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In 1940, John Barry, the Calcutta Journalist, finds Calcutta “admirably served in the matter of ‘lungs’. There is no part which is not provided with a park or open space.” Besides the vast green of the Esplanade around the new Fort William, there have been as many as seven parks in the south of Tank Square, the Eden Gardens being the prettiest of them all. It served as the Promenade of Calcutta as Perrin’s Garden did long back in 1740s.
Garden City Calcutta
Calcutta has gardens of varying descriptions and many luxurious garden houses of upscale European and native families; a few of those turned later into institutional gardens like Horticultural Garden and Zoological Gardens. Two of the oldest gardens, Perrin’s Garden and Surman’s Garden were the most inviting entertainment grounds for the early English genteel in Calcutta.
The Perrin’s Garden at the extreme north of the town, now Bag Bazar, was named after Captain Perrin, owner of several ships. Perrin’s Garden was a pleasure resort, once the height of gentility for the Company’s covenanted servants to take their ladies for an evening stroll or moonlight fête. [Long. It began to be less frequented when the English left Sutanuti. By 1752 it was altogether out of use and sold out for Rs. 25,000.. The other old garden, Surman’s Garden, lay at the extreme south of the town. Surman owned both Belvedere House and its garden which were sold on his behalf by public auction to Captain Tolly. It was afterwards purchased by Hastings for the Governor’s garden-house. [Calcutta Census 1905]
Topography
Between Government House and Garden Reach there was a broad open plain, about 150 acres in extent, called the Esplanade or maidan in Hindustani. It was laid out with fine broad macadamized roads, bordered with trees. The space between the roads is plain turf. As seen in Thacker’s Guide of 1906, the Calcutta Gate of Fort William.
leads out in a straight line to the Eden Gardens at the north-west extremity of the Maidan, bounded on the north by Auckland Road and on the west by Strand Road. [Thacker’s 1906] On Strand Road where the Bank of Bengal now stands, the native boatmen careened their craft at Cutcha- goody Ghaut before the English occupation. Later, when Supreme Court stationed in Calcutta, an avenue of trees marked this spot along the river-bank up to the Creek as King’s Bench Walk. A more elegant avenue was planted by the Lottery Committee stretching from Chandpal Ghaut to the New Fort, known as Respondentia Walk. [Blechynden] The Calcutta society took their constitutional, evening after evening, while the more wealthy drove round in palanquins —facetiously called “coach and four ” —or chaises. Others still went up and down the river in budgerows, over exactly the same ground as their successors do in carriages or motors ; for the Hughli at that date flowed along what is now the Strand. [Minney]
The Strand Road was laid on the land resulted from alluvial deposit. The Municipality contributed largely in the reclamation of this valuable land, or chur (চর) by depositing the sweeping of the town upon the alluvium so formed for many years. In 1848, the sweeping, which were reported to cause a nuisance, were covered up and consolidated by the Municipality. The property became valuable and the income formed the Strand Bank Fund, which was utilized by Government not only for improving itself but for draining and painting trees on the Maidan, the Eden Gardens, and works on the Esplanade. The Lottery Committee constructed Strand Road and Strand Bank , in 1820-21,that passed through two Zamindaries, Calc utta and Sootanaty. [Friends of India. 8 Sept.1853]
The Calcutta society took their constitutional, evening after evening, while the more wealthy drove round in palanquins , facetiously called “coach and four “, or chaises. Others still went up and down the river in budgerows, over exactly the same ground as their successors do in carriages or motors; there were no Eden Gardens, which came nearly half a century occupying most of the old walks. [Minney]
Genesis
There are different unverified stories about acquisition of the land. According to some, it was Babu Rajachandra Das (Marh) who gifted it to Lord Auckland [Wiki]; some suggested Auckland himself purchased a plot for the garden in 1841 [Ency Date]. Whatever might be source of procurement, it is obvious that Auckland tended the garden when it formed part of the Governor’s Estate. [BL Annotation to Band Stand Photo by Malitte]
That the Eden Gardens is named after Emily and Fanny Eden is now a common knowledge, but a few know why it was not after their brother George Eden instead. Something similar happened with the Barrackpore Eden School which was established and grew under personal care of Lord Auckland, often erroneously credited to Emily Eden. Around 1842 the Eden Gardens of Calcutta came into existence with the name Auckland Circus Gardens, or just ‘Auckland Garden’. We are yet to know when it adopted the new name ‘Eden Gardens’ and why the change needed at all. {Ency. Indian Dates} Some believed that the makers of the Gardens being ‘inspired by Garden of Eden in the Bible’, changed its name. What we gather from the words of Curzon and Cotton, that it were Misses Eden, the sisters of Lord Auckland, whose ‘liberality and taste’ contributed most in making the gardens to benefit Calcutta society [Cotton] . Unfortunately, their claims appear somewhat inconsistent with the details Emily recorded in her Letters from India.
Emily and Her Sister
There is no denying that Edens had a genuine love for gardening. Gardens were their means to secure Englishness in India. At each of their houses in Calcutta, Barrackpore, and Simla, George and Emily made sure they had a garden. But the letters Emily Eden left with us provide little or no indication to establish her involvement in making Eden Gardens. Emily’s ‘new garden’, which comes up frequently in her correspondences, refers to the Park Gardens, or the Ladyship Garden at Barrackpore where she stayed mostly, happily engaged in overseeing her ‘new garden turning out very pretty, observing that her plants doing a great deal in six weeks, enquiring about the Gloriosa–superb growing almost wild there. [August 2. (Finished August 9), 1836] – all these mentions were about their private garden in Barrackpore where she planted seven hundred flowering plants that Dr Wallich of the Botanical Garden gifted. This was the garden the two sisters and their brother George Eden had built for enjoying privately their Englishness in continuity of their Greenwich days. Historically, Emily and Fanny Eden had no more than accidental relations with Eden Gardens and, if any, that should be hardly enough to justify changing of the name of Auckland Circus Park into Eden Gardens, in other words, replacing Lord Auckland with the names of his two sisters in public mind for some external reasons .
We have also difficulty in accepting Eden sisters as liberal-minded as Curzon and Cotton suggest disregarding their highly opinionated conservative mind-set uncovered in great many private letters Emily.
“Eden’s place in English society developed out of a permanent class hierarchy, from birth. Being dropped into the contrasting classes of Anglo-Indian society made Eden psychologically uncomfortable”. In fact, hardly ever Emily minded her language in expressing her aversions, as we see in her letter of 24th March 1824, Emily describes their dinner with Anglo-Indian guests: ”have great dinners of 50 people, ‘fathers and mothers unknown’, to say nothing of themselves”. March 24, 1836. Eden sisters were upset seeing the loss of British identity in those white people of Calcutta. They abhorred ‘the black naked creatures’ – the native Indians. The status and prestige Emily enjoyed as George’s sister made her “royalty” among the inhabitants of Calcutta, yet unlike their brother George they detested Calcutta, and sometimes thought India a barbarous country.
George Eden, Earl of Auckland
George Eden, earl of Auckland was different being liberal and concerned for the welfare of the people many of the stiff neck Britons looked down, as did his two sisters. He was known as ‘Cold-mannered, reticent, shy, good-natured, robust of figure, disliking all pomp and parade, and delighting in regular official work’. He was said to be least fitted to organize wars and gain victories. He took charge as Governor- General of India in 1836. During his tenure, the first Anglo-Afghan war gave a severe blow to British Prestige in India. He was termed as most unsuccessful Governor–General of India and is known for his follies in Afghan wars. Though Auckland was found “least fitted to organize wars”, he “eminently fitted by temperament and long experience to discharge the most exacting duties of quiet times,”[Trotter] The then British authority, as we see, preferred a war-hero to a good statesman in India. Auckland was called back in 1842 as a failure notwithstanding the immense good he had done for India and its people.
During his six year administration Auckland amply proved his will and ability to improve the living conditions and opening opportunities for self development. Launching the Fever Committee programs, introducing the basics of municipal governance, abolishing Pilgrimage Tax, empowering religious endowments, improvement of the medical and general education, extending government scholarship to studying Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian, designing Slavery Act of 1843, are some of his lasting contributions to the colonial India, Calcutta in particular. Lord Auckland’s despatches and State papers impressed Fitzgerald, as President of the Board of Control. He perceived, Auckland “was, with the sole exception of Lord John Russell, by far the ablest member of his party; his views most statesmanlike, and his government of India particularly just.’ “If modern Calcutta has ever a thought to give to the citizens who have made her what she is, she will find many a name worthy of honour among those who recognized Moira and Bentinck and Auckland and Dalhousie as king in turn.”[Cotton] The new Viceroy astonished the inhabitants by showing himself on foot at times and places where he would be least expected. ‘He walked,’ says his private secretary, “to the Eden Gardens in the gloom of these January evenings, and, like the Sultan in the Arabian Nights, heard with amusement or with interest remarks about him as he mingled with the crowd. [Thaker’s Guide to Calcutta 1906]
As already said, Auckland loved gardens, and that wherever he lived maintained a garden there. Government House apart, Auckland had owned one of the most magnificent Garden houses, the Belgachia Villa, which later passed to the hands Dwarkanath Tagore. Auckland’s deep sense of living in harmony with nature prevented him to sanction a plot of ground “at the south-east corner of the enclosure of Tank Square ”for the purpose of erecting Imperial Library. He thought that those spaces of the town which are appropriated to light and ventilation ought not to be given up for purposes of building.” [Cotton]
So far what I have said is only to suggest that George Eden had by far the most appropriate candidature for being the ‘Eden’ of the Eden Gardens, previously called Auckland Circus Garden, or simply ‘Auckland Garden’, though it is being said in chorus that the garden was named after ‘Emily and Fanny Eden’.
A Garden of Eden
The garden was the best of its kind in English colonial states. The Eden Gardens along the river’s bank had been a place of “great show of fashionables out for the purpose of enjoying a drive— ‘eating the air’ (howa-khana) as the Indians express it.” [Carey] Entering the Strand Road we turn to the North, and on our right we pass the Eden Gardens. A large space has been turfed and is well patronized by hundreds of citizens who may be seen taking their evening exercise on the green sward. [Cotton] Thirty years ago, the evening walk in the Eden Gardens was sacred to the Calcutta elite, and, if not in uniform, one had to assume a top hat and frock-coat in order to mingle there with the great ones of the land. Then a wave of liberal sentiment break the order, and the pleasure of listening to the military band discoursing sweet music ceased to be a monopoly for Europeans. The hierarchy since then has not patronized the Gardens as in the days of old. [Thaker’s 1906] The Eden Gardens complex sprawls over a lush green land of 50 acres many gardens, lakes, a Pagoda and a Bandstand of special historical importance. The gardens themselves are laid out with winding paths and artificial water, interspersed with a profusion of flowering trees and shrubs. A pleasanter place for a morning or evening stroll cannot be found. The portion devoted to promenading is well illuminated with the electric light [Carey]
The prettily decorated Pagoda and its reflection on the adjacent lake water was a favourite spot of the visitors. This Burmese Pagoda, a specimen of Tazoungs architecture, was built in 1852 in Prome by Ma Kin, wife of the then Governor. It was then removed from Prome after the Burmese War in 1854, and re-erected here in 1856. Within the Pagoda there was an image of Gautama Buddha with its forehead set with precious stones, used by Buddhist Priests for worship. [Thaker’s 1906] The lake alongside the Pagoda, where giant lilies bloom in plenty, is a pleasing sight. For the happy holiday-makers there were two rowing boats, very appropriately named Adam and Eve. These can be hired at the rate of four annas per head per hour. [Barry 1939/40] Round the whole is a broad grassy ride for equestrians, enclosed by shady walks and plantations. [Carey]
Town Band & Operatic Culture
Thanks to the fact that Calcutta was the seat of the Governor-General, brass bands had been of enormous import since the city’s earliest days. The town’s regimental bands, or the Governor-General’s own private band, had initially provided Calcutta with this public music. Curzon reminded us that for the first time the Governor General’s Band was played at his Party in the new Government House to celebrate the King’s Birthday on 4th June, 1803. But it was much later in 1820s a separate Band for the Vice-Roy was formed on assured basis. Since then ‘visitors to Government House have always noticed and as a rule expressed much admiration for, the Viceroy’s Band. Emily Eden, writes on 16 March 1836:
“To-night there was the concert, at which the natives came, besides all the same society that was at the ball. Fanny said there was nothing very splendid about the rajahs. I heard the music in my bedroom, and it did not sound ill. Our own band is a very good one, and plays every evening when we have company.” [Emily 16Mar1836]
In the late 1850s, after the Rebellion, promenade band concerts became a regular part of White Town life. By August 1861, the concerts had grown in popularity and the more musical residents of Calcutta established a Town Band that entertained the town each night. A large sheltered bandstand was erected in the Eden Gardens. By the winter of 1861-62, the Town Band had become a musical and social institution; evenings would find the bandstand occupied by the Town Band, an ensemble of twenty-five performers supported entirely through voluntary private donations, with crowds of townsfolk coming in carriages, on horseback or on foot to listen. The Band’s best contributions to operatic culture were the regularity of its offerings and its low-cost. [Calcutta Premiere]
The repertoire for each day’s concert was published in the morning edition of several Calcutta newspapers, including The Englishman. Although the individual pieces varied each day, the programmes followed a fairly standard formula: one or two opera overtures, a dance such as quadrille, waltz or march, an arrangement of an operatic set-piece, an arrangement of a British ballad or song, especially of a patriotic nature, and occasionally an arrangement of a parlour song or Hindoostannie (sic) air. We find Sisir Bhaduri, the maestro of Bengali theatre, staged DL Roy’s Sita at the Eden Gardens during Christmas in 1923. [Christiansen] The recitals of the city’s professional musicians and the daily promenade concerts given by the Town Band were invaluable contributors to Calcutta’s operatic culture.
The Statue of Auckland
This noble statue of Lord Auckland was installed in the Eden Gardens, or the Auckland Circus Garden as it was called then. Facing the river, the statue remained prominently visible from strand. The height of the statue itself is about 8 feet 6 inches; and on the whole, including pedestal, 20 feet only. The casting, as well as the model, was sculptured by Henry Weekes, R.A. The monument was complete in 1848. A fee of £.2000 was paid to the sculptor from the fund collected by the people of Calcutta for making the statue of the Earl after his departure from India as a token of their love and gratitude.
The statue of George Eden comes in view when one walks past the Burmese Pagoda and close to the northern gate. The inscription on the pedestal upon which it stands declares that the statue was erected by men, of whom some were the instruments of his government, of whom many knew that government only by its benign effects, all of whom agreed in the affectionate desire to perpetuate the memory of the six years during which be ruled the destinies of British India — for this just reason that, throughout the whole course of those years, he laboured earnestly and unremittingly to make security from rapine and oppression, freedom of internal trade, the medical science of Europe, the justice which is blind to distinctions of race, and the moral and intellectual affluence which it opens, a common and perpetual inheritance to all the nations who inhabit this Empire. 1848.” [Steggles] It was ‘an almost fantastic panegyric’, Curzon commented, and regretted that the name of Auckland was forgotten in Calcutta by then, ‘except the Eden Gardens, which Calcutta owed to the liberality of his sisters, and for its own statue’. [Curzon, v2] Today, none of those two, the Eden Gardens and Auckland’s statue, survives to bear out the loving memory of the Earl in this city. It seems Auckland was covertly stripped of everything he achieved while in India because of some untold sins he committed –failure in Afghan War, or for some good he did for Indian people that proved bad for the British interest. It might also be a streak of his character. As Charles Greville, who knew him well, found in him some very best qualities for a statesman but ‘a certain diffidence in his own judgment, a diffidence which was soon to lead him, his party, and his country, into disaster. [Trotter]
Firstly, Auckland Park lost its definite identity by changing its name into Eden Gardens in an attempt to cut off Auckland from Calcutta people very unkindly, indeed. The new name convenience spreading of the make-belief story, that it was a gift to the townsfolk due to liberality of the Eden sisters, who had been in real life conservative British aristocrats utterly disrespectful to the native Indians and Anglo-Indians on different counts.
View of Eden Gardens and its Burmese Pagoda. Photographer: Hoffman and Johnston. 1865Besides Auckland’s statue, there had been two other monuments located in Eden Gardens. On its north side, the grave of Charlotte, Lady Canning was buried and remained there until moved to Barrackpore Park. On its south side stood the statue of the Naval Commander William Peel until reinstalled at Temple of Fame, Barrackpore. No memorials of Emily and Fanny Edens ever installed to acknowledge their supposed involvement in making of the garden. The statue of Auckland that stood in Calcutta from 1848 was taken away to Auckland City in 1969, after a short stay in Victoria Memorial Hall being a part of its statuary collection. The cost of transportation and its erection on site was arranged and financed by the New Zealand Insurance Co. Ltd. as a gift to its home city. Calcutta bade adieu to the last of Auckland.
A Paradise Lost
The garden that was steadily being developed since early 1840s under the care of Lord Auckland and his successors into an enchanting sphere of natural beauty and peace for the people of Calcutta, encountered a threat in 1864. The Calcutta Cricket Club, after many refusals of their prayer to the successive Governors-General obtained permission to move to the eastern end of the Eden Gardens. The garden authorizes did never mind accommodating such events as of Bengal Lawn Tennis Championship, Kennel Club Dog Shows, Presidency Sports, Rowing Club boating, but not a game that may ruin the delicate natural atmosphere and its exquisite garden architecture with the tumult of the maddening crowd from the stadium. The stadium has since grown into a large walled realm larger than Roman coliseum ruled predominantly by the law of fashion, entertainment and commerce in the name of sports. It was an unholy marriage that ultimately reduced the Eden Garden, once so much loved, next to nothing but its name, which now stands for:
”a cricket ground in Kolkata, India established in 1864. It is the oldest cricket stadium in India. It is the home venue of the Bengal cricket team and the IPL franchise cricket team Kolkata Knight Riders, and is also a venue for Test, ODI and T20I matches of the India national cricket team. The stadium currently has a capacity of 68,000.” [Wikipedia]
This shows how we like to redefine our past and ourselves giving a damn to our roots.
REFERENCE
Blechynden, Kathleen . 1905. Calcutta: Past and Present. London: Thacker. Retrieved (https://archive.org/details/calcuttapastand02blecgoog).
Carey, W. H. 1907. The Good Old Days of Honorable John Company, Being Curious Reminiscences … during the Rules of the East India Company, from 1800 to 1858; Vol.2. Calcutta: Cambray. Retrieved (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.116087).
Carey, William. 1882. Good Old Days of Honorable John Company; Vol.1. Calcutta: Quins Book. Retrieved (https://archive.org/details/goodolddaysofhon00careuoft).
Christiansen, Amy Marie. 2012. Discomforts of Empire: Emily Eden’s Life in India, 1836=1842 -. Auburn: Auburn University. Retrieved (https://etd.auburn.edu/bitstream/handle/10415/3271/AChristiansen-Thesis.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y).
Cotton, Evan. 1907. Calcutta, Old and New: A Historical and Descriptive Handbook to the City. Calcutta: Newman. Retrieved (https://archive.org/details/calcuttaoldandn00cottgoog).
Firminger, W. K. 1906. Thacker’s Guide to Calcutta. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink. Retrieved (https://archive.org/details/thackersguidetoc00firm).
Gupta, Hemendranath Das. 1944. The Indian Stage; v.4. Calcutta: M K Das Gupta. .(https://www.amazon.in/Indian-Stage-Vol-IV/dp/1178594637)
Marquis Curzon. n.d. British Government In India Curzon 2 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. Retrieved January 21, 2019 (https://archive.org/details/BritishGovernmentInIndiaCurzon2/page/n3).
Massey, Montague. 1918. Recollections of Calcutta for Over Half a Century. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink. Retrieved (https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjRr_WylsPXAhUDV7wKHTWJAXcQFggxMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Frecollectionsofc00massiala&usg=AOvVaw3uvydXqyjqB3xbkOOZe4jp).
Minney, R. J. 1922. Round about Calcutta. London: Oxford U P. Retrieved (https://archive.org/stream/roundaboutcalcut00minnrich#page/n5/mode/2up).
Ray, A. K. 1902. Calcutta: Town and Suburbs; Pt.1 A Short History of Calcutta. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat. Retrieved (https://books.google.co.in/books?id=-Lo5AQAAMAAJ&q=calcutta+town+and+suburbs+ak+Ray&dq=calcutta+town+and+suburbs+ak+Ray&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDnrz11MnXAhUCN48KHdgEDQUQ6AEIJzAA).
Rocha, Esmeralda Monique Antonia. 2012. “Imperial Opera : The Nexus between Opera and Imperialism in Victorian.” 1833–1901. Retrieved (https://api.research-repository.uwa.edu.au/portalfiles/portal/9844782/Rocha_Esmeralda_Monique_Antonia_2012.pdf).
Steggles, Mary Ann. 1993. Empire Aggrandized: A Study in Commemorative Portrait Statuary Exported from Britain to Her Colonies in South Asia, 1800 to 1839; Vol.1. Leicester: Leicester. Retrieved (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44103641_The_Empire_Aggrandized_A_Study_in_Commemorative_Portrait_Statuary_Exported_From_Britain_to_Her_Colonies_in_South_Asia_1800_to_1939).
Trotter, L. J. 1893. Earl of Auckland. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved (https://books.google.co.in/books?id=1ypnW6TwjQAC&pg=PP2&lpg=PP2&dq=captain+trotter+auckland&source=bl&ots=vKMRrW9x7i&sig=rCHTnT2EZ0Z_FyF0dtIz_uFAREU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBspPbhejfAhWIQI8KHbqfDLUQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=captain trotter auckland&f=fals).
Wikipedia . Eden Gardens. 12 Jan. 2018 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Gardens)
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