Lt Gen (retd) Rajendra Ramrao Nimbhorkar first saw the Delhi cantonment in 1979. A hero of the Indian Army’s 2016 surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Nimbhorkar had three stints as a cantonment resident.
He has fond memories. “Till the 1980s, the cantonment was a far-off place from Delhi. It was isolated, and life was peaceful,” he says.
The downside, according to Nimbhorkar, was the lack of proper transport facilities. “Public transport was inconvenient and unreliable. There were few taxis from the railway station to the cantonment. Yet, I would very much like to go back to that life.”
The core area of the cantonment has not changed much. Tidy roads lined by shady trees, immaculate sidewalks, vast open spaces, signposts placed with military precision, landscaped lawns of the officers’ bungalows, and so on. But, that is just the core area of the cantonment. Not far from it is the chaos of the polluted and bustling national capital.
The arterial National Highway 8, which connects Delhi to Gurugram in Haryana, cuts the cantonment into two. But it seems the sense of order in the core cantonment area is infectious. Traffic in the neighbourhood is smooth, and surprisingly quiet―unlike the maddening one in Delhi. Adding to the serenity is the fort-like St Martin’s Church, built in typical Indo-British style. About three and a half million bricks, sourced locally, were used to build it in 1929.
Not far from the church is the Delhi War Cemetery, built in 1951. Set up by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), the cemetery has close to 1,000 graves of soldiers from across the commonwealth countries.
The Delhi Metro has a station inside the cantonment―the Shankar Vihar stop, which is bound by military laws. If you are a civilian with no business in Shankar Vihar, you cannot step out of the station. At 10,452 acres, the cantonment is still learning to coexist with the invasive urbanisation fuelled by the burgeoning population.
The British set it up in 1914. Like others, the Delhi cantonment was also established away from the city centre. Over time, civilians trooped in to offer services for soldiers. It is now a ‘category I’ cantonment, with a civilian population of more than 50,000. It houses schools, hospitals, air bases, the Army’s Delhi area headquarters, the Directorate of General Defence Estates, and the Controller General of Defence Accounts.
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Between the cantonment’s orderly core military area and chaotic civilian sections such as the Gopinath Bazar and Sadar Bazar, there is a world of difference. Perhaps it is the reason why authorities rarely talk of the Delhi cantonment as a composite whole.
“In the military, even the mess menu is a secret,” goes an old joke among journalists that pokes fun at the military’s excessive emphasis on maintaining confidentiality even in cases where it is not required. Clearly, it seems to have rubbed on to the bureaucrats in the civilian fold manning the Delhi Cantonment Board.