Ahmedabad Foundation Day: Victoria Garden, cradle of several path-breaking movements in Gujarat

“The garden was at the city’s centre those days, so people from all over Ahmedabad would visit. But then the city grew westward, and now the people from the nearby areas visit the garden,” says Siraj.

Commemorating the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, this garden was built on the land that was part of the old jail and is among the oldest gardens in the country. According to officials at the garden department at the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, the proposal to establish the park in memory of Queen Victoria was put forward on May 31, 1897, by a group of leading citizens. When Queen Victoria died, the government handed over the land to the municipal body in 1901, and it opened the garden to the public in 1905.

The garden stands at the east end of the Ellisbridge (renamed Swami Vivekananda Bridge), built in 1870 over the Sabarmati River connecting Old Ahmedabad, founded on the river’s east bank by Ahmed Shah 1 in 1411, to the west bank where the city would later expand. Every Sunday, along the river bank adjoining the garden’s western boundary, opens the Ravivari- the flea market, a city feature since the Sultanate era.

The garden hosted a celebration in December 1917 when the city recovered from a deadly plague. More than a decade later, in 1929, Mahatma Gandhi, tributing Lokamanya Tilak, unveiled a statue of the leader, designed by M K Kolhatkar, inside the Victoria Garden, which is still standing.

The park became a space for undesirable elements and activities, and its boundary was infringed upon. (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)

Post-Independence, the garden became a cradle for several movements, including the one to launch a separate state for the Gujarati-speaking population in 1956, famously called the Maha Gujarat Movement, which ended with the formation of Gujarat carved out from the Bombay Presidency four years later. A ‘Shahid Memorial’ inside the garden is a reminder of this.

In April 1972, Gandhian Ela Bhatt found her calling here. A meeting with a group of women in the Victoria Garden that she presided over gave birth to the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), now an iconic institution by and for women. Former US First Lady Hillary Clinton dedicated the memorial to Bhatt earlier this month during a three-day visit to Gujarat.

The garden also commemorates personal losses like the death of the 19-year-old Phiroze, whose parents Dr Bryomji H Nanavatty and his wife Dhanbai built the Nanavatty Memorial Fountain.

In 2016, the efforts of the UN Mehta Foundation and the landscape design firm of Prabhakar B Bhagwat, headed by architect Aniket Bhagwat, renovated and redesigned the garden bringing back its lost glory. Vaidehi Bhagwat, Research associate and co-ordinator at Landscape Environment Advancement Foundation (LEAF), an arm of the firm, says, “All we know is that Bryomji was a doctor. We were not able to track down how Nanavatty’s son died.”

In its original form, the garden had a bandstand where a band played once a week for a few years beginning in 1906. The garden also had a shooting range and a radio shack from where news and music were broadcast over speakers installed on the premises. In 1910, the marble statue of Queen Victoria, by renowned artist H G Mhatre, was installed.

The park, however, became a space for undesirable elements and activities, and its boundary was infringed upon. “Before the redevelopment took place, there were a lot of cases related to drugs and liquor; it became the spot for such people consuming and trading those substances,” says Jignesh Patel, the director of Parks and Gardens, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.

Over the decades, the connection was further severed with two new roads towards the Sabarmati riverfront between Ellis Bridge and the Victoria Garden. The size of the Garden was also reduced because of new roads laid around it.

“About 2,500 square metres of the area has been reduced to create the infrastructure for easy access to the Sabarmati riverfront. But we have redeveloped the garden, restoring the old structures, especially the radio tower. Victoria garden is the only one such garden in Ahmedabad which has a radio, and people still come to listen to that,” says Patel.

The garden is spread over an area of approximately 28,260 square metres.

A part of the garden was turned into a forest walk and a maze garden. (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)

In 2019, the garden was refurbished with remnants from the past like the Nanavatty Memorial Fountain, Queen Victoria’s canopy Lokmanya Tilak Statue, Maha Gujarat Shahid Memorial, a speaker, bandstand, water tank, a mazhar (tomb) and other features.

It also got new walkways, seating and a giant children’s play zone. It was also given an enclosed volleyball play court. New facilities like clean toilets and drinking water were added. The old water gardens were repaired and replanted. A new bandstand was created in the main lawn quadrangle.

A part of the garden was turned into a forest walk and a maze garden. A city plaza was created for people to spend time with their families and friends. All this was done by conserving every tree and adding more, says a note from UNM Mehta Foundation.

Rangwala, who has seen the garden in its earlier form, says, “The garden has shrunk in the frontside as roads connecting to the Sabarmati Riverfront were carved out. Also, with the development of the riverfront and Dharoi dam, the Sabarmati river now does not flow to the garden’s boundary as it used to in those days. I came here to watch the swollen river during monsoons, which was quite a sight.”

Rumana, who belongs to Mumbai, has lived in the city for forty years since marrying Siraj. She is reminded of Mumbai’s Victoria Garden, the Rani Baug, where she hung out with friends when she was young.

“Back then, it was just the Victoria Garden. Now more gardens have come up in Ahmedabad, mostly on the other side of the river, Parimal garden, Law garden, etc. We go to those gardens for outings with my friends here, as they have more eateries and space around. This part is not that developed in those aspects. Though the Corporation has now worked well here, and this garden is in better condition than it was some years back.”