Answering the call of 10,000 baolis

Even as the Aga Khan Trust for Culture restores a handful of stepwells, thousands more lie derelict. An exhibition hopes to underline the importance of protecting these blue-green spaces

There is a story about the over 700-year-old Nizamuddin Baoli built by Delhi’s most famous saint. It’s said that Sufi Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya began the baoli’s (stepwell) construction by digging the earth with his own hands and uttering the blessing, ‘He who drinks one drop of it should have no fear of the fire of hell.’

There are other fantastical tales, too, associated with the baoli. It is said that when sultan Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq of Delhi (1320-1325) started constructing the massive Tughlaqabad Fort, he prohibited all other construction in the city. But workers would still come to build the baoli after sunset. The sultan, while on his way back from a visit to Bengal, sent Auliya a message to leave the city. The saint wrote back: “Delhi is still far away.” The sultan died in an accident on the outskirts of Delhi. The fact that the sultan’s nephew — who erected the pandal that fell and killed him — was a disciple of the saint, is lesser known but pertinent.

Why was Hazrat Nizamuddin ready to foment a revolution to build a water reservoir that he would never enjoy himself? Possibly for the same reason that the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), founded and chaired by His Highness the Aga Khan, has been working on restoring water bodies, including eight baolis, in Delhi and Hyderabad. Maybe they both understood that being around blue and green spaces has tremendous physical and mental benefits for humans. (Studies in the Netherlands and Japan have shown that people with easy access to such spaces boasted better health, lower stress levels, and lower mortality rates.)

Nizamuddin Baoli wasn’t the only such space built in Delhi. However, today, only their names remain: Dhaula Kuan (white well); Chappar Wala Kuh (thatched well) at the Karol Bagh crossing; Panchkuian Road (five well road); Khari Baoli (brackish stepwell); and Janta Piao, one of the oldest wells in Old Delhi.

“There were over 100 baolis at the turn of the 20th century. Every time a baoli wall collapsed, people just filled it up and built over it,” says Ratish Nanda, projects director of AKTC, who put together the ongoing exhibition, Baolis: Restoring Stepwells, Providing Life to showcase the conservation of eight — from the Qutb Shahi Heritage Park in Golconda, Hyderabad, to the Nizamuddin Baoil and Arab Serai Baoli in Humayun’s Tomb, as well as the Mughal era wells at Sunder Nursery in Delhi.

“The All-India Council of Technical Education has created a scheme to document baolis across the country — by engineering and architectural colleges. I believe there would be at least 10,000 baolis in India and 20,000 water structures. Every village has its tank. Every mosque, temple, and gurudwara had a tank,” he says. “What we need to demonstrate now is that these are incredible economic and ecological assets.”

Nanda believes that the NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) funds — ₹600 crore in 2023 — could be used by municipal corporations or the Archaeological Survey of India to revive and desilt historic wells and ensure every village has a tank. “We spend so much money creating water tanks for rainwater harvesting when the tanks already exist. [Under the government’s Jal Shakti Abhiyan scheme, for instance, ₹2 lakh is given to every district to map water bodies and prepare a plan to collect rain water.]”