NEW DELHI: In a major move, the central government has renamed the Mughal Gardens built in 1928-29 at Rashtrapati Bhavan as Amrit Udyan.
The 15-acre attraction draws its inspiration from the Mughal Gardens of Jammu and Kashmir, the gardens around Taj Mahal and from miniature paintings of India and Persia.
It is generally believed that the garden was the brainchild of Sir Edwin Lutyens, the architect of New Delhi. But, in fact, the designer was William Mustoe, the director of horticulture, who worked on it at the newly built Viceroy’s House. Lutyens and Mustoe had long discussions before they agreed to showcase two different horticulture traditions together — the grand Mughal park and the English flower garden — and Mustoe was given total freedom to build the Mughal Garden.
Mughal Gardens to Amrit Udyan: A brief history
The garden has an international flavour. There are the tulips from the Netherlands, Brazilian orchids, cherry blossoms and assorted seasonal flowers from Japan and water lilies from China, among others. They bloom amid the geometric beds of Mughal design alongside Mughal canals, terraces, all blending blending artistically with European flowerbeds, lawns and hedges.
In Christopher Hussey’s The Life of Sir Edwin Lutyens (1950), the architect’s wife, Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton, praised the beauty of the garden, noting that the “flowers are set in such masses, producing a riot of colour and scents that, when, with the fountains playing continually, there is not the least sense of stiffness. The round garden beyond beats everything for sheer beauty and is beyond words”.
The rose remains a key feature of the Mughal Gardens, with 159 varieties growing in the shadow of the presidential residence. These include Adora, Mrinalini, Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Modern Art, Black Lady, Paradise, Blue Moon and Lady X. Roses are also named after icons such as Mother Teresa, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, John F. Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth and Christian Dior, with Arjun and Bheem from the Mahabharata among them.
More than 70 varieties of seasonal flowers also grow in the expansive garden. It also has 60 of the 101 known types of bougainvillea. The garden has almost 50 varieties of trees, shrubs and vines, including the moulsiri tree, golden rain tree and the torch tree.
Amita Baviskar writes in First Garden of the Republic, “The lakhs of visitors who file through the (Mughal) gardens in the spring little know that months of painstaking planning and hard labour have gone into creating this floral spectacle. From the brown flowerbeds of September to the rainbow colours and scents of February, it is the malis whose quiet and unremitting work makes the garden glow.” Most gardeners belong to the Saini caste and many had fathers and even their grand-fathers working here. The CPWD employees live on the Rashtrapati Bhawan Estate and are not transferred to other places.
In order to make Mughal Garden even better and enchanting, the then President APJ Abdul Kalam developed the Herbal Garden, Tactile Garden for the visually handicapped, Musical Garden, Bio-Fuel Park and Spiritual and Nutrition Garden. He had also two structures, Thinking Hut and Immortal Hut, set up on the garden expanses. He held discussions with his friends there and also wrote most of his book Indomitable Spirit there.
Other presidents too did their bit. In 1998, K R Narayanan asked the Centre for Science and Environment to install rainwater harvesting system to recharge groundwater on the estate. In 2015, Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated a sewage treatment plant to supply recycled water for the garden and had a reservoir filled up to attract wetland birds. Dr Zakir Hussain is remembered for importing rose varieties and for getting the glass conservatory for succulents built; Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy encouraged citrus bonsais; R Venkataraman brought banana varieties from south India; and first lady Usha Narayanan introduced tulips and ikebana floral arrangements.
In 2019, the Hindu Mahasabha had demanded a change of the name from Mughal Gardens to Rajendra Prasad Udyan after India’s first president. The demand was not accepted then. Now the landmark of Lutyens’ Delhi has a new name.
Anandi Barua, former coach of the Indian women’s football team, was born in Rashtrapati Bhawan Estate because his father worked there. Barua grew up listening to stories about the garden. After spending three decades in the proximity of the grand garden, he said, “It will take some time for people of my generation to call it the Amrit Udyan. The earlier name is too deeply etched in our mind.”
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