DU students archive historical facts about campus buildings

New Delhi: Do you know the history of Delhi University vice-chancellor's office in Vice-Regal Lodge or the fact that freedom fighter Bhagat Singh was held captive for a day in that building?

Such historical facts about the DU campus will soon be available in the form of brochures and short films.

A team of students of BTech in Humanities course has been working on the project to archive lesser known facts about the historic connections of the university.

“We have started archiving the facts and anecdotes about the buildings connected with the 1857 mutiny. There are certain interesting facts about the buildings here that are not known," Sukrata Paul, professor at DU’s Cluster Innovation Centre, said.

Paul is supervising the team of six students who are working on the project.

“How many of us know that Lord Mountbatten had proposed to his wife Edwina for marriage in the Vice-Regal Lodge which later became our VC’s office? Or that Bhagat Singh was kept there for a day and the place has been maintained in the same way it was then,” she asked.

“When in 1857 armed British forces marched to Delhi to recapture the city from rebellious sepoys, their fellow soldiers and families had taken refuge inside the Vice-Regal Lodge Estate,” added Paul.

The project, which the students initially started as part of a curriculum exercise, will now be executed to archive the heritage and historical facts about DU and make them available in public domain.

“The students have prepared three short films on the buildings with historical connection to the 1857 mutiny. Other historical aspects would be covered in different capsules.

“We plan to develop certain brochures about each of these buildings and shoot some documentaries. Also once the information is completely ready, we plan to upload it on the DU website,” Paul said.

Other historical buildings situated in the campus vicinity include a mutiny memorial located barely a few metres away from the North Campus which was built in 1863 by the Britishers.

It was built in memory of those British martyrs who were killed in mutiny of 1857.

The Kamla Nehru Ridge has a lake known as ‘khooni jheel’ and it was named so because the lakes’ water had remained blood red after an exchange of firing between the British army and the revolters.

Similarly, the Flagstaff Tower played an important role during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, when Delhi was captured by the rebellious East India Company forces.