Cantonments: Tracing its history and role in India

Cantonments, those vast stretches dotted with ‘grant bungalows’, Gothic churches and green meadows across which military men march in misty mornings or sweat it out in sultry afternoons, will vanish soon. The military will keep their stations and camping grounds; the civilian part of the cantonments will be merged with neighbouring municipalities or give rise to civil towns. With that will end an institution that took birth with British rule in India, and lasted more than 250 years.

Civilians often confuse cantonments with military stations. Military stations―more than 200 in India―are secured areas where the armed forces run their establishments. You can be shot―and no questions asked―if you enter those places without a pass, permit or invitation. Cantonments―there are 62―are semi-civilian local bodies, much like the municipalities with regular politics, protests and polls.

One can trace the rise and spread of British power in India if one follows the chronology of cantonments. The British began their rule in India after Robert Clive defeated Bengal Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula at Plassey in 1757. So as to quell any challenge to their authority, the British set up the first ‘cantonment’, a place where the troops were cantoned, in Barrackpore near their fort in Calcutta in 1764.

The East India Company acquired tax collection rights over Bihar, Bengal and Odisha, too, in 1765, after Hector Munro defeated the combined armies of the Mughal emperor, the raja of Benaras, the nawab of Bengal and the nawab of Awadh at Buxar. The second cantonment came up in Danapur in Bihar in 1765. Following the Regulating Act of 1773, the English parliament resolved all the lands that came into the possession of the East India Company, and later the colonial government, by trade, intrigue or conquest, would be the property of the government in Calcutta.

Changing times: The first cantonment in India came after Robert Clive (in pic) defeated Bengal Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula at Plassey in 1757.

A need was felt to station troops near towns. The idea was to locate them away from major towns so that they would not get ‘polluted’ by local politics, but not too far so that they could quickly march in to quell unrests. There would, of course, be several civilians, originally camp-followers such as servants, cooks, carpenters, masons, ostlers, grooms, barbers, paramedics and prostitutes in or near the cantonments who were to service the army and its troops. Provisions were made for them to set up shops and homes, and loyal local worthies granted land to build bungalows―still known as ‘grant bungalows’.

Soon, the Marathas captured Delhi and made the emperor their forced ally. In 1803, Lord Lake defeated their combined forces, making the British the overlords of most of the Gangetic plain. Cantonments sprouted all acorss the Gangetic plain, starting with Meerut in 1803 and Agra in 1805. As the chieftains of Bundelkhand, Rohilkhand, Awadh and the neighbouring regions continued to be restive, cantonments sprouted in Bareilly (1811) and Varanasi (1811). When the British marched into Nepal to crush the Gurkha power in 1815, they set up the Almora cantonment on the way.

Thrown out of the Gangetic plain, the Maratha chiefs took up stand across central India. As the British marched into the Deccan and central India against them, they set up cantonments in Kirkee (1817), Pune (1817), Jabalpur (1818), Kamptee (1812), Sagar (1835) and other places.

In 1882, Lord Ripon (in pic) allowed local self-government in cantonments.

Having conquered most of north and central India, they looked to the northwest. As the Sikh empire declined after the death of the illustrious Ranjit Singh, there arose border clashes with the company’s domains. Punjab was annexed after three Anglo-Sikh wars, and cantonments set up in Jalandhar (1848), Amritsar (1856) and Dalhousie (1867). The great revolt of 1857 shook the faith of the British in the loyalty of the natives of the Gangetic plain and the adjoining hills. So a chain of cantonments was set up including Allahabad (1857) and Lansdowne (1887).

Most cantonment laws evolved in the 19th century. As the British resident in the Satara kingdom, Sir Bartle Frere set up committees that collected funds and kept the town clean in the 1860s. As Indian towns were found to be filthy, laws were made to empower cantonments to build drains and set up clinics. In 1882, Lord Ripon allowed local self-government in cantonments, too.

The 20th century cantonments are spread out across the country―Ahmedabad (1905), Dehradun (1913), one near the new capital in Delhi (1914), one in Mhow towards the end of World War I (1918), Wellington (1924), and Belgaum (1932), and then during World War II in Cannanore (1938), Clement Town (1941), Ramgarh (1941) and the last one at Khasyol (1942).

Following the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms which introduced diarchy, a new Cantonments Act 1924 was passed, allowing elected civilian representation, levy of taxes, and regulation of building and trade. Elected civilians and nominated army men were made equals and equal in number. Troops were exempted from taxes. This scheme survived even the Government of India Act of 1935 and the Constitution of 1950. After the first Kashmir war, free India set up cantonments in Badamibagh in Srinagar and Jammu (both 1954), Morar (1956), Dehu Road (1958), Babina (1959) and Ajmer (1962).

Narasimha Rao’s (in pic) 74th Amendment to the Constitution gave a third of the elected seats to women in cantonments | P. Mustafa

The Cantonments Act, 2006, introduced more democracy, with more powers to civil members. Narasimha Rao’s 74th Amendment to the Constitution gave a third of the elected seats to women. Larger cantonment boards were allowed up to 16 members, eight of them politically elected. The local MP and MLA were made special invitees to board meetings.

All the same, the ex-officio head is the local station commander, and a civilian officer from the defence ministry’s estate office is always the chief executive and member secretary. Thus, the civilians say, there is no way for the elected reps to have their say or way, even when the military blocks roads or switches off lights.

The civilian citizens say they are doubly discriminated. One, within the cantonments, the military gets preference on scarce resources including right of way through roads. (Remember the hullabaloo when Nirmala Sitharaman as defence minister ordered a few cantonment roads to be opened?) Two, since the boards do not have norms to determine APL or BPL, cantonment citizens are denied of most central, state or municipal welfare schemes. Moreover, the cumbersome lease and ceiling laws lead to delays in land transfer, house building or opening businesses, leaving cantonment denizens poorer than their town cousins.

The British had also given away cantonments like Bangalore to civilian control. Now independent India is following suit―well, full suit. But critics of the civilian drive have another point―that if the boards go, land sharks will despoil the vast virgin lands and raise concrete jungles there.

At stake are a million or more green acres.