Chittagong: Ashkar Dighi
- Matthew P G
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
The historic Ashkar Dighi is three centuries old and presently covers an area of no less than five acres, and so must be protected by law. The Detailed Area Plan (DAP) of Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) also requires that any water body exceeding 0.5 acre should be preserved. The authorities concerned, however, seem to be uncaring when the dighi's existence is threatened in encroachment, earth filling, and pollution. The age-old water body, with which the history of Chittagong city is entwined, was originally 8.49 acres back in 1898. It has shrunk to five acres now. The rest was earth-filled and grabbed by influential locals. Second Mughal Commandant of Chittagong Nawab Abdullah Beg alias Ashkar Khan Bajme Sani dug the dighi to supply water to soldiers in 1669-1671. Just a decade ago or so, people living around it drank from it and washed clothes and bathed in it. Today it is too polluted for any use. Locals say a hundred slums alongside illegal houses, shops and other structures have sprung up on the four banks. The garbage and filth generated in those slums and houses have been a major source for pollution of Ashkar Dighi.
December 2024
Not far from my university housing, near the furniture shops where I bought things for an apartment "upgrade", lies a "tank" - a kind of water source common across South Asia. No longer visible from the road, the large pond now looks beautiful (from a distance), but is surrounded by the worst kind of urban squalor. One of my barbers lived in a shanty down near the water and he invited me to his place once. His rented room was just some bamboo supports covered with corrugated metal He and his young daughter were always sick - no wonder. Living next to such an open sore as that fetid pond could not lead to healthy living.
Several such tanks were spread across Chittagong and all but one had suffered the same fate - slums were built to the water's edge creating nothing short of a public health emergency.
However, in the right light and on a good day, the old tanks can hark back to an age when they were a public source of water that was still drinkable. I tried to photograph the beauty that belied their squalor. I needed Chittagong to be beautiful sometimes; otherwise, the reality was simply too crushing.
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