END OF A 260-YEAR MARCH

As the Narendra Modi government plans to disband cantonments, THE WEEK follows their chronology

- R. PRASANNAN

Cantonments, those vast stretches dotted with ‘grant bungalows’, Gothic churches and green meadows across which military men march in misty mornings or sweat it out in sultry afternoons, will vanish soon. The military will keep their stations and camping grounds; the civilian part of the cantonments will be merged with neighbouring municipalities or give rise to civil towns. With that will end an institution that took birth with British rule in India, and lasted more than 250 years.

Civilians often confuse cantonments with military stations. Military stations—more than 200 in India—are secured areas where the armed forces run their establishments. You can be shot—and no questions asked—if you enter those places without a pass, permit or invitation. Cantonments—there are 62—are semi-civilian local bodies, much like the municipalities with regular politics, protests and polls.

One can trace the rise and spread of British power in India if one follows the chronology of cantonments. The British began their rule in India after Robert Clive defeated Bengal Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula at Plassey in 1757. So as to quell any challenge to their authority, the British set up the first ‘cantonment’, a place where the troops were cantoned, in Barrackpore near their fort in Calcutta in 1764.