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| Akbar's favourite - the Sheesham tree |
In History lessons in the
primary school we were told about the penchant of the Afghan King Sher Shah
Suri for improving the then-existing administrative set-up. An ethnic Afghan,
born in Hissar in Punjab, he took control of the Mogul Empire in 1540 and established
the Sur Dynasty after overrunning Bengal. Being far away from the centre of
action which used to be Delhi, he was obsessed with better communication with
it. He, therefore, organised a postal service and, in order to make it
effective, we were told, he built the Grand Trunk Road. What is more important
for our purpose is that while building the road Sher Shah spared a thought for
the road-users, which included his postal couriers. For their benefit he had
plenty of shady trees planted on the road sides under which the tired long-distance
travellers could rest and relax and take the strain off their aching feet.
The history of roadside trees
in India is that old, if not older. One supposes, even in earlier times paths
used to be laid for the sake of establishing connectivity and trees would be
planted along them for the benefit of man and animals. This has been the
tradition right down to modern times. Emperor
Akbar ordered that all avenues and arterial roads be covered with the graceful
sheesham tree. The British were tree-lovers too, and the British
architect Edwin Lutyens went to great pains to ensure that all the main avenues
in New Delhi were lined with handpicked species. Jamun (black berry) trees were planted along the Raj Path and likewise,
I remember, some other Lutyen’s Delhi roads having only neem (margosa) and tamarind trees on
their respective sides.
During my stay in the Curzon
Road Apartments in New Delhi in the early 1970s I had observed that Curzon Road
had two rows of trees on each side of the road with a small asphalted strip for
movement of two-way traffic with the sides left kutcha, un-asphalted. Compulsions for accommodating the burgeoning
vehicular traffic made the authorities asphalt the entire available surface.
Within a year or two, however, I noticed, a row of trees was being felled to
meet the increasing
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| An avenue of Lutyen's Delhi |
demands of the Delhi traffic. Thankfully, the British had
provided a total of four rows of trees on the road as otherwise Curzon Road, as
indeed many other roads in Central Delhi, would have become bereft of any
greenery long years ago.
During those very years if one
happened to visit the newly-developing areas of, say, South Extension using the
still up-‘n’-coming Ring Road one would get
that bare and arid feeling. The Ring Road was being laid but none ever thought
of planting trees on the sides. That goes as well for numerous other colonies
that kept coming up during those years. It was, apparently not in the Public Works
Department (PWD) or, shall we say, the Delhi Development Authority culture? Probably
they never included the cost of tree-plantation in their projects but, perhaps,
would readily include the cost of felling them if these happened to obstruct
the road alignment.
In Bhopal in Central India
during the construction of the BRTS corridor when trees were being felled right
and left to widen the existing roads the Bhopal Citizens’ Forum took up the
matter with the Commissioner, Bhopal Municipal Corporation. Strangely, the
Commissioner countered the Forum’s objections on felling of trees by saying
that compensatory plantation was being undertaken on a hillock outside the
town. Apparently, trees on the roadsides for him and his minions had no role
and could be dispensed with. That the trees render ecosystem services hosting
colonies of birds and other creatures and also beautify the roads seemed to be
much beyond their comprehension. Hence no space was provided along the widened
tarmac which, most likely, will play havoc with the citizens when the city
sizzles in the peak of summer in temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 F).
Worse, he was not aware of the “Actions” adopted under the Urban Environmental
Accords signed at San Francisco during the World Mayors’ Conference on June 5,
2005 in pursuant of which the city government was to maintain canopy coverage
at least of 50% on all available sidewalk planting sites.
Showing exemplary persistence,
the Forum persuaded the Commissioner to consider translocation of the huge,
mature, decades-old trees, an enterprise that was reported to have met with
success at Indore. Accordingly, as many as eighty-odd trees (against a few
thousand felled) were reported to have been translocated with the help of an
expert summoned from Indore. Yet, on the day the massive trees in front of Kamla
Park, a heritage site, were being uprooted I happened to witness a pathetic
sight. Hundreds of bats roosting on those trees were rendered homeless and were
flying round and round during the high noon, seemingly not knowing where to go.
The effort and the sacrifice of the bats and other creatures, however, seems to
have been in vain as recent reports indicate that the survival rate of the
translocated trees was very poor – just about 10 to 20 percent.
Perhaps better counsels could
have been obtained. The Minister of Urban Administration always used to claim
that he would turn Bhopal into another Singapore. That being so, one wonders as
to why help in this matter was not sought from that City State which has
developed an expertise in replanting imported fully-grown trees. Planting a
sapling and nurturing it to grow over many years is too much of a hassle for it.
It also wants the trees to decorate and not shed leaves or drop ripe fruits to
mess up the roadsides. Only such trees, non-messy and fully grown, were
therefore imported and replanted. Despite its rather peculiar attitude none can
deny the State’s love for civic aesthetics and the roadside trees, which, it
believes, also decorate them.
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| Taiping Street, Nanking, China - 1982 |
The role of trees in
beautifying roads can also be seen in China and Japan which I happened to see
for myself in the spring of 1982. Particularly in Beijing and Nanking roads
were lined with trees of uniform heights and width. The trees also branched out
from a uniform height. Standing on the pavement one could see the bare stems of
the trees and branches radiating from all of them from a pre-determined height.
The Chinese and Japanese appear to go to great lengths to care for them. To
prevent sprouting of branches up to the desired height the civic workers would
tie ropes around the stem then leave the trees to grow. Later controlling the
height and width of the tree is, apparently, managed by tree-surgeons or
arborists. The then tree-lined empty, almost devoid of automobiles, roads of Beijing and Nanking looked fascinatingly
beautiful.
Unfortunately, we in India
suffer from lack of concern for citizens as also lack civic aesthetics. Our
public bodies are devoid of them, especially those like the municipalities,
PWD, housing boards and other urban development organisations. Their big wigs
know only beautifying their own offices or those of their bosses – political or
civil. What they build for the people is generally bland, which frequently are
also ugly. Worse, they refuse to improve.
NB: Except the photograph of Taiping Street, Nanking which was taken by me the two other are taken from the Internet
