Construction of New Delhi

The construction of New Delhi refers to the development of Delhi into the capital of the British Raj, and creation of New Delhi in a mass-scale real estate development project before the Independence of India.^[1][2][3] Before the project, Delhi was known of as a large slum due to the unplanned settlements of Old Delhi or Shahjahanabad.^[1] The British proposed the project after the Delhi Durbar in 1911, although due to World War I, it was delayed by around ten years till the 1920s. The New Delhi Project continued till the 1940s.^[4]

Originally King George V and Queen Mary announced the project, although it did receive major opposition from the European business community of Calcutta, along with Lord Curzon and Mahatma Gandhi.^[3] The project was fulfilled by a team of architects, engineers and contractors, namely Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker, Sir Teja Singh Malik, Walter Sykes George, Robert Tor Russell, Arthur Shoosmith, Sir Sobha Singh, Basakha Singh, Ram Singh Kabli, Narain Singh and Dharam Singh Sethi.^[5][6]

Architecture, planning and early development[edit]

Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker were selected to design the area in a traditional Indian fashion.^[2] The architects decided that the area where the foundation stones of Delhi were planted, Coronation Park, was an unsuitable area.^[7] They decided the village Malcha on Raisina Hill, as it had a ridge which could quarry stone.^[8] Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker toured the country trying to find the key to Indian architecture, they visited Hindu temples, Buddhist stupas, the Taj Mahal, along with palaces in Bikaner and Mandi.^[2] They came back disappointed and convinced that there was no "Indian style of architecture" and only mushrooming dynasties who built large buildings.^[2] They noted that the Indians of old knew how to build grand forts, palaces, mausoleums, tombs and durbar halls but not panchayat houses, legislative assembly buildings, or buildings for the commoners.^[9][1] The duo decided that they would give the outside appearance for Indianness which would include the sunbreaker (chajja), latticed window (jali) and dome (chattri) and the rest almost entirely British in nature.^[2] They had decided to use the stones used by the Mughals from the Vidhyachal, marble from Makrana and Jaipur and both stone and marble from Dholpur.^[3] The original Viceregal Lodge was meant to be made in White Marble, and Lutyens had wanted the garden to be an English Garden rather than a Mughal Garden.^[10]

Lutyens had made a grand plan for New Delhi, much larger than what had happened. His original plan was to dam the Yamuna, behind Humayun's Tomb, create a huge lake and a riverside boulevard around it and enclose the Purana Qila in a reflecting pool.^[2] Along with this he wished for Kingsway to go from the Viceregal Lodge through India Gate up to the Purana Qila and another road from the South Block up to the south entrance of the Jama Masjid.^[2] All ideas had to be abandoned, the former two because of costs and latter because the road would have gone through Gurdwara Rakab Ganj and the Sikhs under Sardul Singh Kavishar were already up-in-arms.^[11] The Viceroy became peevish due to the costs of Lutyens plans, to which Lutyens wrote, "the Viceroy thinks only of the next three years, I am thinking of the next three hundred years."^[12]

Originally Lutyens wanted to use the Grid-Iron Pattern of city planning as was used in other cities like New York, although the hexagonal pattern was preferred so that it could break the force of dust storms that swept the landscape, hence they included many roundabouts and hedges too.^[12] Lutyens and Baker were mainly inspired from other capitals like Washington, Canberra and Pretoria.^[12] There were three other sites which Lutyens and Baker had selected, East of the Yamuna, North of Shahjahanabad and West of Malcha.^[12] Although from 1914 to 1926 a temporary capital was made North of Old Delhi including the Delhi Assembly Building.^[12] While Baker and Lutyens were making the larger buildings, the connection between New Delhi and Old Delhi was being designed by Robert Tor Russell- Connaught Place.^[12]

The Viceroy, Lutyens and Baker were all in agreement on one idea, that India was going to be independent and they were making the city as the building blocks for the independent India.^[2] Although Lutyens and Baker did have disagreements, Lutyens wanted the Viceregal Lodge to be on a higher level than the civil servants- whereas Baker thought that in an independent democratic India the ruler and servants should be on the same level.^[2] The King and Viceroy approved of Baker's idea.^[2] Another time Lutyens wanted the slope between the Viceregal Lodge and the two secretariats to be at a steeper angle, whereas Baker believed that a gentle incline would be better as it did not matter whether you could or could not see the lodge.^[2] Once again Lutyens was overruled.^[2] The duo were not on talking terms anymore, although New Delhi continued to be built.^[2]

During the early stages of modern Delhi's development after the Delhi Durbar, Sujan Singh and Sunder Singh Dhupia were the main real estate developers, although their work was stopped due to World War I happening at the time.^[13] The foundation stones of Delhi were shifted from the Coronation Park to Rasina Hill by Sobha Singh, the son of Sujan Singh.^[2]

Construction[edit]

Labour[edit]

The labour included mainly the Bagaris of Rajputana, a number of them were known as Sangtarash- descendants of the people who built great Indian monuments like the Red Fort, Old Fort, Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri etc.^[14] There were also Bandhanis of Punjab who were tougher and bigger to carry larger loads, in total there were 30,000 workers at the height of construction- they worked under a Scotsman named Cairn.^[15] Men were paid eight annas a day whereas women were paid six annas a day.^[15] The contractors were almost all Sikhs, 26 Sikhs, 3 Punjabi Muslims and 1 Sindhi Hindu.^[16]

After World War I had been put to an end, the British once again started concentrating on the development projects in Delhi.^[17] The project was mainly done under five Sikhs (known locally as the Panj Pyare of Delhi) who were Sir Sobha Singh, Dharam Singh Sethi, Baisakha Singh, Narain Singh and Ram Singh Kabli. By 1929 all major buildings had been completed. Although there was opposition, many called it as a "British matron in a fancy dress."^[18]

Construction work[edit]

Material[edit]

Dharam Singh Sethi had a monopoly on the marble and stone trade in North India, he used to import the materials from Dholpur, Rajasthan.^[19] His house later became the office for the All India Congress Committee.^[19] Ram Singh Kabli had a monopoly over pottery and clay supplies hence had helped in providing the same to almost all houses created in the project, including design and furniture.^[19] Sir Teja Singh Malik was the chief engineer who had received knighthood for helping in the construction of Delhi through supplying timber for the city's construction, he also heavily assisted Lutyens and Baker in their designs, he also sold timber.^[20][21]

Labour[edit]

Sir Sobha Singh had been given the role of chief contractor by the British, and had also become a subordinate architect, he was also involved in increasing business in Delhi, which at the time did not have any major markets, or any main trading goods either, Connaught Place was his brainchild to make Delhi an economic hub. He had finalized Janpath, Connaught Place, Viceregal Lodge, Sujan Singh Park, Regal Building, Jaipur Column and many houses in the Lutyens Bungalow Zone including Scindia House, Kochin House, Baroda House et cetera. The burden of Delhi's development was on him and he had fulfilled all orders given by the Government of British India, he even owned around half of Connaught Place at the time and was known as the lead contractor- for being so his name was etched in Delhi's folklore as "Adhi Dilli ka Malik": the God of Half of Delhi.

Narain Singh (originally a peasant whose father was rumored to have been a dacoit) had made most of the road development for the new city and laid the foundation for the Parliament House.^[22] The Imperial Hotel was made by him which housed many meetings between Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah and Mountbatten when they were finalizing the Partition of India.^[23] His son Ranjit Singh, who earned money off his sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh, helped in the developments in Janpath and the Imperial Hotel which hosted many meetings between Jinnah, Nehru and Mountbatten.^[23]

Baisakha Singh had constructed various official residencies, Jinnah House and North Block of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He also supplied cement for roads and food supplies for the laborers.^[24] Sewa Singh continued the development of Delhi but also of neighboring zones, the Karol Bagh land auction was organized by him.^[25] Manohar Singh, father of the Patwant Singh, was put in charge of supervising the North Block. Lachhman Singh Gill, who later became the Chief Minister of Punjab, also constructed large tracts in East Delhi which was originally barely inhabited in 1937 and would not be very populated till 20 years later.^[26]

Lacchman Das and Seth Haroun Al-Rashid, both Sindhis, constructed were given charge of Government House and exterior of the North Block.^[27] Akbar Ali from Jhelum and Nawab Ali of Rohtak, both Punjabi Muslims, laid the foundation of the National Archives and Mughal Gardens, respectfully.^[27]

Plantation[edit]

As soon as Lutyens had marked the roads, they got William Robertson Mustoe, the man in charge of Kew Gardens, to set up a huge nursery.^[28] It is next to Humayun’s tomb.^[28] He had 500 varieties of trees, Australian, East African and indigenous, while the roads were being laid he was planting trees alongside. Along Rajpath, jamun trees were planted. Otherwise the sausage tree, gum tree and African tulip tree from East Africa were planted in other areas.^[29] Sir Sobha Singh had once stated that those, "slow growing trees would provide shade to our great-great-great grandsons and their grandsons."^[29] Queen Victoria had once come and cut down all the gum trees and replaced them with cypress trees- after Lutyens' protest the damage was undone.^[30]

The Delhi Ridge had been planted with North Indian Rosewood, Madras Thorn, Indian Siris, Australian Eucalyptus and the Mexican Mesquite.^[31]

Aftermath[edit]

This was one of the first points where the British Raj had started giving high positions to Indians instead of Englishmen.^[30] Sir Teja Singh Malik was made the first Indian head of the Central Public Works Department and Sir Sobha Singh was made the first Indian to head the New Delhi Municipal Council.^[32]

Uttam Singh Duggal- an aristocratic Partition refugee- had constructed various highways and colonies for the city- in the 1970s till the early 2000s they held a monopoly over construction work and real estate in Delhi.^[33] Mohan Singh had constructed the American Embassy with 1,500 craftsmen.^[34] He had also introduced Coca-Cola to India and constructed the factories for the same, along with the addition of New Friends Colony.^[34]

By the 2000s, the development shifted to areas around the Delhi Union Territory such as Gurgaon, Haryana and Noida, Uttar Pradesh under companies such as the Wave Group and DLF. These sister cities would remove industry and jobs from Delhi to their cities instead, removing further infrastructure and business projects in the area.

References[edit]