The Archaeological Survey of India has at last woken up to the need for the preservation of the Delhi city wall. The wall was built by Shah Jahan but at places it was only of mud and small brick (kakaya eent), the brick that we have now started to make after a long time.
In Agra too there was a city wall which was at first reinforced by the British and then demolished by them to meet the expanding needs of the city but names like Neem Darwaza and Charsoo Darwaza still exist. The Jaipur wall is fairly well preserved, though it has been knocked down at places to open up old city areas. But you can still see it snaking up the hills like a miniature wall of China.
The Delhi wall was also reinforced by the British and it was from the Delhi Gate side of it that troops under Lt-Col Ochterlony repulsed attacks by Jaswant Rao Holker, when he besieged Delhi with his troops in 1804. He was later pursued and routed by Lord Lake but the credit for saving Delhi went to Ochterlony. Had Holker succeeded in entering the city it would have taken a very big effort by the British to dislodge him. That was the time when Shah Alam was in the last years of his reign and quite incapable of ruling Delhi, leave alone his kingdom.
It is ironical that it was the British who demolished several parts of the wall while trying to retake Delhi, from which they had, been ousted on May 11, 1857. In September of that year they blew up the Kashmere Gate and part of the wall. The Mori Gate too was left in a shambles after the cannonading from Ludlow Castle and earlier from the Ridge. You can still see the scars. A city wall with 14 gates, of which only the Kashmere Gate, Mori Gate, Delhi Gate, Turkman Gate, and Ajmeri Gate now survive, was built to protect Shajahanabad as a precautionary measure and as a law and order necessity. Afghanistan being firmly under Moghul control and the Persians holed up in their own country after the recapture of Kandahar there was no fear of invasion.
The destruction of the wall began clandestinely, more so after Independence, with portions of it being knocked down. It was the transporters who did it on the Ring Road side and others followed. The portions of the wall between Ajmeri, Turkman and Delhi Gates were demolished because of housing for a booming population. The wall exists in some form after the Delhi Gate but it too has been encroached upon badly. It is the protection of this part that has become the cause of immediate concern for the Archaeological Survey of India, Delhi region.
There is a sentry tower from which a sentry could look out towards the Khuni Darwaza (part of the wall built by Sher Shah) and eastwards towards the Yamuna front. Another sentry could face inwards towards Daryaganj to keep a watch on thieves, rouges and conspirators. One remembers that in the 1960s lovelorn boys used to look out for the girls they loved from this tower. They belonged to the local mohalla and sometimes even spied their beloveds taking the air on the roofs of their houses.
It is worth nothing that the Daryaganj part of the wall led to the Rajghat Gate, from which the rebel sepoys from Meerut entered Delhi in 1857 and then made their way to the Red Fort. This gate does not exist now, except for a small opening that leads towards the Ring Road and the samadhi of Babu Jagjivan Ram (Samtha Sthal).
It wouldn't be a bad idea if, besides preserving the Delhi Gate side of the old wall, parts of it near the Turkman and Ajmeri gates are also restored and the one near Mori Gate renovated. The introduction of the Railways meant the destruction of the Calcutta Gate. Now, let it not be said that the coming up of the ISBT and the Metro hastened the end of the old city wall.
