Download - Delhi Heritage City

Medieval And Colonial Capital Cities Of DelhiJUSTIFICATION FOR INSCRIPTION3.1. Brief synthesis(i) summary of factual informationThe ‘Delhi triangle’, a 155 square kilometre area formed by a spur of the Aravalli Hills and the River Yamuna, hasbeen the pre‐eminent site for several capitals of North India for nearly a millennia (historians refer to at leasteight capital cites of Delhi built by different dynasties who ruled various parts of North India). The Mughal Empire(1526‐1739) was the last of the pre‐modern Indian empires. It was direct heir to the Mauryan and Gupta Empires,earlier states that had also aspired to sub continental dominance. The Mughals, however, supposed all other premodernIndian politics in the efficiency and extent of their rule and in the strength of the order which theyimposed. The Mughal Empire, perhaps the richest and most powerful empire of that time, extended fromAfghanistan in the west to Bengal in the east and from Kashmir in the north to the Deccan in the south. Shahjahan,the most prolific of the Mughal emperors, located his imperial capital city at a point of convergence of important landand riverine trade routes of the region, on the western bank of the River Yamuna. Shahjahanabad occupied a strategicposition in upper India, on the Uttarapatha linking the Gangetic plains to the Silk Route. The British followed theMughals and, for many imperial years, saw themselves as successors, attempting to rebuild the rotten imperialstructure which they had so easily toppled. They moved their capital from Calcutta to New Delhi, building a newcity adjoining the earlier Mughal Capital. The colonial city of New Delhi was designed by Lutyens to connectvisually and symbolically to the older Mughal city. This triangle of symbolic sight lines, from to Jami Masjid, alongParliament Street to its north and along the Central Vista to Purana Qila to its east, need to be preserved.Today Delhi’s historic landscape is littered with an extraordinary range of monuments and ruins, as remarkable intheir quantity and quality as anywhere in the world (1208 are officially listed, of which 174 are monuments ofnational importance, including three World Heritage Sites). While only individual buildings, some complexes and afew precincts remain as evidence of the earlier capital cities, the urban morphology of the last two cities,Shahjahanabad and New Delhi is intact till today.This remarkable historic landscape has, of course, changed since 1947 when India gained independence; for one,it is now part of the modern capital of the Indian Republic, designated the National Capital Territory of Delhi(NCTD), having an area of 1483 square kilometres; for another there has been a tremendous transformation inthe social, economic and demographic profile of the city. India is poised to become a global economicpowerhouse and New Delhi, its capital, is experiencing the tremendous pressures of development that isbeginning to threaten it priceless historic legacy. Remarkably however, two of its historic capital cities,Shajahanabad and Colonial New Delhi still palpably retain their historic integrity and authenticity.(ii) a summary of qualitiesDelhi has been in the making for over a thousand years. In the almost unbroken succession of urban settlementsin the Delhi area, Shahjahanabad was the crown jewel, the climax of the pre‐modern urban process in the Indiansubcontinent. Shahjahanabad, as a sovereign city in Mughal India, 1639‐1739 made an important contribution toMughal history and to the history of urban development in India. Globally too, it is the best example of thesovereign cities of contemporaneous Asian Empires.Although built as a sovereign capital city it developed as a trade centre. It was modelled on the Quranic conceptof ‘paradise’ and in its heyday as a newly laid out city, it was the pride of the Mughal Empire. Contemporariescompared it to Rome and Constantinople in grandeur.As Shahjahanabad was built as the capital of the Mughal Empire, one of the most powerful and largest Islamicdynasties, it makes Shahjahananabd the most pertinent case of city planning in the Islamic region.Almost 300 years later, at the apogee of the British Raj whose writ extended over almost all of present day India,Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the ‘jewel in the crown of the British Empire’ that31‐07‐2012 INTACH, Delhi Chapter 2