There was once a time-honoured tradition in the township of Loharu, part of Shekhawati region in British India. Every year on the 1st of January, the "Loharu aerodrome" would host a joy-ride for the public on a yellow Tiger Moth for a few annas. For a day, anyone from the area could experience the thrill of flying in the backseat of the biplane steered by a pilot à la British RAF. In fact the British Royal Air Force posted in New Delhi is supposed to have used the Loharu Aerodrome as an emergency landing strip.
Today, there is no mention of a "Loharu Aerodrome" in the records of The Airports Authority of India. But according to 24-year-old local heritage enthusiast Aditya Sangwan, an aerodrome in the township was built in 1931 by the last nawab of Loharu, Aminuddin Ahmad Khan. He is certain that the aerodrome was Haryana's (eastern Punjab in British India) first and only airport before Independence which was followed by a slew of airstrips in the state, including those at Ambala, Sirsa, Karnal and Hisar. Sangwan shows a picture of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of its most famous visitors, who touched down for a brief visit in 1948 during the Loharu state merger.
"The aerodrome was in use till the 1960s. Now it is in complete ruins. If it can be revived, Loharu and southern Haryana can generate many jobs for the youth in the state," says Sangwan who has made a 9-minute "expository" documentary on the erstwhile Loharu aerodrome. Last year Sangwan made a short documentary, Loharu Fort: The Great Story Never Told, on the need to restore the historic fort for the purposes of heritage tourism. His plea convinced the state government to list the now dilapidated fort under the "protected monument category" in the financial budget released in March.
Aditya Sangwan
Working in a production house in Delhi, Sangwan came back home to Loharu just before lockdown when all shooting work came to a standstill, and began an independent video series on the heritage of Loharu. A month ago, he stumbled on to a large farm overgrown with cotton flowers with traces of two buildings. "Turns out, this used to be an aerodrome. The villagers in the area found debris from the aerodrome during crop rotation," says Sangwan on the phone.
When the Delhi Flying Club was set up in 1928 at Willingdon airfield (now Safdarjung airport in Delhi), the noblemen and princely rulers from in and around Delhi began taking a keen interest in flying and started enlisting as members of the Club. One of the patron members was Aminuddin Ahmad Khan who took flying lessons in one of the few de Havilland Moths—the most popular light aircraft flying in the UK at the time. The young ruler of Loharu, Aminuddin, also bought a yellow Moth for himself and set up an aerodrome in his kingdom. In aviation parlance, an airstrip can be used for landing and takeoff, while an aerodrome needs to have an aircraft of its own; it can be used for flight operations irrespective of whether they involve air cargo or passengers.
Durru Miyan, the younger son of the last nawab, is not sure what happened to the yellow Moth. But he recalls reading about his father flying the plane in the early 1930s. "When my father was governor in Himachal Pradesh, he had started writing his memoirs. But one night in 1981, the Raj Bhawan, which was the famous Peterhoff building in Shimla, caught fire and he barely managed to escape. All his notes were gutted in the fire. Subsequently when he moved to Punjab as governor, he started making those notes again. In one line, it was mentioned that the first plane landed at Loharu on September 21, 1931 from the Delhi Flying Club," says Durru Miyan who mentions that Biju Patnaik, the former chief minister of Odisha, also used the Loharu airstrip quite frequently as he was a pilot and instructor at the Delhi Flying Club.
Stressing on the historical importance of Loharu airstrip, Durru said: “In 1931, even to see an aircraft in India was a big deal. Obviously when the aircraft flew over there, it was a big event. The aircraft was locally called 'Cheel Gadi' (cheel is an eagle). A song in local lingo was made on that and was sung by rural women on occasions for decades, maybe even now.”
The aerodrome was built in a small village called Faltia Taal, two kilometers away from Loharu. Two buildings were also built as part of the aerodrome, one for wind direction and aeronautical maps, and a bigger one for aircraft instruments. "There was a 2km-long tunnel connecting the aerodrome to Loharu Fort where transiting rajas and maharajas from other princely states often stopped by for breakfast. The tunnel, which could be used by horses, was also used an escape route for the Nawab. Now it is blocked from both sides," says Sangwan. "I would like the state government to restore this aerodrome and start a flying club which is more democratic and affordable for the youth of Loharu."
