Are you, too, going for a heritage walk around Delhi to celebrate August 15?
Henna Rakheja
What do you know about the Independence Day beyond the fact that every year on this day the Prime Minister hoists the tricolour from the Red Fort? Well, the interest in our history, around this time is relatively higher. That has led to making heritage walks popular in the city, around the time of August 15.
The heritage tour organisers are conducting walks on the weekends before and after August 15 to accommodate multiple requests. “We do a couple of events during this time that have been liked very much,” says Ramit Mitra, founder, DelhiByFoot. “These tours include one walk on Old Delhi Stories, which forms a large part of the story of (Mughal emperor) Shah Jahan and the Red Fort till 1857, how Old Delhi became a point of importance, especially after Aurangzeb. It also includes how Delhi was made the Capital, and was always the place that others kept trying to capture,” adds Mitra, who further informs that “some were even keen to go for a historical tour on August 15, but I advised them against it.”
Quite a few tour groups are conducting tours of iconic places that played a significant role in the Revolt of 1857, which was India’s first war of independence. Kanika Singh, co-founder, Delhi Heritage Walks, says, “Our tour 1857 Uprising: Kashmere Gate is specifically about the revolt of 1857 where Delhi was an important site. There are two routes which we cover — one is DU and the Northern Ridge, and the second is the Kashmere Gate.”
There are events planned even on weekends after August 15. “People hardly know about the Freedom Fighter’s museum in Red Fort. I take kids and do a little quiz there,” says Surekha Narain, conservationist and heritage walks consultant.
She has planned kite-flying walks in Old Delhi for the weekend of August 25-26: “I look at independence as freedom and that’s why a KiteFlying Walk. That’s how we get to celebrate India’s freedom and learn to fly kites. I also feel that there should be walks conducted around samadhis of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru ... children today need to know about who these people were.”