or, that the city lay next to a river. Carbon dating has established this to about 4th century BCE. Dr Swarnkar went on to say that there were 18 terracotta rings to this ringwell. The ASI team dug deeper, a metre below the last, deepest ring of the ringwell. And there, in that tiny one foot by one foot space, they found a few sherds of Painted Grey Ware, an indication of a far old settlement, perhaps even 1000 BCE. It is perhaps too early to draw a firm conclusion. This is, however, a motivation to dig more. What happened to this civilisation?

***

The river Yamuna is steeped deep in India’s history. Puranically, she is the daughter of Surya, the sun, and his wife Sanjna, the goddess of clouds. Sanjna, unable to bear her husband’s luminosity, closed her eyes during a moment of intimacy with him. Enraged, Surya cursed her, that the child of their union would be dark and the god of Death and Dharma, Yama. Distraught, Sanjna tried to attract her husband again, but she was unable to stop shivering at his power and wrath. Surya cursed her again, saying their daughter will be the fickle one, shivering and shaking like her mother. Yamuna was that daughter. ‘The fickle one’ is an appropriate name for the Yamuna, who has frequently changed her course in the past. Of course, a river changing course translates to flooding, and, indeed, there is evidence of a flood in the archaeological dig at Purana Qila. River overcame city, as it had so many times in so many places.

A single river never exists in isolation. Instead, it is fed by several tributaries — often tiny streams — that drain small areas and coalesce to form a larger river. In Delhi too, many tiny streams flowed from the ridge into the Yamuna. These remain dry, or form tiny trickles for much of the year, and then swell in the monsoon. To match the seasonal supply of water with the constant water demand of a city, the many kings of Delhi built small dams across these streams, to form the lakes, which helped quench the thirst of the people.

Moving up the Ridge

Our next stop in our water history is away from the river, farther up the ridge, near Surajkund. As the second millennium unfolded, protection was worth more than widespread availability of water, in what was to become a particularly unsettled time. But, this meant managing water became important.

We could stop off at the Anangpur Dam or Anangpur Bundh, in today’s Haryana, which helped harvest rainwater. The builder of Anangpur Dam belonged to the Tomara Rajput dynasty, who ruled over parts of Delhi and Haryana in the turn of the first millennium. Some distance away lies Surajkund, (from Surya = Sun, Kund = Tank), a large, terraced, roughly circular tank spread over six acres held to be built by the Tomara king, Surajpala, in the end of the first millennium. As this ‘newer’ Delhi lay some distance from the river, a tank like this played a critical role in replenishing groundwater, which keeps up water levels in shallower wells nearer to people’s homes. When I visited the kund, the Sun was just setting, creating a magical tableau of orange light bouncing off exposed stonework, reminiscent of a Roman amphitheatre.

In another sensibility, this might have been a huge tourist attraction — a grand, 1,000-year-old water conservation structure. Sadly, even on a day when thousands shopped in the adjacent Surajkund mela, I had mostly stray dogs for company.

Unsettled Times — Atop the Ridge

As we move forward in time, we continue moving up the ridge, increasingly going to the high ground that is so valuable in a troubled time. The next avatar of Delhi takes shape in the more defensible Lal Kot, several hundred feet above the Yamuna. Some sources suggest that Lal Kot was perhaps a border outpost, meaning it was sparsely populated, which lessened the need for water. But Qutbuddin Aibak made it his capital, and slowly, the city’s population grew. The ridge was more secure to be sure, but lay a distance away from the river, and made the job of providing water to a large population that much harder. Sultan Iltutmish built the tank, Hauz-i Shamsi, in 1231 CE, inspired by a dream of the Prophet guiding him to the spot. When my friend Abhishek and I visited the lake in 2020, weeds had overcome the tank.

An inveterate medieval traveller, Ibn Battuta, covered 75,000 miles in his 29 years of travels. In his Rehla (or Journey), he describes the Hauz-i-Shamsi as a large, rainfed tank, two miles long and a mile wide, which provided Delhi with her drinking water. More than that, it was a site of camaraderie, and farming. Battuta specifically commends the melons grown around the tanks. But the population kept rising, and the city began spreading toward the river.

Which brings us to Siri, and Hauz Khas. Today, Hauz Khas is located in a park where families relax and lovers canoodle, but in the 14th century it was a sign that a new powerful ruler was rising. Allaudin Khilji created his capital, Siri, around it. This was a period of frequent drought. Combined with a growing population, the city needed to spread closer to the more dependable waters of the river, and to add a large tank to harness the rains. Hauz Khas and a capital a little down the ridge met both needs admirably.

Famine and Drought

As Khilji gave way to Tughlaq, the drought intensified. The Tughlaqs added considerably to the waterworks of Delhi in their new fortified capital, Tughlaqabad, near Surajkund. Their move closer to the river was again a compromise between a defensible site at the edge of rocky hills, and access to water. As such, it was a signal of the strength of the empire — a large, fortified capital with high water needs protected by a strong army that relied less on a ridge for protection. The Tughluqabad fort itself was served with wells, stepwells and channels. But for all the effort, the fort was soon abandoned. Some say it was because of a lack of water, while others blame the Sufi’s curse.

After Mohammad bin Tuglaq’s infamous move from (motivated by security) and back (routed by water scarcity) to Delhi, he consolidated Siri and Tughlaqabad into his new capital, Jahanpanah, where he built the seven-arched bridge, the Satpula, that controlled streamflow through the ramparts of the city. The Tughlaqs ruled in an unfavourable climate. Famines were reported periodically in region around Delhi in the years between 1280 and 1340, the worst from 1334-1340, where, as Irfan Habib notes, ‘Thousands upon thousands died, and large numbers left their homes. Carrion was eaten, and rumours of cannibalism were current. The famine lasted for some seven years’.

In that era of changing climate, Feroze Shah came of age. Little surprise that water, or the lack thereof, was a strong influence on young Feroze. Feroze understood the key to water infrastructure was maintenance, and he, apart from building anew, repaired and renewed many older structures built by his predecessors, including the Surajkund tank and the Hauz Shamshi. Even then, as now, “The Hauz-i Shamsi or tank of Altamsh, had been deprived of water by some graceless men, who stopped up the channels of supply. I punished these incorrigible men severely, and opened again the closed up channels."

By 1340, the monsoons began strengthening. This, combined with Feroze’s water works helped the Sultanate grow in strength. As the city grew in strength and size and wealth, Feroze shifted his capital to Ferozabad (or Feroz Shah Kotla), nearer the river. When Feroz died, fittingly, his body was entombed within the Hauz Khas complex, close to the water he valued so well. Within 10 years of his death, his Delhi had been sacked by Taimur Lang, the Mongol. Habib places the toll of ‘the systematic massacre’ at 1,00,000, with more taken away as slaves. Delhi was decimated, her structures destroyed. Was moving to the less defensible position ill-advised?

***

Thus far, we have looked at the affairs of kings — dams and tanks. What about the everyday folk? There is a philosophical difference between the tanks and stepwells, or baolis. The large grand tanks of Delhi tended to be centralised affairs, dependent on the ruler’s ability to protect while the stepwells provided more decentralized, dare we say, more democratic access to water. The tank stored seasonal rains and helped recharge groundwater, while the stepwell tapped into the shallower groundwater aquifers directly, or sometimes were fed by a spring. As the water levels fell in a baoli, one would descend deeper to gather water.

A baoli was also a place to socialise, and this is apparent in their design. Colonnades, rooms and terraces abound providing shaded places to gossip, or even a secluded nook or two for more intimate meetings. There are over a thousand water bodies in Delhi. Fifteen of them come under the control of the Archaeological Society of India. Nine have been restored, which often means doing some detective work to find the baoli (as was the case for Arab ki Sarai), and then working with original plans to understand how, and how much to desilt. When the restoration is complete, many times, the groundwater aquifer is reached and the baoli fills up with water. But in the case of some baolis, like Ugrasen Baoli, the surrounding buildings have crept too near, and have deep basements, hampering recharge of the underground aquifer, and the baoli.

Back up the Ridge to search for the Anangtal Baoli

Back in Lal Kot, in the Mehrauli Archaeological Park, we began our search for the Anangtal baoli, reputedly the oldest baoli in Delhi. Walking through this largely deserted park seemed strangely momentous: we were passing through centuries every few steps. We passed Balban’s tomb — Balban who was kidnapped and sold as a slave to Iltutmish, who not liking the boy’s face condemned him to a group of bhishtis (or water-bearers); Balban, who through sheer iron will, rose to join the 40 Turkish slaves who made up the group of ministers in the Delhi Sultanate. Balban, who served Raziya Sultana, daughter of Iltutmish, as her chief huntsman, and upon her falling, her half-brother as well. Balban who served Nasiruddin, as the true power behind his throne for years, before finally rising to become the Sultan in 1266.

We passed by the ruins of the Lal Kot, the Tomara clan’s fort, before coming up into Rajon ki Baoli, passing a large fenced-off lake on our way. Rajon ki Baoli is a gorgeous four-storeyed stepwell built during the Lodhi Period, around 1512 A.D, several centuries past Balban’s life.  It literally means the stepwell used by masons (Raj = Masons), and consists of a rectangular tank, with a well at one end, and the other side having steps leading down to the water. The two longer sides of the rectangle have covered corridors, with beautiful arches, and a terrace to one side.

At Rajon ki Baoli, the archaeological renovation meant that the baoli held water when we visited, which meant we could not see the lower storeys. What was visible was the lack of love in catering to visitors. Few signs. No guides. This baoli has stood as an important, but under-appreciated part of history. The history of the aam-admi, not of emperors and kings, but of friends gathering to chat. Of mothers bringing their children to play, while they gathered water for their family. Today, it can serve as a job-generating micro-business. Stunning, green, peaceful. In my mind’s eye I can imagine the baoli hosting a glamourous party (or 10) as in the days of yore.

We saw a group of guards and asked one for the whereabouts of Anangtal Baoli. He offered to show us, and together, we stepped out of the park, and walked a little way to Gandak ki Baoli. In less than 200 metres, as a crow might fly, we had moved 300 years into the past. Gandhak Ki Baoli was built by Iltutmish for the Sufi saint, Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki. This stark baoli is named ‘Gandhak’, meaning sulphur, probably alluding to the nature of the spring that fed the well. Possibly because of this, and because of the association with the saint, the waters are believed to have healing powers. It is a deep baoli, and thanks to the renovation, was full of water. The guard whispered that bathing was banned because, recently, a boy had drowned in the waters. We saw an old man sitting on the steps, splashing in this little oasis, a step away from the busy street, yet existing in what was, to all intents, a parallel universe.

We walked a hundred metres of so northward, and came upon the imposing tomb of Adham Khan, the son of Akbar’s wet nurse. Akbar was fond of Maham Anaga, his nurse and guide, but did not brook Adham Khan’s scheming and murder of Shamsa-ud-din, his prime minister and foster father. Akbar caused Adham Khan to be thrown down from the ramparts of his fort, not once but twice. His death broke his mother’s heart, and she died just 40 days later. Akbar is said to have accompanied her funeral procession from Agra to Delhi for a short distance. The grand tomb houses Maham Anaga’s remains and is a sign of the coming of age of Akbar.

Read on Firstpost: The Sufi's stepwell — The Nizamuddin baoli as a symbol of medieval protest

We walked northeast from the tomb, and after a hundred metres or so, turned left into a short path leading to the Yogmaya temple. The outer structure is new, but the temple itself is considered ancient. Who is Yogmaya? Many believe her to be the sister of Krishna. Krishna was the eighth child of Devaki and Vasudeva. But Devaki’s brother, Kamsa, feared her children. For he knew of a prediction that Devaki’s eighth child would make an end of him (incidentally, Agrasen, or Ugrasen ki Baoli is named after Kamsa’s father). So, Kamsa locked Devaki and Vasudeva in a prison, and every time a child was born to them, he killed the baby. When Krishna was born, through a series of miracles, Vasudeva replaced him with a baby girl. When Kamsa tried to kill the baby girl, she transformed and told him that his destroyer was very much alive. Yogmaya is said to embody the power of Krishna, the secret behind why he is considered the stealer of hearts.

The Yogmaya temple is also associated with a charming festival, one which goes back a couple of centuries, to the fading days of the Mughals, in the reign of Akbar Shah II. The year is 1809, and the problem is that the emperor wanted his second son, Mirza Jehangir, to succeed him. However, the British resident, Archibald Seton, wanted Sirajjudin Zafar (AKA Bahadur Shah Zafar) to succeed. Naturally, Mirza did not take this lying down, and fired upon Seton one evening. Seton escaped, but was furious. Flexing his political muscles, he exiled Mirza to far-away Allahabad.

Mirza’s mother, Mumtaz Begum, was worried. Some say she promised to lay a chador (cloth) of flowers at the shrine of Qutbuddin Bhaktiar Kaki if her son was returned safely to her. Others add that she promised to lay a pankha (fan) made of flowers to Yogmaya as well. When 1812 rolled around, Mirza came back, and the Mughal court moved from Shahjahanabad to Mehrauli, in gratitude, carrying a chador and a fan crafted from flowers. Merrymaking was in the air. The men swam in the nearby Hauz-i-Shamsi. Merchants displayed their wares to cater to the varied appetites of the Mughal court. Wrestlers competed for rich prizes, and fireworks were lit from boats on the Hauz-i-Shamsi. The Emperor laid the fan in the Yogmaya temple and then laid the chador at the Sufi shrine. After the days-long festivities, the Mughal court returned to Shahjahanabad. After Akbar Shah’s passing, Bahadur Shah continued to celebrate the Phool Walon Ki Sair (Procession of Florists) with great pomp. The annual festivities were broken during the First War of Indian Independence in 1857, and then again in the period before India’s actual Independence.

We asked the priest at the Yogmaya temple if he knew of the baoli. He gave us a vague reply; another person said he was born in that locality (he appeared to be in his 50s), but had never heard of the baoli. Perhaps we were talking of the Gandhak-ki-Baoli? Disappointed, we left. But to our surprise, our friendly guard was waiting for us, and he was smiling. At last, he had found it! We left the temple, and turned right, and went past a few houses and came upon what appeared to be a giant waste dump. Sanitary napkins, bottles, rubbish of every description, pigs. Wading through the rubbish, after a bit, we could see the baoli, some distance away. It existed!

We gingerly made our way through the garbage, and came to this completely unadorned baoli in the middle of a thicket of forest. The city faded away, and the centuries fell away. We were standing in front of possibly earliest existing baoli of Delhi. In a sense, Anangtal Baoli reflects our relationship with water. Once prized, cherished, shepherded. Today, like India’s water, this 1,000-year-old structure is unloved, its true value forgotten.

***

The above text has been excerpted from Mridula Ramesh's upcoming book, The Watershed. 

Mridula Ramesh is the founder of the Sundaram Climate Institute, cleantech angel investor and author of The Climate Solution — India's Climate Crisis and What We Can Do About It, published by Hachette. Follow her work on her website; on Twitter; or write to her at cc@climaction.net.