EXCERPTS
A Capital idea
In memory of Sir Sobha Singh
IN THE EARLY YEARS: A view of the North and South Block buildings taken from the Government House.
I am privileged to have lived in New Delhi for forty-seven years. I have been a part of its growth and change from being a rather dull bureaucratic government ‘town.’ Peppered with politicians who were aliens here, to the cultural and intellectual capital of India over six decades. In the late fifties and sixties, there was a gracious dignity about Delhi… New Delhi had a laid-back ambience of a small town. It was a reclusive, compound city with wide avenues lined on either side with footpaths for pedestrians and large shady trees to keep the cool. It was not spilling over with an unmanageable population of both man and mobile machines. It was, in some ways, isolated from the complex and active culture of the older city. Shahjehanabad, and in contrast therefore, a trifle sterile, cold and disconnected, when set against its ‘companion’ city that was deeply rooted in its history and the vivacity of its tested traditions.
Circa 2009. The beauty of Delhi and its many Dillis remain. In all that surrounds us in this layered and historical city there are some things that sadden me. Instead of honouring this extraordinary national legacy, a succession of careless municipalities led by uninitiated senior officers and disinterested bureaucrats have allowed profound damage to happen in their desperate, unthinking quest to ‘modernize.’ In the process, they have killed and destroyed a great deal. There are very few politicians who have a strong belief in preserving the edifices, symbols and spaces that represent the changing time and moments in our history...
Unfortunately, preservation and conservation are on the backburner. Ineffective learning processes and faulty, inadequate curricula have managed to relegate all the subjects that generate pride in a society, to the realm of inconsequence. Our National Archives are in a mess, much having been eaten by termites and silverfish, the extremes of temperature and the damp. It was easier to access and buy material for this book from archives and libraries abroad than from here, where it all happened... Here, the repositories of the many dimensions of our civilization lie wallowing in abject neglect.
New Delhi: Making of a Capital; Malvika Singh & Rudrangshu Mukherjee; Lotus Press/Roli Books, price not stated.
Lord Curzon’s suggestions: Evolution of the Classical Style
The British Governor or Viceroy in India requires a house in which he can entertain on a vast scale, where hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of persons will congregate, where deputations will be received and Levees or Drawing Rooms held, where his European staff can live and carry on their duties, and where his family and guests can be housed, under the equivalent to European conditions. Similarly, if we turn to the public buildings, the officials and clerks, Indian as well as European, must do their work in commodious and airy surroundings, with easy access to large libraries and rooms of official storage; while Legislative Councils and Committees, certain to increase in dignity and importance, must meet in spacious and well-ventilated halls, with accommodation for the public and the Press. These are an inevitable feature and consequence of the European system which we have introduced into India. It is a non-Indian, a foreign, and a Western system. Can it be satisfied by Indian or Asiatic architectural forms?
The Indian example
The viceregal procession leaving the Council House building during New Delhi's inauguration.
No Indian Monarch or Mogul Viceroy lived or worked in circumstances at all similar to those which I have described. His women were shut up, almost barricaded off, in a separate building; his receptions were held in halls open to the air and were attended only by men; his private quarters were small and almost unfurnished; windows and glass as we use them were unknown; the work of his public offices was often performed out of doors or in stray corners, with little method, comfort, or order; he had no Council or Parliament other than a public Durbar. His palace in all probability required to be surrounded for safety’s sake by great battlemented walls, and resembled a fortress. For a typical palace of a Hindu Prince in olden times we may turn to Udaipur; if we want to see how the Mogul Emperors held their Levees, we have but to look at the Audience Halls of Delhi, Agra, and Lahore. Even if we go much further back into history and examine the greatest of the palaces of Asiatic Kings at Persepolis or Susa, we shall find that the ceremonies of the Court were performed in great semi-open halls, shielded from the sun by silk hangings, and that the private life of the Monarch was lived in apartments which we should now compare to cupboards or cells.
Options
What then are the styles that are open to a European builder of great public edifices, or even of superior dwelling-houses, in India at the present day? He will find no clue.
Possibly the selected architect of the New Delhi, if he makes some such choice, may find in the country itself, in the models which he sees around him, in the spirit of the East, or in the talents of native craftsmen, something which will give a similar Indian flavour, a native aura, to the forms of the West. But that in those forms he will discover the most practical solution of the problem that will confront him, while at the same time they will provide a fitting symbol of the orderly splendour of British rule in India, seems to me evident. The decision will rest with others, but in a question of Imperial importance the contribution of ideas may perhaps not be unserviceable or unwelcome.
I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
Curzon of Kedleston Hackwood, Basingstoke, Oct. 4.
MALVIKA SINGH
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