The Simla Story

Using Pamela Kanwar’s Imperial Simla as his base, Salil Misra wrote this fascinating article on British India’s summer capital, Simla:
“Prior to British arrival, Indians had a different relationship with their mountains. They were a source of faith. The height and the mystique created faith and reverence, also a fear of the unknown and the inaccessible. Mountains were visited only for pilgrimage.”

In the 19th century, Britain changed from just a commercial exploiter of India to become “an over-arching, intrusive and interventionist state”. That transformation in turn required a huge number of Britishers to come to India to govern. The power and potential for wealth were obvious attractions; but the heat wasn’t. Hence were created the summer capitals (Madras to Ooty, Bombay to Mahabaleshwar, Bengal to Darjeeling, and UP to Nainital).

Simla became a “little England”, and by 1862 Britain’s favourite hill station became the summer capital of British India. Now remind yourself that the British capital of India was Calcutta (not Delhi) and you realize the summer capital was 1,200 miles from the regular capital! Over 10,000 coolies were needed to move luggage alone. The need to maintain “little England” resulted in two zones:
“(Simla) got divided into two separate zones — the station ward and the bazaar ward. The former was a British zone, beautiful, elegant and aesthetically decorated. The bazaar ward consisted of Indians perpetually at the service of the station ward. It was filthy, crowded and chaotic.”
But all this ended up transforming Simla from an idyllic spot to an increasingly urbanized and “manufactured” city and the place started to lose its essence.

As more and more Indians got drawn to Simla, the British were afraid that non-British Simla would encroach into British Simla. Directives were passed to prevent Indians from owning property in British Simla and to reduce immigration.

In the 1920’s Gandhi “used the height of Simla to highlight the huge gap between the government and the people”. And thus triggered a nationalist wave in the heart of “little England”. Soon enough:
“The stigma of being a ‘British city’ was simply too unbearable.”

Recognizing the signals, the British scaled back their interest and involvement in Simla and the city gradually changed from a political city to a tourist destination. And that’s how most of us today know Simla: a tourist destination.

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