Recently a short video emerged on the Internet. Apparently a presentation for the redesign of New Delhi’s Central Vista by the firm of Hafeez Contractor, the video begins with a clip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s voice repeating the mantra: “ Ek naya Bharat banana hai (We need to build a new Bharat)!’ Then a lotus morphs into a star design with bits of radiating text: ‘The Largest Democracy’, ‘Global Icon’, ‘India Rising’, ‘New India’ and ‘Superpower’. From this we move into a space-age type comic-book animation. A mammoth lotus-star structure looms over the India Gate, dwarfing the old arch by about four times. Blocks of cartoon troops march on Rajpath, and war planes streak over this gleaming star to the sound of A.R. Rahman’s Vande Mataram . A row of buildings that look like shopping malls flank Rajpath. The viewpoint constantly yo-yo’s — all missile-launchers and fighter planes. In the final shot, between the star behemoth and the half-pyramid shopping malls, India Gate and Rashtrapati Bhavan are turned into miniature structures, as if some alien race of aesthetics- mukt giants has come and occupied the capital.
Delhi over the years
The cringe-making sycophancy shown towards Mr. Modi and the ruling party, and the unbelievably crass pandering to schoolboy militarism, suggested to many people that the video was, in fact, a spoof with its tail on fire setting alight the fortress of this government’s pompous self-regard. Within a few days the full horror sank in: not only was the video real, there were five others like it, and all six were actually presented by the firms shortlisted in the ‘competition’ to redesign the Central Vista. As with U.S. President Donald Trump, it’s as though humour has been thrown out of its own building and the place occupied by black holes of power into which all possibilities of satire get sucked.
For the first quarter century of independence, New Delhi witnessed a major act of splicing and grafting: the institutions of a new country with severely limited means finding their moorings in the capital. From the early 70s onwards, the additions to institutional Delhi have had some beautiful buildings and many kaam-chalau (workable) structures in which the working day was such hell, the dark joke went, that the bureaucrats made sure to spread their misery down to the common man. Given that the last buildings to emerge from Edwin Lutyens’ and Herbert Baker’s plans are now almost 90 years old, there are surely many imperatives to think of upgrading or replacing the buildings near Rajpath. The big question is how this is approached.
No Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru has given much thought towards integrating modern, innovative architecture with the mundane working needs of the Central government. There could be several reasons: dearth of money leading to a justification deficit, a lack of vision and imagination, other pressing priorities. Since the 1970s, with the recently destroyed Pragati Maidan buildings and a smattering of others as exceptions, official buildings in India have lacked verve and practicality. Most administrations have let their public works departments throw concrete and steel at construction needs, leading to a proliferation of ugly, uncomfortable blocks.
There is a golden opportunity for an enlightened Central government to take the lead in creating a new philosophy of architecture and area planning. The challenges are unique to Delhi but lessons can be forged for other cities as well. The buildings of the Raj era have to be unambiguously protected as part of our heritage, built by our labourers and engineers; the best design instincts of the British architects have to be preserved and resuscitated; the aesthetics of those buildings have to be kept in mind without new designs becoming subservient. We must have the audacity to think afresh for our needs and not copy mindlessly what’s been done in other countries. But first we have to ask, is it necessary at this moment to redesign the whole Rajpath area or can the needs be met with the replacing of a few of the buildings from the 70s and 80s, in addition to one or two new buildings? Care must be taken to protect the public gardens in the Central Vista, and also keep urgent ecological requirements at the heart of any new project.
Looking at the six video presentations — Ahmedabad-based HCP Design Planning has now been chosen as the architectural consultant — it is startling how similar they are in their glitzy grandiosity and almost complete insensitivity to what exists and what we might require. One could easily put all the plans into some kind of a random mixing programme and take the hodge-podge that emerges as the final masterplan.
Only one client
All the videos clearly address Mr. Modi as their only client. Where one video begins with a speech by Modi, another uses a photograph of Modi touching his head to the steps of the Lok Sabha. A very clear common agenda is to bury the Lutyens/Baker buildings in a mass of gargantuan structures. There is a preference for military-type ‘order’, with uniform buildings marching along both sides of Rajpath. Two of the proposals have monolithic structures dwarfing India Gate; one puts the new Parliament smack in the middle of the Vista, obscuring North and South blocks; there is a huge privileging of vehicular traffic, an even more extreme blocking off of the pedestrian commons than what we’ve already seen, completely disregarding the fact that the area around Rajpath is one of the main open air spaces where even the poorest people can come for an outing.
A project such as this should have a considered, transparent, inclusive process, but as we know, Mr. Modi doesn’t do considered or transparent, forget about inclusive. There should be diverse participation here, from urban planners and ecologists to those working on urban heritage. It should be taken into account that this will be the capital area for the foreseeable future no matter who is in power but, as we know, this regime can’t imagine anyone but themselves in power. This government is only interested in using the ‘completed’ project as an electoral tool, wherefore the absurdly short timeline within which this massive misadventure of masonry is to be inflicted upon us. In a city already collapsing under the blows of environmental emergencies, this demonetisation of our commons will add further misery and distress.
Concretised megalomania
There should be no room in this day and age for concretised megalomania. In a nation where so many are homeless, there should no space for the Prime Minister and his close coterie to shower in these delusions of architectural glory. We are a country reeling from multiple-organ crises, economic, infrastructural, ecological, and moral. If ever there was a time for clear-eyed, unspectacular, practicable projects, it it now. This rush towards architectural self-aggrandisement yet again proves just how cut off this regime is from the needs of ordinary Indians.
Ruchir Joshi is a writer, filmmaker and columnist
