Jubilee Garden: Queen Victoria’s gift to Guwahati that no longer exists

We may have all read about the 1887 Golden Jubilee celebrations commemorating 50 years of Queen Victoria's rule over the British Empire. We have read about the Thanksgiving Service at Westminster Abbey on June 20, 1887, and about a massive banquet at Buckingham Palace the very next day. We also read about a gathering of 27,000 children at Hyde Park with whom the queen interacted. The British Empire was taken over by celebratory fervour back then, and the four-decade-old Gauhati town also got its fair share.

It was with the promulgation of the Municipal Act of 1850 that the area inhabited by some 3,000-odd people was declared a town by the British government, and by the turn of the eighth decade of the 19th century, the population rose to around 17,000. For such a small area, a park was an outlandish proposition, but in the golden jubilee year of Queen Victoria's rule, the government gifted the town a beautiful park, an entity that was very much urban in character. The park that came to be known as Jubilee Garden was an object that drew the curiosity and interest not just of the people of the town but of the region as a whole. It was in the year 1888 that the park came into being at the Panbazar area, opposite to the hillock that used to be the Deputy Commissioner's Bungalow till a few years ago, which has presently been turned into a heritage structure. To be more exact, the park existed in the area that is today used as a water treatment and supply plant.

This park, maintained with great attention to aesthetic detail, boasted a fountain, and its landscaping was done with great care. Flowers grew on altered heights and margins that gave it a special look, and a lush green turf added to its exquisite beauty. Its appeal remained undiminished for more than 75 years – until it was made to disappear.

The park was witness to many historical events and visits of many famous personalities and had the great distinction of hosting meetings addressed by luminaries like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Swami Vivekananda, Mohd Ali Jinnah, Gopinath Bordoloi, Bhimbar Deuri and others on some memorable and historic occasions.

Late Kumudeswar Hazarika, who carried out an arduous and extensive study on the city's past, has stated that the park was established to commemorate the completion of 50 years of rule by Queen Victoria.

India was under the rule of the British crown, and the year 1887 was the Golden Jubilee year of her rule; therefore, the year in which the garden came into being can be assumed to be 1888. One very distinguishing fact about the park is that it was in this park that a pre-independence meeting was held to decide the future plan of action in regard to the status of Assam.

Guwahati has always been a place that has had very few open spaces, which are an essential component of urban living. The situation, it appears, was better during the past when this city was just a silent town and was far away from being a busy, populous city.

Planning for a growing metropolis calls for the establishment of more parks and open areas. But owing to the insensitivity and callousness of the concerned authorities, even the historic Jubilee Garden was made to die an unnatural death. In the year 1963, this beautiful heritage park was forced to give way to a water treatment and supply unit.

By

Bhaskar Phukan