Easy Trails around Shimla by Raaja Bhasin

Author:Raaja Bhasin [Bhasin, Raaja]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Rupa Publications India
Published: 2016-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Sanjauli–Dhalli Tunnel and the Commander-in-Chief

If one were to ignore countless underground passages of India’s old forts and palaces, this was probably the first tunnel to be built in the country. Almost certainly, this was the first to be developed for large-scale movement and was a part of the British governor-general, Lord Dalhousie’s elaborate Hindustan Tibet Road that was to link the foothills town of Kalka with the Tibetan border. Under the supervision of a Major Briggs, work on this tunnel began in 1850 and its length of 560 feet was excavated by the winter of 1851–52. Thousands of convicts and labourers were employed in its construction. For decades, this tunnel was little more than a hole through the rocky bluff. Then the commander-in-chief, Lord Kitchener had an accident in the tunnel, which led to its extensive repair.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener had joined the British army as a part of the Royal Engineers in 1868 and after serving in Palestine and Cyprus, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army in 1892. In 1896, he led a force of some 25,000 avenging men deep into the Sudan. At Omdurman, that paean of imperialist triumph, he killed 10,000 Sudanese for the loss to twenty-eight Britons—and complained over the waste of ammunition required in terminating the wounded on the ground. (A young subaltern serving with the victorious forces was Winston Churchill, later to become one of Britain’s most successful prime ministers.) The general was heaped with accolades by an admiring public and Queen Victoria bestowed upon him the title of the first Earl Kitchener of Khartoum.

Kitchener came to India at the instance of Lord Curzon, the viceroy and within a few years, both men were at loggerheads. In Shimla, Kitchener’s official residence was Snowdon (now the site of the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital, abbreviated as IGMC) and for his personal comfort, he took the lease of Wildflower Hall as a suburban retreat

On the afternoon of 14 November 1903, a Sunday, Kitchener decided to ride down from Snowdon to Wildflower Hall on a mare he had brought from South Africa. On the way back, and halfway through the dark narrow tunnel, his horse shied away from a passing labourer. The toe of Kitchener’s blucher boot got caught between a beam and the tunnel wall and forced the spur into the mare’s flank. She sprang forward and Kitchener’s left leg twisted and snapped above the ankle. Kitchener managed to slide down and began calling for help. For fear that they would be accused of the accident, the few labourers within earshot fled. Help came a while later in the form of a Mr Jenn who was passing by in a rickshaw. After this freak accident, extensive repairs on the tunnel were undertaken.

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