At Shah Jahan’s Red Fort, an insecure I-Day every year

NEW DELHI: When you see the majestic Red Fort with its numerous gun and musket loops, you wouldn’t believe that no guns were placed on its ramparts as long as the Mughal emperor ruled from Delhi. There was no need: in the 17th century, the power of the Great Mughal was such that no enemy could ever come near the walls of Shahjahanabad, let alone the Quila Mubarak, as the Red Fort was then known.Today, the Red Fort, though still a symbol of Independent India’s power and prestige, needs ack-ack guns to secure the Prime Minister when he comes to unfurl the Tricolour on August 15.
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On Saturday, PM Narendra Modi will hoist the colours of freedom and deliver a message of peace and security to the nation while being surrounded by a seven-tier security. Ironically, though, the venue for this—the barbican on Lahori Gate— resulted from a sense of insecurity felt by Emperor Aurangzeb. Shah Jahan had supposedly protested against this action by telling his son that he had added a veil to the bride’s face. But even then, Aurangzeb, who ruled over an empire as big as Asoka’s, didn’t feel the need to top his imperial citadel with cannons.
After Aurangzeb, as the Mughals started losing their grip on power, the challengers who came from the northwest and the Deccan started reaching the gates of Delhi. Peshwa Bajirao came as far as Kalkaji but couldn’t break the defences of the imperial city. Persian invader Nadir Shah came unmolested to the fort as resistance stopped after the Mughal defeat at Karnal. But in 1760, the fort actually faced a siege when the Marathas under Sadashivrao Bhau came north in their campaign against Ahmed Shah Abdali. The Maratha artillery under Ibrahim Khan Gardi pounded the fort to submission. The crucial absence of artillery was felt by all, but nothing much was done about it even after that. So much so that when the avaricious Rohilla chieftain, Ghulam Qadir, seized the fort and blinded Emperor Shah Alam II, it was Begum Sumroo who rushed to his defence with a park of artillery.
The last time an artillery battery was parked in front of the fort was after the Siege of Delhi ended in September 1857. The fort faced British retribution until ‘Clemency’ Canning’s intervention, but by then 80% of the edifice was gone. The Indian Army occupied the remnants, ending the need to place guns. But when it marched out 150 years later, and after a long, long period of stability, there was once again the need to place guns on the ramparts, this time to keep terror threats at bay when the Indian state celebrated its day of freedom.
On the 69th Independence Day, the Red Fort will be once again off bounds for those without security clearance while everything in a 1km radius of it will be locked down. And a few kilometres away, armed forces veterans agitating for OROP will wonder if their sacrifices to keep the Tricolour flying were worth anything at all. Someone somewhere might still wonder if the symbol of India’s power needs some freedom too.
(Write to the author atmanimugdha.sharma@timesgroup.com)