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Dehradun Jail: Blood, Tears & Greater Good

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“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky As an urban township, Dehradun was a rather late phenomenon. The genesis for it was due to the efforts of the Udasi institution, the Darbar of Guru Ram Rai. A distinguished spiritual head of the Udasi order, Ram Rai, came to Dehradun in 1676 and a form of urbanisation in the late medieval style influenced by Mughal and emerging Sikh styles in architecture was used. However, this urbanisation was spread across a limited area around the Darbar and a few neighbouring streets, auxiliary establishments to the Darbar. The next significant step towards the gentrification of Dehradun took place a decade after the British East India Company annexed Dehradun to its dominions in 1815-16 displacing with difficulty the Gorkhali occupation of Uttarakhand and Himachal and parts of United Provinces, Bihar and Bengal. Both, Guru Ram Rai in the late seventeenth century and the British admini...
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Glorious Past of Dehradun’s Race Course

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A remembered glorious past is a cultural feature of almost all societies. Its foundation is based on myths and oral traditions far before historical knowledge was adopted as an essential tool for exploring the past on the strength of facts through rational examination and accepted by those devoted to the study of history as a scientific subject. Dehradun as an inhabited region is a fairly recent phenomenon. It was considered “terra incognita”, neither mapped nor explored till a few centuries ago. It was associated with a mythical past and legends. However, around the fourteenth century it came to be noticed but not with significant political developments – hedged between the Himalayas on the northern side and the near parallel lesser ranges of the Siwaliks, which drew their name from Shiva stories in these verdant hills. The rivers Yamuna and Ganga defined the Valley in the west and east, respectively. But in the not too distant past, in the second half of the nineteenth century in Deh...
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Dehradun’s Mohand Pass: Origin & Obituary

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While mountains and hills have defined the geography of a region, the passes in these barriers have played a significant part in the anthropology and history of the area. These passages, not necessarily the most convenient, provided the available access for animal species and later for human beings with different quests and compulsions. Thus, invaders, explorers, settlers and trade entrepreneurs or exile seekers all sought the passes to their imaginary space. Spiritual solace seekers and wisdom sharers often travelled before many others. Guru Nanak Dev and, later, Ram Rai, the elder son of the seventh Sikh Guru, an Udasi Guru, established his Darbar Sahib in the Doon Valley, while Guru Nanak Dev traversed the valley to go to Haridwar. Both these luminaries came into the valley through the longer route along the Yamuna, fording it at Paonta. The other options were considered remote and risky for life. Dehradun was secure from its northern boundary made by layers of Himalayan mountain ra...
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Mussoorie: The Nursery of Schools

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“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.” – Chinese Proverb The British East India Company had annexed the Doon Valley after their hard fought battles of the Anglo-Gorkha War of 1814-15. Originally, the Valley and much of Dehradun district was the dominion of the Raja of Garhwal but a large portion of it was retained by the British post the Treaty of Sagauli of 1816 with the Maharaja of Nepal. It was not long before the British succumbed to the seductive charm of the ridge that lay to the north west of the Doon Valley and came to be known as Mussoorie. Surviving two summers in the heat and dust of India was an accomplishment for the British and many did not survive the first, itself, if burial records are looked at. Therefore, places with pleasant climates were always much sought after, both, for sanity and pleasure. In this, Mussoorie disappointed none as it matched many vistas of Scotland and Ireland to which all yearned to return even though many could not affo...
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How Dehradun Schools Won the Literacy Race

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Among the many blessings that have shaped the uniqueness of Dehradun, one has been more lasting and meaningful and has impacted countless in the past and continues to do so year after year. As vision can reap rewarding harvests, it no doubt was the foresight of certain determined individuals and institutions that Dehradun today is a beacon for the country’s children and youth to come and educate themselves at some of the finest schools located in the Doon Valley. Dehradun was not one of the earliest regions acquired by the East India Company in its territorial expansion across the Indian subcontinent. Yet, the Valley and the Himalayan ridge to the north surged ahead of the rest in the field of education. Despite its relative geographical isolation, a few advantages did lie in the sylvan valley and the surrounding uplands. The coming of the railways to Dehradun in 1900 created a boom in people buying residential plots to live here and enjoy the general good climate that the Valley had t...
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Guru Nanak: The Guru & His Hymns

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“Under the Guru’s instruction, God’s Word is heard; under the Guru’s instruction, its knowledge is acquired; under the Guru’s instruction, man learns that God is everywhere contained.”… Japji V Preachers, prophets and preceptors have been a plenty. And no less has been the spiritual dilemma for mankind, ever since its earliest dawns of consciousness. The unfamiliar stirring of the soul even for those who were comfortably placed was increasingly becoming common with the passage of time. From amongst this rose those who chose to ascend the stairway towards the door of the Almighty to seek answers to quell the duality that afflicted the people. Those who had advanced deeper onto the pathway to God however had to fulfill their self-confessed responsibility of showing the path to others around them. This by nature of the circumstances could only be done through the medium of the local language, intelligible to the commonest of the people. Here the limitations of chosen words were indeed a c...
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Dehradun’s Book of the Departed

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  At not too distant a time, when the British and tigers were still abundant in the Doon Valley, it was in vogue for the civil servants and those in public life to write big tomes dedicated to recording their memoirs or official gazetteers. Penning memoirs, both personal as well as official was par for the course for the British residents and often this peculiar colonial and Raj genre took a few thick volumes to satisfy the sense of obligation that its authors felt towards committing their thoughts for posterity. However, there is no field of human endeavour in which there is no exception to the common tradition. Residing at Dick Road in Dalanwala, the serene and sylvan suburb of Dehradun, AR Gill put together a very modest and slim volume with an equally unexceptional title, “The Valley of Doon” in 1952. This work of AR Gill defies the usual genres by being not a history, a memoir or a travel guide or just a compendium of useful data. Yet it manages in its modest word count to tou...
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