28°40′00″N77°13′44″E / 28.6666296°N 77.2287938°E | |
Location | Old Delhi, Delhi |
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Type | City gate |
Kashmiri Gate, also spelled Kashmere Gate, is a historic gate located in Old Delhi, Delhi, India. It served as the northern entrance to the walled city of Shahjahanabad, the capital of the Mughal Empire. Built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in the mid-17th century, the gate is named after its proximity to the road that led to Kashmir. It holds historical significance not only for its architectural grandeur but also for its role in key events, including the 1857 Indian Rebellion. Today, Kashmiri Gate is a prominent landmark in Delhi, connecting several major roads and serving as a hub for the city's transportation network.
Kashmiri Gate lends its name to the surrounding locality in North Delhi, situated in the Old Delhi area. It also serves as a significant road junction since it lies in close proximity to important landmarks such as the Red Fort, the Inter-State Bus Terminal (ISBT), and the Delhi Junction railway station.
Kashmiri Gate is located at the northern entrance to the walled city of Shahjahanabad (now referred to as Old Delhi), leading towards the Red Fort, which served as the imperial residence of the Mughal emperor. The gate was named "Kashmere Gate" during the British Raj, as it faced the direction of Kashmir. The monument still stands today, preserving its historical significance. The southern gate of the walled city is known as the Delhi Gate.
When the British first began settling in Delhi in 1803, they found the walls of the Old Delhi city, Shahjahanabad, in disrepair, especially after the siege byYashwantrao Holkar of the Maratha Confederacy in 1804. In response, the British reinforced the city's walls. Over time, they gradually established their residential estates in the Kashmiri Gate area, which had once been home to Mughal palaces and the residences of nobility. [1] The Kashmiri Gate amassed national attention during the Mutiny of 1857, when it became a key site of resistance. Rebelling soldiers fired volleys of cannonballs from the gate at the British forces and used the area to assemble and strategise their fight against colonial rule. The gate played a pivotal role in the uprising, symbolising the resistance and resilience of Indian soldiers during this significant historical event.
At the onset of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British used Kashmiri Gate to prevent the mutineers from entering the city. Efforts, however, floundered.
Evidence of the successive assaults mounted by British forces to storm the city can still be witnessed in the damage to the existing walls, likely caused by cannonballs. On the morning of 14 September 1857, Kashmiri Gate was the site of a significant British assault. The British Army destroyed the bridge and the left leaf of the gate using gunpowder, marking the beginning of the final assault on the rebels towards the end of the Siege of Delhi. [2]
After the 1857 rebellion, the British moved to Civil Lines, and Kashmiri Gate assumed a distinction as the fashion and commercial center of Delhi, a status it held until the creation of New Delhi in 1931. In 1965, a section of the gate was demolished to facilitate faster vehicular traffic movement. Since then, Kashmiri Gate has been preserved as a protected monument under the Archaeological Survey of India. [1]
In the early 1910s, employees of the Government of India Press settled around Kashmiri Gate, including a sizable Bengali community. This community established the Delhi Durga Puja Samiti in 1910, which organised the first Durga Puja celebration in the area. Today, it is the oldest Durga Puja celebration in Delhi. [3]
The building housing the Delhi State Election Commission's office, located on Lothian Road near Kashmiri Gate, was constructed between 1890 and 1891. From 1891 until 1941, it housed St. Stephen's College, Delhi, before the college moved to its present location in the University Enclave. During the Partition of India in 1947, Kashmiri Gate served as a refugee camp for people who had migrated from West Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province. [4]
Between 2016 and 2017, Kashmiri Gate was listed by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) as a notorious market for selling counterfeit auto parts.. [5] [6]
St. James Church, also known as Skinner's Church, was commissioned by Colonel James Skinner (1778–1841), a renowned Anglo-Indian military officer who founded and led the eponymous cavalry regiment, Skinner's Horse. The church was designed by Major Robert Smith and constructed between 1826 and 1836. [7]
The Maharana Pratap Inter-state Bus Terminus or ISBT is the oldest and one of the largest Inter State Bus Terminals in India, operating bus services between Delhi and seven states: Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. It opened in 1976. [8]
The Kashmere Gate station of the Delhi Metro lies on the only trijunction of the Delhi Metro network: the Red, Yellow, and Violet lines converge at this station. [9]
A library established by Mughal prince Dara Shikoh, the elder brother of Emperor Aurangzeb, still exists in Kashmiri Gate. It is currently administered as an archaeological museum by the Archaeological Survey of India.
Madrasa Aminia, established in 1897 by Amin al-Dehlawi, is one of the historical Islamic institutions in Kashmiri Gate. [10]
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859.
Masjid-i-Jehan-Numa, commonly known as the Jama Masjid of Delhi, is one of the largest mosques in India.
Sadar Bazaar is a wholesale market in Old Delhi, Delhi, India.
Old Delhi is an area in the Central Delhi district of Delhi, India. It was founded as a walled city and officially named Shahjahanabad in 1648, when Shah Jahan decided to shift the Mughal capital from Agra. The construction of the city was completed in 1648, and it remained the capital of Mughal India until its fall in 1857, when the British Empire took over as paramount power in the Indian subcontinent.
Najafgarh is a town in the South West Delhi district of National Capital Territory of Delhi, India. It is one of the three subdivisions of the Southwest Delhi district. Najafgarh is located on outskirts of NCT Delhi in south western part of Delhi sharing its territory limits with Gurgaon and Bahadurgarh, in Haryana.
General Bakht Khan (1797–1859) was the commander-in-chief of the Indian rebel forces in the city of Delhi during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the East India Company.
Saharanpur district is the northernmost of the districts of Uttar Pradesh state, India. Bordering the states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and close to the foothills of Shivalik range, it lies in the northern part of the Doab region.
The siege of Delhi was a decisive conflict of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The rebellion against the authority of the East India Company was widespread through much of Northern India, but was essentially sparked by the mass uprising by the sepoys of the Bengal Army, which the company had itself raised in its Bengal Presidency. Seeking a symbol around which to rally, the first sepoys to rebel sought to reinstate the power of the Mughal Empire, which had ruled much of the Indian subcontinent in the previous centuries. Lacking overall direction, many who subsequently rebelled also flocked to Delhi.
Zakir Husain Delhi College (Morning) , founded in 1696, is the oldest existing educational institution in India, and is a constituent college of the University of Delhi, accredited with NAAC 'A' grade. The college comprises an area of 150 acres. The college is situated in off campus of University of Delhi It has had a considerable influence on modern education as well as Urdu and Islamic learning in India, and today remains the only Delhi University college offering BA (Hons) courses in Arabic and Persian.
St. James' Church is a colonial-era church located in Delhi, India. It was once the official church of the British Viceroy of India. The building, which was built in 1836 for James Skinner, is one of the oldest churches in the city. It remains part of the Church of North India Diocese of Delhi.
Delhi Durga Puja Samiti, also known as the Kashmere Gate Durga Puja is the oldest community Durga Puja (festival) of Delhi. It is currently held in the lawns of Bengali Sr Sec School, Alipur Road, Delhi. It started in the year of 1910 at Roshanpura Kali Mandir near Nai Sarak as "Baroyari Puja". It was an effort on the part of the probasi (settled) Bengalis living in the city, especially, of one Railway Doctor Hemchandra Sen. Subsequently, Lala Lachminarayan & his son Lala Girdhari Lal helped the puja samiti grow by providing them space in their Dharamshala located near Fathepuri Mosque.
The Gates of Delhi were city gates at various medieval townships around Delhi, built under dynastic rulers in the period that could be dated from the 8th century to the 20th century. They are the gates in:
Kashmere Gate, also known as Kashmiri Gate, is a key metro station on the Delhi Metro network. It features a unique design with an elevated structure for the Red Line and underground facilities for both the Yellow and Violet Lines. As a transfer station, it connects the Red Line at the highest upper level with the Yellow Line at the lowest underground level and the Violet Line on a parallel underground level, facilitating seamless inter-line connectivity.
Anwar Shah Kashmiri was an Islamic scholar from Kashmir in the early twentieth century, best known for his expertise in the study of hadith, a strong memory, and a unique approach to interpreting traditions, as well as the fourth principal of Darul Uloom Deoband. With an ancestral heritage of religious scholarship rooted in Baghdad, he acquired training in Islamic sciences at Darul Uloom Deoband under the mentorship of Mahmud Hasan Deobandi, alongside enjoying a spiritual journey with Rashid Ahmad Gangohi. Initiating his vocation as the first principal of Madrasa Aminia, he embarked on a hajj in 1906 with a sojourn in Medina, dedicated to exploring the depths of hadith literature. Subsequently, he joined Darul Uloom Deoband, serving as the post of Sheikh al-Hadith for nearly thirteen years before choosing Jamia Islamia Talimuddin as his final destination for his academic voyage. Although he displayed limited inclination toward the written word, a handful of treatises flowed from his pen. Yet, the bulk of his literary legacy has been preserved through the efforts of his students, who transcribed his classroom lectures, discourses, and sermons. While the crux of his scholarly work centered on championing the Hanafi school and establishing its supremacy, he also garnered recognition for his comparatively liberal approach to various religious matters. His publications found their place under the patronage of Majlis-i Ilmi, a scholarly institution established in Delhi in 1929. His scholarly credentials received official endorsement with the publication of Fayd al-Bari, a four-volume Arabic commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari, curated by Badre Alam Merathi and published in Cairo, with the financial support of Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal.
Akbarabadi Mosque was a mosque in Delhi, India. It was built by Akbarabadi Mahal, one of Shah Jahan's wives in 1650. One of the several Mughal era mosques in Old Delhi, it was demolished by the British, following their recapture of Delhi during the 1857 Uprising. It is believed to have existed in modern-day Netaji Subhash Park locality of Old Delhi.
Nicholson Cemetery, formerly known as the Old Delhi Military Cemetery and the Kashmere Gate Cemetery, is a Christian cemetery located in Kashmere Gate, Delhi, India. It is located near the Kashmere Gate Metro Station and west of the Inter State Bus Terminal. It is the site of the earliest known Christian burials in Delhi NCR. The cemetery was established in 1857 and is named after Brigadier-General John Nicholson, a Victorian era military officer who played a pivotal role during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The St. James' Church, who owns the cemetery, is the oldest place of worship for the Christian community of Delhi. The church along with cemetery, St. Stephen's hostel, and the Victorian era houses of Kashmere Gate neighbourhood were once considered to be a "centripetal" part of Christians in Delhi.
The Maharana Pratap Interstate Bus Terminus (Maharana Pratap ISBT), popularly known as Kashmere Gate Interstate Bus Terminus (Kashmere Gate ISBT), located in Delhi, is the oldest and one of the largest Inter-State Bus Terminals in India. It operates bus services between Delhi and the neighbouring states and union territories of Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. Spanning about 5.3 acres, it handles over 1,800 buses a day.
Anzar Shah Kashmiri (1927–2008) was an Indian Islamic scholar who established the Jamia Imam Anwar Shah and co-founded the Darul Uloom Waqf in Deoband. He was an alumnus of the Darul Uloom Deoband. He was youngest son of Hanafi scholar Anwar Shah Kashmiri.
Shalimar Bagh also known as Shalimar Garden is a Mughal garden located on the banks of Yamuna river in Delhi, India. It was named as Aizzabad Bagh when the garden was laid by Izz-un-Nissa wife of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in 1653 as a tribute and replica of Shalimar Bagh, Kashmir, laid by erstwhile Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1619, the Shalimar Bagh of Delhi is now abandoned but still houses shade trees, majestic parterre and structure such as the Sheesh Mahal and the garden pavilion.
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a significant uprising against British colonial rule in India from 1857 to 1858. It was directed against the authority of the British East India Company, which acted as a self-governing autonomous entity on behalf of the British Crown. Indian Muslim soldiers, known as sepoys, were instrumental in igniting the rebellion, driven by rumors that the cartridges for their rifles were greased with Pork fat, which offended their islamic religious beliefs. In regions such as Awadh, Delhi, Bihar, and Bengal, Muslim leaders emerged as key figures in the uprising. Prominent Indian muslim figures like Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor, and Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah led significant uprisings against the British, symbolizing a desire for the restoration of Muslim political power.