Know Your City: Oliphant Road — From being Ahmedabad’s first pucca street to being named after Swami Vivekananda

One such road is the Oliphant Road which was later rechristened as the Swami Vivekanand Road. The road, which connects Ellisbridge through the CNI Church to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation headquarter, up to Astodia gate in Astodia, is considered to be the city’s first pucca road.

An Ahmedabad Gazetteer published in 1878 states that Oliphant Road opened sometime between 1864 and 1867 (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)

The Oliphant road that extends from the Swami Vivekananda Bridge, earlier called Ellisbridge after the then commissioner Sir Herbert Ellis, is now called Swami Vivekananda Road.

An Ahmedabad Gazetteer published in 1878 states that Oliphant Road opened sometime between 1864 and 1867 and according to Ahmedabad-based historian Rizwan Kadri, Oliphant Road was the first pucca road in Ahmedabad.

Forty-feet broad with side footpaths and drains, the road was built at a cost of £13,700 (Rs 18,37,000) and ran from the Manek gate in the south-west to the Astodia gate in the south-east. The gazetteer describes that a branch of the Oliphant Road led to the municipal buildings, a municipal office, a conservancy office, and a weighing shed, (surrounded by a wall), while another street branching from the Oliphant Road led to the Parsi fire temple.

Notably, Oliphant Road was an anomaly at the time, as, of the 27.5 mile of roads running through the municipal limits of the city by 1884, the principal streets ran across the town from north to south, while Oliphant Road ran from west to east, thus not passing through the “thickly peopled parts of the city”.

Forty-feet broad with side footpaths and drains, the road was built at a cost of £13,700 (Rs 18,37,000) and ran from the Manek gate in the south-west to the Astodia gate in the south-east. (From the book “Ahmedabad: A Study in Indian Urban History by Kenneth L Gillion”)

It is not clear whom it was named after, a ‘Report of the Director of Public Instruction Bombay for the year 1865-66’ refers to a J E Oliphant as an “Esquire, Collector and Magistrate, Ahmedabad”, as of 1866.

Notably, Ahmedabad had its first Collector John Andrew Dunlop “take possession” of the city in 1817, according to Kenneth L Gillion’s book ‘Ahmedabad: A study in urban history’.

Under the Rowlatt Bill of Rioting passed in March 1919 which permitted the British government to arrest anyone suspected of terrorist activities, a communication dated April 12, 1919, addressed to the secretary to government, political department, Bombay from the then Ahmedabad district magistrate G E Chatfiled, records incident of rioting that took place on April 10 that year following reports of Mahatma Gandhi being arrested in Delhi.

Even Ahmedabad’s civic body officials were unaware that a road called Oliphant Road existed in Ahmedabad in the pre-Independence era. (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)

The communication records that as British-ordered troops to occupy the Teen Darwaza Road “up to the Manek Chowk and the Oliphant Road to the Municipal office picketing the main exits…the crowd hung about a distance on the main roads or in the mouths of side streets and was of a sullen and intractable temper. There was a good deal of stone throwing and occasional acts of incendiarism and after half an hour or so there was occasional firing. The order given was to fire on any incendiary caught in the act or individual who made a serious attack on the troops.”

Despite being the first pucca road of Ahmedabad, its birth name has almost no recall among the populace. Even Ahmedabad’s civic body officials were unaware that a road called Oliphant Road existed in Ahmedabad in the pre-Independence era.

Navinchandra Brait (73), associated with the Raikhad CNI Church Bhadra which stands on this road, has never heard of the existence of an Oliphant Road. Brait had studied at the IP Mission School which too stands on the same road and has long been associated with the CNI church.

He says, “The Raikhad CNI Church was established in 1900 but we have not found any mention of the names of these roads in its documents either. We have always referred to this road as Victoria Garden Road (with the Garden too located on this road) colloquially. I’m hearing that this was called Oliphant Road for the first time. But names of roads keep changing with political changes and it’s hard to keep track.”Gujarat