In 1903, when the Viceroy of India Lord Curzon got off a ship and had his first glimpse of northeast India, he was standing at the Northbrook Gate — an edifice built alongside the Brahmaputra river to mark the first visit to the region by a British viceroy, Lord Northbrook, 29 years earlier. Both viceroys took the waterway from Calcutta, the headquarters of the erstwhile British-India colonial government.
Years later, shortly after the British left Independent India, Assam’s first Chief Minister, Gopinath Bordoloi, got into a ferry from that gate — on the Sukreshwar Ghat — to immerse Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes in the Brahmaputra. It was natural for Bordoloi to pick this location — long before airports, railways or even roadways made their appearance in this region, this was the gateway to Assam.
But over the decades, this historic structure fell into ruin as Guwahati was caught in a frenzy of haphazard urbanisation. Few citizens even bothered to actively engage with the mighty river surging past their city. As high-rises sprouted all around it, the gate was reduced to a ghostly shadow of itself. Few remembered that it once heralded a viceroy’s arrival to announce the unification of the five districts of Larger Assam under the administration of a Chief Commissioner, with Guwahati as capital.
Strong winds from a turbulent Brahmaputra had sunk the building by a few feet and tilted it a few metres towards the river, setting it on a slow march to death. Just when all hope seemed lost, came some serious efforts to save this important marker of colonial history.
A year ago, Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC), which owns the land on which the gate stands, joined hands with the Assam Archaeology Department, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the state chapter of INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) to begin work on preserving the gate. While ATDC agreed to provide the funding, INTACH took charge of supervising the repairs.
The state government reportedly became involved after the ASI refused to list the site for preservation in 2008.
The work is nearing completion, says Manik Sarma, ATDC managing director. Of the allocated ₹28 lakh, INTACH has received ₹20 lakh already. INTACH’s chief supervisor for the project is Rathin Borthakur, an architectural engineer with experience in restoring several Ahom structures and the Kamakhya temple. He points out that the Indo-Islamic structure was made of bricks at a time when bricks were not manufactured in Assam.
“The bricks were procured through various sources. The walls were made of lime-surki mortar. Surki is a granular brick powder. The structure has 10 gothic spires, eight temple-shaped pillars, eight ornamental pediments and a semi-arched circular middle.” The construction style was said to be borrowed from King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, considered one of the best instances of perpendicular gothic English architecture.
It turns out that the ATDC had, some years ago, made a clumsy attempt at restoring the gate. An ugly pond with a large concrete tortoise, built close to the structure, is proof of this. As is the coat of white-and-brick paint, and a cemented foundation ring around the gate — again a clumsy attempt to stop it from tilting further.
“That beautification effort harmed the structure more than it helped. We will remove the pond. The water from the river has already harmed the façade; we don’t need any more water around it. We will also remove the three-foot-deep cemented modern foundation. Some 50 years ago, a private company was hired by the Assam Governor’s office to restore the structure. It used cement on some of the walls… We are removing that too,” says Borthakur. He admits using cement this time too, “but only to brace the walls. It will be removed once the job is done. We had to do something immediately, as the structure tilted about 45 centimetres on its west, posing a danger to the many modern structures nearby.”
An ASI-permitted chemical is being used to bind the walls. “It is an adhesive and also waterproof, ideal for the structure. We are also doing grouting, which is injection of liquid concrete to fill the gaps and thereby connect the pre-cast concrete,” he adds.
ATDC says it will beautify the monument this time too, “but scientifically”. Sarma doesn’t elaborate on the details, only saying, “We have already submitted a ₹15-lakh proposal to the state government. The approval should take not more than three to four months.”
ATDC’s aim is clearly to steer the state’s rising number of tourists towards the monument and add it to the list of must-see places in and around Guwahati. The restoration of the gate, however, holds much more promise. It can serve as an opportunity for residents to become more conscious about preserving their city’s built heritage, as also engage more with the mighty Brahmaputra. This river, after all, is the first to announce to any visitor that he/she has arrived in Guwahati.
Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty is a Delhi-based freelance writer