The Curated Bagh

1760 | 1814 | 1855 | 1890 | 1947

It is said that Lalbagh was referred to as Kempu Thota during Kempegowda's time. Some locals believe that the garden is named after Hyder Ali's mother who was called Lal Bi. During the British times in 1856, it called Rose and Cypress Garden. The Horticulture department believes that the garden was named after the red roses that bloom in the garden.

Watercolour, pencil, and pen and ink drawing of the 

Kempegowda watchtower and the Cypress Gardens, 

made in 1791 by Robert Hyde Colebrook.

Bangalore’s Lalbagh: a Chronicle of the Garden and the City

Authored by Suresh Jayaram  

Bangalore’s Lalbagh is both a historical chronicle and anecdotal narrative of the city and garden he has grown up in. Illustrated with photographic accounts, images from family albums, and archival documents lost from public memory, the book tells the story of a city that has borne witness to royal visionaries, colonial influences, modernity, and urbanism. Tracing these shifts with Lalbagh as its protagonist, the book touches upon the influences of Mysore modernity, Hyder and Tipu’s prowess, the orchestration of botanical transactions, and the often unseen gardener communities that tend to the Bangalore we identify with today. With research that grounds itself in local histories and presents, Suresh locates himself within the botanical paradise that is Lalbagh and draws our attention to a garden and urban cosmos that holds within its bounds so much that is overlooked by today’s city-dwellers.

In the following blog post, we present to you excerpts from Suresh Jayaram’s “Bangalore’s Lalbagh,” to dig deeper into this garden that represents the identity of Bangalore as a " Garden city." 

 Sultan Bagh

above ‘East View of Bangalore with Cypress Gardens’,
an ink wash drawing by Robert Home made in 1792.
The Cypress Gardens in this view is where Lalbagh now lies.

top left: Steel engraving of Hyder Ali from the 1790’s,
with modern hand colouring. Artist unknown.

top right: Stipple engraving of Hyder Ali by James Gillray in 1781,
based on J. Leister’s drawing, done in 1776.

Tracing back the idea of the ‘garden’ in a historical context brings our attention to the genesis of its form. From thotas that were planted and taken care of by local agricultural communities during the rule of Kempegowda, to Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan’s baghs in the 18th century, and lastly Colonial gardens, Lalbagh became a culmination of more than one trajectory of aesthetic and economic function.

 Sultans Pleasure Garden

From the 18th century, Bangalore was home to the elaborate baghs of Hyder and Tipu. Derived from the Persian and Indo-Persian tradition of the Charbagh, these walled pleasure gardens—hortus conclusus—were private enclosures that were systematically planted with fragrant flowers and trees bearing delicious fruits. It is said Hyder Ali was the first to demarcate the initial boundaries of the Lalbagh Botanical Garden in Bangalore, It is said that he was inspired by the Mughal-style garden in Sira, near Tumkur, now lost in the mire of history. If we look beyond the walls of Lalbagh, we find the Masjid-e-Meraj Bade Makaan and a large well that supplied water to the shrine and its surroundings. People hailed in bullock carts from far and near to visit the shrine and seek the Saint’s blessings. Hyder Ali saw this large congregation and decided to create a garden—one of the many that formerly adjoined Hyder Ali’s garden imported plants and trees from Delhi, Multan, Lahore, and Arcot and exemplified the diversity of species that evolved and adapted to different climatic conditions. The Islamic garden was symbolic of Paradise—an earthly reflection of heaven. The sophisticated architecture and landscaping emerged from the practical need to curate space, time, and nature.

 The carriers of fire

Artist: Archana Hande

The Thigalas were traditionally farmers and gardeners of Vannikula Kshatriya ancestry. They are warriors who defended and fought for the land they tilled. It is believed that Hyder Ali was responsible for having noticed their skills and brought them across borders during his conquest of the larger Carnatic region in which Tamil Nadu now lies. They occupied areas near the water bodies of the city, growing fruits and vegetables for the locals. They also specialised in catering to the British residents who had introduced many ‘English’ vegetables and fruits in this suitable soil and conducive climate. To this day, the community maintains vast nurseries of ornamental plants which can be seen around Lalbagh.

 Tipu Sultan’s bagh

Writer: Suresh Jayaram Design by: Shree Tej
Picture postcard of the watchtower on the Lalbagh rock
(known as ‘Raja Tippoo’s Observatory, during his time),
noticeably different from the architecture of the current mandapa.

Tipu inherited his love for gardens from his father and he indulged in botanical diplomacy—passionately sending ambassadors to faraway countries to bring back seeds and plants and also a team of gardeners to tend them. His gardens are said to have been built on that of his father’s, adding more fruit, vegetable, and spice plantations in the vicinity. Much like Hyder’s, this pleasure garden too remained a walled, private space. It is recorded that Tipu encouraged the planting of avenue trees in his kingdom and used tree plantation as a method of atonement for punished convicts. His administration was involved in agricultural reforms as well, and he abolished the Jagir 4 system of land grants, introducing instead the system of granting agricultural land as a part of his payment to his soldiers. For Tipu, plants offered new potentials and were considered symbols of power.

 The Garden

The British created gardens in India not just out of simple nostalgia or homesickness, but also to put a visible stamp of ‘civilization’ on an alien, untamed land. Colonial gardens changed over time, from the ‘garden houses’ of the East India Company’s nabobs modelled on English countryestates, and hill station cottages where English flowers could be coaxed into bloom, to the neat flower beds, gravelled walks, well-trimmed lawns and hedges of Victorian heritage buildings. Every Government House, Civil Lines bungalow and cantonment was carefully landscaped to reflect current ideals of ordered society.

—Eugenia W. Herbertii

 

 

In the mid-19th century, With a section for fruits, vegetables, and a variety of both native and imported trees, the significant element of both the bagh and the colonial garden was that it was a gated enclosure that regulated entry and exit, unlike the former thotas. 

The death of Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Anglo Mysore War marked the start of the garden’s history under the East India Company. When the colonial idea of the garden was implanted onto Indian soil, terms changed. The garden remained an enclosed area but was landscaped into a public botanical park—a walled space that distinguished itself from its neighbourhood but that was still used for the cultivation of ornamental plants.Wanting to acclimatise the fruits of England to the salubrious climate of this city (that appeared to mimic the weather of Southern England), the zeal of the British not only led to the improvement of indigenous production, but also to the naturalisation of exotic species and their introduction to the local plains. The garden during the time of the Sultans was walled and shut off to the public and functioned as a private space. In the late 19th century, the garden was systematically restructured, expanded, and walled again. This walling of Lalbagh was one of the most significant decisions made by the government, demarcating and separating the space from its social context—the emerging city of Bangalore—and yet keeping it accessible to the public in a controlled manner. Although this division created a rupture, and a rarefied space for botanical explorations, it proffered the public to come in, experience, and learn from this exotic botanical endeavour. The colonial gaze was trained to compose the picturesque, romanticised notion together with the Renaissance outlook, where all subjects were combined in a linear and geometric perspective, focussing on the illusion of depth and space.

 A tea party hosted in the Glass House in Lalbagh in the 1930s.

Whatever he touched he adored
Krumbiegel

Krumbiegel was not only an expert landscapist, but also a town planner and architect of considerable repute. In the early 19th century, G.H. Krumbiegel, with his intimate knowledge of tree species and city planning, articulated landscape design as an occupation in the larger public works department in the Mysore kingdom. He introduced the phenomenon known as serial blossoming—a careful Gustav Herman Krumbiegel worked at the Plant Propagation Department in the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew and moved in 1893 to India to work for Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda. In 1908, he was hired by Krishnaraja Wodeyar. He set up the Horticultural school that provided a diploma in the 1920s and improved the Library and Herbarium during his tenure. He introduced plants that yielded industrial products—like fibers, resins, gums, dyes, tans, aromatic oils, timber, rubber, and fodder, acclimatising many of these in the native soil. Krumbiegel’s envisioning of serial blossoming in the city—the curation of flowering trees such that one or the other is in bloom, through the year—is one of his many significant contributions we have inherited.
In addition to Krumbeigal’s passion to create an unsurpassed horticultural legacy in the Indian subcontinent, the efforts of H.C Javaraya, Dr. MH Marigowda and John Cameron are also noteworthy.

Artist: Archana Hande, Break the wall

 Darwinia 

Towards the end of the North South axis, where the commemorative fountain now lies, a structure as tribute to Charles Darwin, called the Darwinia, once stood. This structure housed the office, the laboratory and the library and was the centre of all scientific work carried out in the botanical garden. In 1894, at the request of Cameron, the offices were shifted out of Darwinia and in 1915, under the recommendation of GH Krumbiegel, Darwinia was turned into a restaurant. This was because of its picturesque location and because it could conveniently house two halls - one for the British and the other for Indians. In 1915, the authorities wanted to open a bar but decided against it as they believed that intoxicants and nautch girls would spoil the decorum of the garden.

 Drawn from Nature

Botanical Illustrations

Even though they were hailed for their stunning renditions, skill, and beauty, the main goal of botanical illustration was scientific accuracy. Creating an archive for Economic Botany to harness natural resources and introduce new plant materials from different parts of the world – nativize the exotic, as it was called – became the primary agenda.

The practice of botanical art inherently instilled discipline, observation, patience, and encouraged a new intimacy with plants. It inaugurated an appreciation of the functionality and diversity of the living world through a scientific and modern perspective.

These Botanical drawings of “portraits of plants”, the Indian artists were trained to portray a plant with precision and detail, for it has to be recognized and distinguished from other species. The most prolific artist was Cheluviah Raju, probably from the Telugu community of Raju Kshatriyas patronized by the Mysore Wodeyars who excelled in the school of Mysore icon paintings. His skill is unmatched and he is recognized as one of the finest botanical painters of his time. He was appointed by Superintendent John Cameron to illustrate the garden collections and was the chief artist from 1884 to 1923. There are more than 1000 of these valuable 19th-century drawings in this collection, which are in Lalbagh.

The diversity of the Lalbagh illustrations is fascinating and extensive, including common kitchen herbs and vegetables, local and exotic plants, shrubs and trees. From a Colonial standpoint of archiving, everything found was precious, and needed to be archived and understood – in order to utilize it as a future resource.

Paintings by Rumale Chennabasaviah (1910–1988), an exceptional landscape artist with a dedication to portraying Bangalore’s landscapes, particularly its modernist buildings and verdant flora. Bold tactile strokes became his signature style. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, Rumale showed a keen interest in capturing nature in the urban context of Bangalore. Moving away from the prevalent colonial style, Chennabasaviah’s compositions were vibrant, dense, and full of vigour.