Shillong, nestled amidst the verdant hills of Meghalaya, is a city where the echoes of British colonial rule intertwine seamlessly with the rich tapestry of its homogenous culture. However, once a tranquil escape for British administrators, the city is now stuck between the blend of the old and the new.
Shillong’s allure attracted Rabindranath Tagore to write these lines back in the 1920s. And he wasn’t wrong about the pine-decked hills and mystical forests. It was the Britishers who were first to pursue this hilltop to find a whiff of their homes back in the United Kingdom. Through their coercive negotiations- offering military assistance to the Khasi states from attacks by the Burmese, the Britishers were permitted to set up headquarters first at Cherrapunji, later shifted to Shillong.
The hill city, earlier known as Yeodo, began its story as a small village where the British administration established a new civil station of the Khasi and Jaintia hills in 1864. Until 1874, it served as the capital of the British-administered Assam and part of East Bengal. The quaint hill held this position till it became the capital for the newly formed state of Meghalaya in 1972. Unlike its counterparts, Darjeeling and Shimla, which were vibrant hubs of social and political activity, Shillong remained a relatively quiet and understated administrative center during the British Raj.
Mini England
Gradually, everything transformed into a typical British hill station. Golf courses, polo grounds, elite social clubs, and churches, hallmarks of European settlements, adorned the city’s landscape. To accommodate the influx of British residents, numerous cottages and palaces sprouted up, lending the town an unmistakably European character. Many Englishmen displayed their fondness for their homeland by naming their homes after places in England, such as Starmore, Bonny Brae, and Crowborough.
Today, Shillong’s former glory is obscured by the scars of unplanned urban development. However, remnants of its pristine past remain, offering a stark contrast to the modern cityscape. A walk through the city will clearly show how the construction of old houses changed over the century. Early colonial buildings were primarily built with bricks and tiles. However, the devastating 1897 earthquake compelled British experts to adopt a new architectural style. Steep roofs, walls made of ‘ikora’ (elephant grass), timber frames, high ceilings, and mud-and-whitewash finishes became the norm. This fusion of European cottage and Assamese hut architecture gave rise to the distinctive “Assam-type” house. Sadly, this architectural heritage is now overshadowed by the rapid growth of concrete buildings all over the city.
Wanna-be modern city
Right after becoming the capital city of Meghalaya, it faced exactly the same issues that a typical hill city faces. For instance, the city’s educational landscape, meticulously sculpted during the British Raj, boasts a lineage of prestigious schools and colleges. These institutions, beacons of academic excellence, continue to draw students from far and wide. Simultaneously, the city’s allure as a tourist destination has opened its doors to a diverse populace, fostering a cosmopolitan atmosphere. However, this influx of visitors, coupled with the city’s burgeoning student population, has strained its infrastructure. The once-celebrated hill city now grapples with a scarcity of basic amenities and living spaces, transforming the city’s cosmopolitan charm into a daunting challenge for its residents.
With a consistent annual population growth rate of two to three per cent, the city has expanded significantly in the last few decades. Several factors contributed to this growth, including improved accessibility, the establishment of new businesses, and rural-to-urban migration in search of better jobs. Furthermore, roads built in the 19th and early 20th centuries were gently curved and followed the natural contours of the land. Whereas these later roads were constructed by cutting through hillsides, resulting in steep and narrow roads ill-suited for heavy traffic. This has led to chronic traffic congestion.
Urban issues
Paradoxically, Shillong grapples with water scarcity despite its proximity to Sohra, (less than 60 kilometres) the world’s wettest place, which receives an astonishing 11,359.4 mm of rainfall annually. This incongruity is particularly striking given the city’s hilly terrain and abundant precipitation. The city’s water supply often falls short, especially during peak hours and drier months. Contributing to this issue is Shillong’s ageing water infrastructure. A network of ageing pipelines crisscrosses the city, many of which are riddled with leaks, leading to significant water waste and exacerbating the scarcity problem.
For many, Shillong is a symbol of what one remembers rather than what it is today. The same seems to be the approach of the Shillong municipal board. Constituted in the year 1973, the board failed to keep pace with development and face the newer challenges that the city encountered. The city is miserably failing in waste management as well as in addresing the parking problem, which has been one of the major problems of the city since forever.
Lingering of the past
The idealised past is persistently projected onto the present city, shaping narratives, conversations, and aspirations. As a result, a symbolic Shillong, rooted in nostalgia, co-exists with the actual city, creating a temporal dissonance where the past continues to define the present and future in the minds of its inhabitants.
When heat became hard to beat with fresh drink and fan
To cool myself, hastily to Shillong I ran
Where pine-decked hills and deep dark forest
Afford tired souls their much needed rest.Shillong-er Chitthi, Rabindranath Tagore