A cantonment ( / k æ n ˈ t ɒ n m ən t / , / k æ n ˈ t oʊ n m ən t / , or UK : / k æ n ˈ t uː n m ən t / ) is a military quarters. In India and other parts of South Asia , a cantonment refers to a permanent military station (a term from the Undivided India ). In United States military parlance, a cantonment is, essentially, "a permanent residential section (i.e. barrack) of a fort or other military installation," such as Fort Cavazos .
21-715: Dagshai , also known as Daagh-e-Shahi , is one of the oldest cantonment towns in the Solan district of Himachal Pradesh , India . It is situated on top of a 5,689-foot (1,734-m) high hillock that stands sphinx-like astride the Kalka-Shimla Highway at a point about 11 km from Solan. It was founded in 1847 by the East India Company by securing free of cost five villages from Maharaja of Patiala aka Bhupinder Singh of Patiala . The names of these villages were Dabbi, Badhtiala, Chunawad, Jawag and Dagshai. The new cantonment
42-505: A British era graveyard overlooking a valley. It is on the same height as Lawrence School Sanawar near Kasauli , and is a short drive from Dharampur on the Chandigarh Shimla highway. It is some 65 kilometers from Chandigarh . Unlike Kasauli it is to the right of the highway while driving towards Shimla. There are two roads up, both steep. And after snow, snow chains are a must to drive up to Dagshai or getting down from it. There
63-485: A press release notified that, in order to move on from older Colonial-era concepts, Ministry of Defence has decided to give up responsibility to consider to excise civil areas of certain Cantonments and merge them with neighbouring State municipalities. As of then, there were 58 Cantonments of which 10 were to be handed over in the first phase. The administration of civil areas was to be handed over from Cantonment Boards to
84-719: Is a grave in Russian script to a Russian Cossack who fled to Kabul in the aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution . The cemetery is not formally recognised by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and is still owned by the city of Kabul. However, Colonel Simon Diggins, the British defence attaché who coordinated fundraising for the cemetery in 2009, described it as a "labour of love. ... It's very important to us. It would be great to think that in ten years' time, families might be able to come out here and see it and enjoy
105-509: Is able to see Timber Trail Heights and Timber Trail Resorts, Parwanoo. There is a railway station on the Kalka Simla line at Kumar Hatti, from where Dagshai is about 1.5 kilometers uphill. The next towns in the direction towards Simla are Barog and Solan . Solan is some 11 km from Kumar Hatti by road, and Dagshai is some 3 km from Kumar Hatti. From Kumar Hatti there is also a road to Sarahan and Nahan . The Dagshai Central Jail
126-462: Is an army unit stationed there, a residential only Army Public School, Dagshai and a private school called Dagshai Public School. There is a very small civilian town, and the two schools take up most of this hilltop station. There are no hotels in Dagshai, but the place has a lot of picnic spots with grand views. From some spots one can see the entire Panchkula and Chandigarh lights at night. Also, one
147-502: Is provided in Bangladesh cantonments: Several cities in the Indian subcontinent , including Ahmedabad , Ambala , Bellary , Belgaum , Bangalore , Danapur , Jabalpur , Kanpur , Bathinda , Delhi , Nilgiris , Chennai , Mumbai , Pune , Meerut , Ramgarh , Secunderabad , and Trichy , contained large cantonments of the former British Indian Army , with Meerut and Ramgarh being two of
168-525: The First Anglo-Afghan War , with some graves dating back to that 1842 defeat. Some 160 soldiers from that period are thought to be buried here. It also contains the remains of others, mainly civilians of various nationalities, who died in Kabul between the 19th and 21st centuries, and who required a Christian burial. During the 2000s, ten marble plaques were placed on the cemetery's southern wall, listing
189-799: The British Cemetery, is located in Kabul , Afghanistan . The area was a British military camp or cantonment and the site of the 1879 Siege of the Sherpur Cantonment in the Second Anglo-Afghan War . Now officially called the Christian Cemetery, it is known locally as the Kabre Gora , or the 'foreigners' graveyard'. The cemetery was built in 1879 for British soldiers killed in the Second Anglo-Afghan War , replacing an earlier graveyard for
210-483: The Dagshai graveyard until 1970, when his remains were repatriated to Ireland and given a funeral with full military honours. Dagshai is located at 30°53′N 77°03′E / 30.88°N 77.05°E / 30.88; 77.05 . It has an average elevation of 1,734 metres (5,689 ft). As of 2001 India census , Dagshai had a population of 2751. Males constitute 62% of the population and females 38%. Dagshai has an average literacy rate of 82%, higher than
231-424: The cemetery from the 1980s was an Afghan man called Rahimullah, a shepherd who used the cemetery to graze his animals. When he died in 2010, his son Abdul Sami continued to tend the cemetery, telling a reporter that "this place is very nearly not here" and crediting his father's devotion, including during the first period of Taliban rule, for the fact that the cemetery survived. Notable burials include: There
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#1733084758646252-998: The military reforms of Lord Kitchener in 1903, and the Cantonments Act of 1924. At India's Independence in 1947, India had 56 cantonments. After this India added 6 cantonments the last being Ajmer Cantonment in 1962, taking the total number to 62. They covered an area of 161,000 acres (650 km ). As of 2019, there were sixty-one "notified cantonments" in India, occupying an area of 157,000 acres (640 km ): twenty-five in Central Command , nineteen in Southern Command , thirteen in Western Command , four in Eastern Command , and one in Northern Command . On 24 July 2024,
273-541: The most important cantonments in Northern India , second only to the headquarters at Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan). Meerut was established in 1803, and for 150 years was the largest cantonment in the region. Although cantonments in India were considered to be semi-permanent in the 18th and 19th centuries, by the turn of the 20th century, they had transitioned to being permanent garrisons. They were further entrenched as such, via
294-458: The names of British service personnel who died in Afghanistan after 2001. The cemetery is laid out as a garden, with rose bushes and trees and is enclosed by a tall wall, giving it a peaceful atmosphere and an unassuming exterior appearance. It is one of the few foreign historical and Christian landmarks to have survived the first period of Taliban rule that ended in 2001. The caretaker of
315-718: The national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 88% and, female literacy is 73%. In Dagshai, 11% of the population is under 6 years of age. Cantonment The word cantonment , derived from the French word canton , meaning corner or district , refers to a temporary military or winter encampment. For example, at the start of the Waterloo campaign in 1815, while the Duke of Wellington 's headquarters were in Brussels, most of his Anglo–allied army of 93,000 soldiers were cantoned , or stationed, to
336-675: The neighbouring Municipalities while the military region was to remain with the Armed Forces. However, on 27 April 2024, KhasYol had become the first cantonment board to be "de-notified". On 2 September 2024, it was reported that paperwork are being completed to handover civilian areas of Cantonments from the Indian Army. The Cantonments include Dehradun, Deolali, Nasirabad, Babina, Ajmer, Ramgarh, Mathura, Shahjahanpur, Clement Town and Fatehgarh. The report sain, "Indian Army’s Central Command , South Western Command and Southern Command are in
357-479: The process of completing the hand over exercise in coordination with Uttarakhand , Maharashtra , Rajasthan , Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh governments." Major cantonments and garrisons include the following: Babina cantonments* Cantonments, Accra Cantonments in Nigeria refer to permanent military installations which house active personnel and their families. Cantonments in Nigeria include: In Singapore,
378-456: The south of Brussels. The former Sherpur Cantonment in Kabul , Afghanistan, which was the site of the Siege of the Sherpur Cantonment (1879) in the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880), is now maintained as a British Army cemetery. In Bangladesh, cantonments are residential quarters for many military personnel as well as headquarters for different army units. A wide variety of military training
399-436: The term is used to denote a police cantonment. The United States military commonly uses the term "cantonment" to describe the permanent facilities at U.S. Army training bases as opposed to the field training areas. Cantonment areas often include housing (such as barracks and maid-service quarters), dining facilities, training classrooms, exchanges, and paved air fields. Sherpur Cantonment Sherpur Cantonment , or
420-466: Was built in 1849. It is now a museum. Following a mutiny by Irish soldiers in 1920, in support of the independence struggle then unfolding in Ireland, dozens of mutineers were incarcerated at Dagshai Prison. On 2 November 1920, mutineer leader James Daly, a 21-year-old private, was executed by firing squad in the prison courtyard, the last British soldier ever executed for mutiny. His body remained at
441-453: Was named after the last named village, as it was the largest and most strategically located. The name Dagshai, according to a popular local legend was derived from Daagh-e-Shahi . During the Moghul times a Daagh-e-Shahi (royal mark) was put on the forehead of the criminals and sent packing to the then Dagshai village. Built by the British as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, it has
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