A red sandstone memorial, with a weathered plaque, in Meerut says, “Here stood the Officers’ Mess of the Native Infantry Regiments. Sepoys of these regiments revolted on the eve of the 10th of May 1857 in the First War of Indian Independence.”
Near the memorial, and reclining on a charpoy, is an elderly man who appears to be from a slum. He is sunning himself after hanging his clothes to dry on the memorial’s iron grill.
“Bhai,” someone bawls out, “kapra utha lijiye. Yeh sahi nahi hai; aisa kabhi bhi nahi hona chahiye.” (Brother, take your clothes away. This is not right; this should never happen.)
The scene is an apt metaphor for the state of the cantonment in Meerut, once considered the military centre of the British Empire in north India. Few cantonments have been so overwhelmed by civilians as much as the one in Meerut. There is no clear boundary demarcating the cantonment from the city.
Established in 1803, the cantonment comprises 3,568.06 hectares―a civil area of 149.51 hectares and a bungalow area of 3,418.55 hectares. “From 1816, the East India Company in Meerut had three regiments stationed in a large area [that was] cleared by displacing two villages and located slightly away from the city. It was the military headquarters of the company and the launchpad of operations,” says Amit Pathak, senior fellow, Centre of Military History and Conflict Studies.
Meerut was chosen because of many reasons. It was a vantage point for the British to foray into Afghanistan, Persia and Central Asia, which was the plan before the 1857 revolt erupted. Located between the Ganga and the Yamuna, Meerut had ample water supply. It was also close to the mountains up north, where the climate was much more pleasant.
“I have such good memories of Meerut, when the cantonment was many times better off than civilian areas,” says Pathak. “It was beautiful and spotless. Rules were strictly applied to any type of construction. Things were meticulously kept. There were trees lining all roads. It was a beautiful place to live.”
The British had initially planned the cantonment to be outside the city. But over time, the garrison grew into a bustling centre frequented by merchants and mercenaries, and centres for recreation and entertainment came up. As boundaries faded, the city and the cantonment gradually became a connected whole. Meerut’s main bazaars are now within the cantonment area, where about two lakh people live.
Interestingly, the civilian residents in the cantonment do not have land ownership rights. The East India Company had framed rules in such a way that all land was owned by the company. Civilians have long been demanding land rights and are willing to pay for it.
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The Meerut cantonment has been deteriorating since the 1970s, when the rapid rise in civilian population and large-scale encroachments began. Litigations have since risen exponentially, and the courts are clogged with cantonment-related cases.
According to Pathak, the government’s decision to reduce cantonments to military stations “is 100 per cent essential”. “It has been the experience of the past 200 years that the armed forces should be completely segregated from the civilian areas. And the interaction between these two segments should be purely official,” he said. “The old-world charm is gone in most cantonments. So something should be done urgently before things become worse.”