The Redesign of New Delhi’s Central Vista, and the Colonial Stripes of Narendra Modi
Photo: Mohd. Aram / Unsplash
Just as the British piggy-backed on Mughal greatness for their legitimacy, Modi is now trying to fashion imperial greatness of his own, seeking to leave his mark all over New Delhi. Maitri Dore writes about the undemocratic and colonial inspirations behind the Central Vista’s proposed redesign.
Stately structures seated in wide boulevards, interminable vistas and swathes of manicured lawns, the sense of space surrounding British-built New Delhi’s Central Vista is all too palpable. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, called New Delhi “[a] symbol of British power, with all its ostentation and wastefulness”. Over seventy years later in independence, ostentation and wastefulness seem to be the leitmotifs of the current government’s architecture, too, as PM Narendra Modi seeks to tinker with the grand edifices of the Central Vista, once built to serve a colonial regime.
But while authoritarianism was a given for the Raj, it’s hardly expected of a democracy. The government’s handling of the refurbishment—which has been gaining increasing flak in the architecture community—bears an eerie resemblance to the colonial hegemony that instated the Vista in the first place.
British Colonialism
In 1911 at the Coronation Durbar, King George V announced the relocation of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi. The idea was a pure power-move, aimed to help the British restore public favour and defuse the tension in Calcutta following the failed partition of Bengal. Calcutta was becoming a hotbed of the nationalist movement and the British saw the need to mollify the people—especially Muslims. Delhi cut a fine choice, having already been the seat of a former power. As a canvas for the new enterprise, the erstwhile Mughal city was now meant to symbolically infuse the imperial one with renewed authority.
The Central Vista stretches from India Gate to Rashtrapati Bhavan (then Viceroy’s House), its most important buildings designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker between 1911 and 1931. The scheme is a web of radial roads, sited west of the Yamuna with the Vista—its primary axis—extending till the ancient city of Indraprastha.
The summary relocation of the capital dripped of colonial hegemony—and then, so did the design of the new seat of power. This formerly processional ‘King’s Way’ was designed to augment the effect of grandeur as one traversed from India Gate westward, the Viceroy’s House on Raisina Ridge forming an exhilarating termination at the end of the axis, just beyond the North and South Blocks. From here the British hoped to lord over the landscape below, looking out onto an assortment of religiously significant structures: Jama Masjid, Indraprastha, the Safdarjung Mausoleum, Humayun’s Tomb, and others. This spatial attempt to incorporate monuments from ages past was meant to pander to both Muslim and Hindu sentiments, while striving to be a visual reminder of British supremacy, impressing upon India that the Raj was here to stay.
Insecurity is also the explanation to the prima facie irony of Modi’s ambition to physically stamp himself in a space he has openly reviled in the past. It’s a contradiction that he sees this grand plan as his dream project, and even wants a new prime ministerial residence at its heart, while claiming to being either a humble chaiwallah or a chowkidar, self-bestowed monikers to assert his misfit status in Lutyens’ Delhi’s elite club.
Jane Ridley, a Professor of Modern History at the University of Buckingham and Lutyens’ great-granddaughter, refers to the siting of Viceroy’s House on the Raisina Ridge as an invocation of the Capitol in Rome. Of the scheme itself, she writes, “Here is the geometry of power; the monumental baroque city with its rectangular grid, straight axes, central vistas, wide boulevards, and processional routes; the acropolis which intimidates and threatens as much as it impresses.”
According to post-colonial urban scholar Anthony King, no attempt was made to ease the new city into the old one. The separation between ruler and ruled endured.
Latter-day Authoritarianism
Just as the British piggy-backed on Mughal greatness for their legitimacy, Modi is now trying to fashion imperial greatness of his own, seeking to leave his mark all over the Central Vista. His colonial stripes have been revealed in the process so far, seeing as the redevelopment has been planned in a shroud of secrecy: there has been no public participation, and scant consultation even within the government. The bar on bidding architecture firms was limited to those with a certain minimum annual turnover, effectively excluding many talented architects, as pointed out by various critics. Further, the plan is awash with politics as also seen in the government’s haste to complete parts of the project—the new PM house and office and the common Central Secretariat—by 2024. Right in time for the next general election.
The authoritarianism in decision-making and the many ‘democracy-themed’ proposals smack of irony, because nothing about the site’s history or current redesign speaks to the democracy Modi claims to celebrate. These features include the Museum of Democracy and new parliament, that will commemorate India’s 75th independence anniversary in 2022.
At the helm of the design is Bimal Patel of HCP Design Consultants, a choice that has raised eyebrows. The firm was previously commissioned by Modi in the Sabarmati Riverfront Redevelopment, Ahmedabad, and Kashi corridor, Varanasi—poster projects for the PM’s home capital and parliamentary constituency, respectively. The Central Vista now promises architectural branding in the country’s national capital.
In terms of design, authoritarianism is not so much a function of the symbolism conveyed by imposing architecture, but of the introduction of new programmes and the hunger to revamp. In the new design, the North and South Blocks will be converted into museums. Inserted in the thickets of the final lap between the Blocks and Rashtrapati Bhavan will soon be the new prime ministerial and vice-presidential houses, and all the union ministries will coalesce on the Central Vista in ten identically-designed buildings. The new parliament will fall on a triangular plot in proximity to the current one and ‘King’s Way’ could be extended till the Yamuna. The design promises efficiency, true to the rhetoric of Modi being a strongman, someone who can execute jobs reliably and swiftly.
Our Insecure Overlords
Architect-urbanist Rahul Mehrotra asks why the Central Vista can’t be left alone, and this new centralised government complex not be built elsewhere. I think this statement draws attention to exactly what characterises authoritarian regimes and their architectural politics. They draw their legitimacy from bullies of the past, while attempting to immortalise themselves, all the while never straying too far from the pre-existing template of oppression.
Such insecurity was, and is, evident in both development and redevelopment of the Central Vista. The British pandered to Indian tastes so as not to alienate the people while still holding their grip on India. Lutyens’ Delhi borrowed from Mughal, Hindu and Buddhist elements in its chhatris, chajjas, jaalis and domes, and Patel’s Delhi acknowledges colonial elements, while adding new touches to the project in a future-forward approach.
The new secretariat buildings will be no taller than India Gate. Their exteriors will be of red sandstone as a nod to what is existing, and their interiors of steel and glass to as a firm step into the hallowed future. In an interview the architect rather clairvoyantly stated that this is what Lutyens would have done. The statement shows how deeply the new project wants to build on the current models, why Modi won’t go elsewhere; Lutyens’ Delhi is the substrate from which future glory is derived, just as Mughal Delhi once was.
Insecurity is also the explanation to the prima facie irony of Modi’s ambition to physically stamp himself in a space he has openly reviled in the past. It’s a contradiction that he sees this grand plan as his dream project, and even wants a new prime ministerial residence at its heart, while claiming to being either a humble chaiwallah or a chowkidar, self-bestowed monikers to assert his misfit status in Lutyens’ Delhi’s elite club. By situating himself in the heart of the scheme, Modi seems to want to deal a decisive snub to the so-called Lutyens’ elite by reshaping what the place, in his opinion, stands for.
Interestingly, Nehru—often framed today as a colonialist by Modi’s government—abhorred Lutyens’ Delhi, and instead saw the modernist city of Chandigarh as the crucible of the “new India”. In embracing a style characterised by stark concrete minimalism and touted as being universal, Nehru hoped that India would shake off colonial fetters and march into the future.
Mahatma Gandhi, for his own part, wanted Viceroy’s House to be converted into a hospital so as to neutralise the oppressive power it connoted. Gandhi foresaw the building weighing heavily on the postcolonial landscape, and wanted to swiftly stub out any association to colonial rule post-independence. In attempting to weave itself into this very landscape for the next 150-200 years, Modi’s BJP is actually hewing close to colonial stratagem.
Retrospectively, the building period of Lutyens’ Delhi is seen to be the twilight of British Raj in India. While it’s too soon to predict a sinking sun on BJP rule, the premonition of the past hangs in the air. For now, it’s safe to say that the politicisation of architecture in the Central Vista project constantly drives in the imperial analogy; the Raj may have left over 70 years ago, but its colonial remnants are here to stay.
***
Maitri Dore is an architect and urban researcher, currently doing a PhD in cultural heritage at the Department of Conservation, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. You can find her on Twitter: @doremai or Instagram: @dore.mai.
