How Lahore’s Cantonment once struggled with Disease

When Lahore was occupied by the troops of the East India Company in 1846, the British and Native regiments encamped outside the walled city in the area known as Anarkali. It was a very unhealthy environment. During the six years that the troops lived here, there was a high rate of mortality from gastrointestinal diseases. The average death rate of British soldiers commencing from 1846 was 84.61 per 1,000 i.e. nearly 10 percent. Some battalions lost up to 218.6 per 1,000: implying that every year, two fresh companies had to be dispatched from England to replace the casualties in each British battalion. This forced a decision to construct a cantonment away from the city. A new cantonment which could handle a large body of troops made sense from a military perspective. Lahore was an important communication centre with road and railway links east to Delhi, southwest to Multan, Sukkur and Quetta, and northwards to Rawalpindi and the northwest frontier of British India.

The decision to construct the Mian Mir Cantonment coincided with the Cis-Jhelum division being re-designated as the Lahore Division. Till the Kitchener Army Reforms of 1905, divisions were not tactical field formations but administrative organizations controlling the brigades and stations in their area. The Lahore Division absorbed the Lahore Field Force under Brigadier Sir James Tennant, which had formed part of the Army of the Punjab since 1847. A large force of one British and five Native battalions, two irregular cavalry units including Skinner’s Horse and a large compliment of artillery were to be stationed at the new cantonment. Another heavy brigade of the division was located at Wazirabad and a lighter one at Sialkot.

There are a few stories associated with the selection of the site for the new cantonment by the C-in-C, Sir Charles Napier. The most improbable was that he fell off his horse near the shrine of the Mian Mir and selected the site. Mian Mir, which earlier bore the name of Haslimpur, was located in an open and arid plain, that formed part of an area called the Manjha, the lower portion of the Bari Doab (the land between the rivers Ravi and Beas).

Prince Dara Shikoh, brother of Aurangzeb, who was put to death when the emperor ascended the throne, was a disciple of a famous saint Mullan Shah, better known as Mian Mir. He purchased the village of Haslimpur, and bestowed it on his religious preceptor, after whom it was renamed.

The author William J. Glover provides a very descriptive account of the planning and layout of the cantonment at Mian Mir:

“Military engineers [...] designed its roads and fences, parade ground, rifle range, polo and cricket grounds, the British and Native infantry barracks, officers’ quarters, slaughter house, cavalry lines, Royal Artillery Lines and Native bazars; they laid out the sites for a Roman Catholic Chapel, post office, the British and Native hospitals and – in a neo-classical flourish– the oval shaped park at Mian Mir’s center.”

However, Lt. Col. Rowan, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who spent three years in Mian Mir from 1903-06, and wrote an article for a medical journal, was of the opinion that, “It is a long straggling cantonment, laid out on a much larger scale than has ever been found to be necessary”.

Lying alongside those suffering from cholera were patients admitted with ailments cause by excessive drinking. This was a serious problem amongst British troops

According to the author,

“Senior officers lived near the center of the cantonment, and subordinate personnel were placed outward from the center in order of decreasing rank. Native and European troops occupied separate quarters, and each group was housed according to their rank in identical barracks grouped together in blocks of parallel lines”.

I would differ with the author on British and Native troops living in identical accommodation. The British troops in India lived in barracks which provided much better living conditions than the Lines in which the Native sepoys were accommodated. Right till Independence, the lines for Native sepoys had no electricity. The barracks at Mian Mir were planned by Sir Charles Napier, and in point of general arrangement, accommodation, lighting, etc. were a long way in advance of any barracks at the time. The major north-south roads were named after stalwarts of the empire i.e. Elgin Street, Wellington Mall, etc. and the minor east-west streets were named after the towns and cities in the new province e.g. Amritsar Street, Gujrat Street, etc.

The Native Cavalry Lines were at the southern end of the cantonment and the open space where the cavalry trained came to be called Cavalry Ground. This large expanse of the Cavalry Ground was also used for growing fodder for the horses. It took three years to construct the church – which was considered to be probably the most beautiful garrison church in India. The entire interior walls appear to be covered with marble and this effect has been created with mortar made from marble obtained from old buildings in Lahore. To the victors go the spoils...

Shortly after Mian Mir was occupied, the British pulled through an impending crisis in the cantonment with foresight. In 1857 the troops in the cantonment had been reduced by a third and there was only one British battalion and two troops of British Horse Artillery. When news arrived of the uprising in Meerut, in an emergency meeting in the Mian Mir Cantonment, Robert Montgomery, the Deputy Commissioner of the Punjab, was clear that “If Lahore is saved, the Empire is saved”.

According to an informant, the four Native battalions and a cavalry regiment were preparing to mutiny and after much debate it was decided to disarm the Sepoys at the parade ground, where today stands the Fortress Stadium. Early in the morning of 15 May 1857, 2,500 Native sepoys while on parade were surrounded by 600 British soldiers and 12 cannons ready to fire. They laid down their weapons. 282 sepoys of the 26th Bengal Native Infantry mutinied later, killed some of their officers and escaped under cover of a dust storm. They were intercepted and imprisoned in Ajnala and subsequently many were killed. Recently their remains have been found in a local well that had been filled with charcoal and lime.

As the garrison at Mian Mir recovered from the storm of 1857, they had to face a crisis of a different kind. When the troops moved out of the area of Anarkali the general state of health had improved and Mian Mir was frequently described as “ordinarily a very healthy station.” Sir Charles Napier was of the view that, “It is a healthy spot: good water is found 20 feet [6 meters] under the surface, and the air is pure.” Major General Windham who was commanding the Lahore Division in 1860 attributed the healthiness of the neighboring population to the dry climate and stated that commanding officers and medical officers considered that the health of the troops improves on coming to this station. Statistics supported these opinions since the death rate from cholera at Mian Mir of 30 per 1,000 was half of that amongst British troops throughout India.

Even a year’s posting in Mian Mir was sufficient to render regiments unfit. So much so that when the time came for their relief, often not a single company was fit to march and the whole regiment had to travel by train

A year later, all that changed with a severe cholera epidemic in Mian Mir. The cantonment acquired the reputation of “that plague spot” that persisted for years and no regiment went to Mian Mir without the dread that they may too become victims of a similar fate as befell the British residents of this cantonment in August 1961. There were 2,452 European men, women and children in Mian Mir and in the course of six weeks nearly 900 of them were attacked by cholera, and more than 500 died. Dr. James Bryden who was India’s first epidemiologist and chief advisor to the government on epidemic cholera, during the 1860/70s, considered it to be an airborne disease probably spread by a seed-like organism. He reported that cholera is not transmitted by contaminated water but A.C. DeRenzy, the Sanitary Commissioner of Punjab, opposed his views and was right.

The reason for the spread of cholera in Mian Mir was partly related to the flow of workers and traders and provisions from the city and surrounding villages, who carried diseases. However, a bigger reason was much closer. If the barracks were satisfactory, the same could not be said of the drainage. The water from the wash-houses flowed into cesspits close to the barracks and sometimes overflowed. A sanitary report of 1860 states that they were only occasionally opened and emptied. They were located 30 to 40 meters from the well and contaminated the very same water that Napier considered good. To add to the horrors, hospital accommodation was totally inadequate to meet even the ordinary requirements, and that from dread of admission men neglected to report their illness.

Lying alongside those suffering from cholera were patients admitted with ailments cause by excessive drinking. This was a serious problem amongst British troops and in some stations it contributed as much as one-sixth of the total admissions. Enormous profits were made on this sale of spirit and since any balance in the canteen fund of over Rs. 3,000 lapsed to Government, the surplus was spent – but sadly not on improving the hospitals and the health of troops. Instead this money was used in many garrisons including Mian Mir to construct racquet courts, fives courts, swimming baths, theatres, etc. Gradually cholera was brought under control by improving the sanitation in the cantonment but what made a marked difference was establishing waterworks in 1873 for the supply of clean drinking water. In addition, the drinking water of British troops was filtered and boiled.

The cantonment was bare of vegetation like the rest of the Manjha till irrigation was introduced in 1867 by a branch distributary from the Bari Doab Canal. Channels from this distributary (which after Independence was renamed as the Lahore Canal), were extended into the cantonment from the east with a capacity to irrigate 1,200 acres (60 squares). With the growth of the avenues of trees planted along the roadside, the dry dusty plain on which Mian Mir had been constructed gradually turned green. The author William J. Glover credits the British planners in India with creating “[...]a garden city built half a century before this concept of planning became popular in England”. However, this came at a huge price. This led to the accumulation of stagnant water specially when the canal water was diverted elsewhere. Within two years, the number of cases of fever had doubled from 800 cases to 1700 cases. In 1879 the number of cases was 3,427 per thousand indicating that on an average every man was admitted into hospital over three times in a season.

The authorities were unaware of the correlation between the stagnant water and fever because it wasn’t till the turn of the 19 century that Ronald Ross who worked in the Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta established that the fever was cause by malaria which was transmitted by mosquitoes that bred in stagnant water. Apparently there was so much stagnant water in the cantonment, that it was overgrown with trees and shrubbery. After revisiting Mian Mir in 1873, Sir W. McMurdo, who had been Napier’s aide-de-camp, wrote, “I did not know the place again; it was all so crowded by extended vegetation which ought never to have been permitted.” Unaware of the cause of fever, efforts were directed towards improving the barracks, diet, clothing and general surroundings of the soldiers. However, the cases of fever did not reduce. Even a year’s posting in Mian Mir was sufficient to render regiments unfit. So much so that when the time came for their relief, often not a single company was fit to march and the whole regiment had to travel by train. With every effort to combat the fever having failed, the authorities were so hopeless that it was almost decided that British troops should abandon the station.

In 1900, detailed research on mosquitoes in the military cantonments in Punjab was conducted and in 1901, an effort was made in Mian Mir for the first time that focused on anti-malarial operations. The breeding-places of mosquitoes around the Royal Artillery lines were obliterated and the results were dramatic. The admission-rate for malaria fell from 1,400 in 1901 to 300 in 1902. A more ambitious program was undertaken in 1904 under the direction of the GOC, of the Lahore Division, Lt. Gen. W. Kitchener whose brother was C-in-C of the British India Army. The canal was also diverted and by 1905, all canal irrigation within the cantonment boundaries had ceased. Troops were put to work to fill the channels and a few were deepened and converted into drains. All pits where water accumulated including those dug for earth when the barracks were being built, were also filled in. So intensive were the anti-malarial measures that by 1907, the admission rate had plunged to 200 per 1,000. It was just in time because Mian Mir had become so notorious that there were outcries in the British Parliament. In fact, in 1906 its name was changed to Lahore Cantonment and it was now possible to truthfully respond to members of the parliament by saying that the army was no longer quartered at the unhealthy Mian Mir Cantonment but at the Lahore Cantonment. The name Mian Mir Cantonment ceased to exist.