PROBASHI- A Cultural News Magazine Volume 2 Issue 2 | Page 36

Probashi- City

Making of New Delhi

decided to transfer the seat of
power from Calcutta to Delhi. The
political map of India had suddenly
been altered - this was the ‘Grand
Gesture’ from the King which
Hardinge had engineered. Copies of
gazette on the declaration printed
secretly
beforehand
were
distributed which made the
pronouncement a statute.
On 15 December 1911, King Henry
V and Queen Mary laid the
foundation stones of Imperial Delhi
where now stands the physics
department of the University of
Delhi. A year later these stones
were shifted 11 kms away to
Raisina hill where the Viceroy
House
(present
Rashtrapati
Bhavan) and the Secretariat
(present North and South Block)
were built The sovereign made it
clear at the foundation stone laying
ceremony that no effort be spared
to make a splendid city. Given the
number of great buildings of the
Mughals and beyond strewn across
Delhi, the British were determined
their
capital
must
“quietly
dominate them all”. Conveying the
King’s sentiments to Secretary of
State for India, Lord Crewe, Lord
Stamfordham , King’s Private
Secretary wrote, “we must now let
him [the Indian] see for the first
time, the power of western science,
art, and civilization.” The new
capital was to stand as the motif of
British Superiority.
With the intent clear, now came the
time to select the men who would
translate the grand vision on the
ground. This was to be done by the
Town Planning Committee, which
however did not get a smooth start.
The first shortlist of the committee
had three members- Deputy
Commissioner of Punjab, the

Men who started the New Delhi Journey. Clockwise from
left- Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, architect and chief
designer, Sir Herbert Baker , architect , John A. Brodie,
engineer; and George S.C. Swinton, municipal affairs
expert.

Superintending Engineer of the
Jamuna Canal and the Consulting
Architect to the Government of
Bombay. These names were struck
down by Sir John Fleetwood
Wilson, a senior member of the
Viceroy’s Council with the noting
that the proposed panel comprised
of ‘non entities’ and that best
available talent had to be put on
the job if the Sovereign’s desire for
the finest city of the British Empire
was to be translated on the
ground. Search for three names
with the requisite talent, track
record and stature was started,
finally zeroing on three member
team - Edwin l. Lutyens, architect;
John A. Brodie, engineer; and
George S.C. Swinton, municipal
affairs expert. There was another
exceptional architect who was in
the race- Henry Vaughan Lancaster,
but lost out to Lutyens not on
technical skills but on the
consideration that Lancaster was
rather “brusque and irritable”.
Lancaster missed immortality by a
whisker, and the epithet “Lutyen’s
Delhi” might well would have been
“Lancaster’s
Delhi”, only
if
34

Lancaster been a bit mild mannered.
And of course had Lord John Wilson
not objected to the initial panel of
names, New Delhi as we know it
today might have never fructified.
On 12 March 1912, the King gave his
approval to the names and on the
side margin noted “excellent”.
Before leaving for India, the trio had
a meeting with the King at
Buckingham palace where the King
told the Delhi design team that the
site where the foundation stone he
and the queen had laid the previous
year was not sacrosanct and that
the ridge area with its monuments
was to be considered as sacred. The
“Delhi Experts” set sail for India on
28 March 1912 with a heavy
expectation and responsibility on
their hands.
With the writ of the Sovereign in
place, and the team to design the
city now in India, the next challenge
was where to find the site for the
new city. There were certain
considerations- health, security,
room for expansion, cost, water
supply and drainage, electricity and
transport as well as “the