‘Delhi Heritage Top 10 Forts’: A guide to Delhi forts, with odd gaps

Popular interest in Delhi’s rich historical remains continues to grow, leading to a lively market for books on monuments and their histories. Not surprisingly, this has led to a steady stream of such publications over the last few years. The challenge before a writer, therefore, is how to make their work stand out. Vikramjit Singh Rooprai has chosen to do this through an innovative use of categories under a ‘top ten’ rubric. His latest book, a compact work on 10 forts of Delhi, follows a similar work on baolis, or stepwells, published in 2019. For each site, it contains a brief history, description and photographs — those taken by the author as well as some interesting archival ones. Maps and geographic coordinates are provided to make it easy to locate and navigate the respective sites.

The sites included in the book range from the imposing Tughlaqabad to the palace complex of Red Fort to Najafgarh, which can at best be described as a settlement that once had a wall around it. Some are very well known and others relatively less appreciated. A book such as this gives one a good excuse to visit all of them, and seems reason enough to justify the publication of yet another book on Delhi’s heritage.

At the same time, the sheer wealth of information that exists on Delhi’s monuments places the bar high for a new entrant. Certainly, no author can afford to be careless about the information they put out, since ‘fact-checking’, to use a popular term, is so easy. It is, therefore, surprising to find a number of mistakes, even in the case of a well-known site like the Red Fort.

For instance, it is wrongly claimed that during the period of the East India Company’s rule, the British Resident lived above the Lahori Gate, while in fact it was the Commandant of the Palace Guard. Or that the Rang Mahal was built for ‘entertainment events’, while historians today agree that it was the residence of the emperor. Or that at the end of the reign of Shah Alam II, the territory assigned to the Mughals was from Shahjahanabad to Palam, whereas apart from Delhi district, it also included the districts of Gurgaon, Karnal, Hisar, Rohtak and Sirsa.

There are also odd gaps. For instance, in the case of Feroz Shah Kotla, there is a detailed description of the discovery and transportation of an Ashokan pillar, which was set up at the site in the 14th century, but almost nothing is said about Ashoka or his pillar, except a rather cryptic comment that it “bears an inscription, giving Ashoka’s message to accept Buddhism”.

There are lessons here for prospective authors. Writing a popular guide book does not require you to do primary research, but it means keeping up with the new research in the field that appears as secondary published works.

It also helps to remember what a reader wants from a guide book — accurate and relevant information about the structures at the site.

— The writer is a historian