“You must see the Pols when you’re in Ahmedabad” said our acquaintance in New Delhi. “Our elected committee of 11 can’t control a few families in our gated colony in Delhi. Can you imagine literally hundreds of trading families living cheek by jowl in a cluster? It must be absolutely chaotic!”
Ahmedabad was certainly not disorganised. It was a disciplined city. The sanitised Sabarmati flowed past towers, high-rises, and manicured parks. The modernity gave way to heritage and history, the roads narrowed and wound and the Pols began. But they were neither quaint nor bizarre. We rifled thorough our notes. One definition described them as “... housing clusters which comprise many families of a particular group, linked by caste, profession or religion.” But that’s not unique. So what was so special about the Pols?
Then we saw a woman step through a door that looked like the entrance of a house. “That’s an escape route” said Girish, our well-informed guide. The Pols, we learnt, were virtually community fortresses. If dacoits attacked, the 100 families in a Pol could disperse through the entire maze of stacked apartments while belligerent defenders bombarded invaders with missiles from balconies and rooftops. Some of the Pols, we were told, once had detachable ladders leading to trapdoors accessing higher floors. A tug and a slam could isolate every floor, sequestering it from unwelcome intruders.
Our initial impression began to change as we walked deeper into the Pols. Most fortress-like was the rich colony of the jewellers: the Javeri Pol Wad. Though its carved façade proclaimed the affluence of its residents, its massive gate, crowned by a guard-house, deterred would-be brigands. In fact, the word ‘Pol’ could have been derived from Pratoli , similar to its Latin cousin ‘Portal’. It means a gate or an entry. Then we began to notice other clever defensive features adapted from great forts. The streets were narrow and winding and, even today, can take only pedestrians and two wheelers: invaders planning massed frontal attacks would be forced into narrow columns exposed to defenders from the Pols rising on either side.
Clearly, the Pols had evolved in more troubled times. According to a local belief, the first Pol was built 600 years ago, when India’s legendary wealth attracted invaders from the north. So the Pols became virtually independent defensive colonies. Eventually, an estimated 12,000 properties were massed in 120 Pols. This, justifiably, gave an assertive sense of pride in these unique dwellings. We spotted a bracket carved with effigies of writhing dragons, a tribute to trade links with distant China. Long before water harvesting became a favourite catch-phrase with environmentalists, the Pols diverted rain-water into underground cisterns, which recharged the communities’ wells and sustained trees growing in the Pols’ central concourses.
Influenced by the life-supporting beliefs of the Jain community, birds and animals were not only protected; they were nurtured. Feeding trays atop tall platforms were replenished with grain. Often, offerings from the first meal cooked in every household were placed in troughs at street level for stray animals. There were even nesting holes built into the walls for wild birds.
The old architects of the Pols had also adapted their designs to the evolving needs of their communities. There was a temple meant exclusively for women possibly because the men spent much of their time away from home. Another temple was built underground to circumvent the rule that government permission had to be sought to construct places of worship during the Mughal era. Then, because arthritic worshippers might find it difficult to climb up and down the flight of stairs, a mirror was installed near the beginning of the steps to capture a reflection of the idol so devotees could pray without taxing their aching knees.
According to Girish, each Pol was overseen by an elected committee of five elders known as the Panch . Clearly this small, traditional, government provided responsive and very sophisticated governance.
