A multibillion-dollar revamp of India’s capital complex reflects the Prime Minister’s vision for the country’s future—and what he wants to erase from its past.
, the growing cult of personality around the Prime Minister himself as he usurps responsibilities constitutionally reserved for others. Architecture might seem trivial by comparison. But, to Sircar, the new Parliament is more than just a building; it is part of Modi’s plan to sideline the central institution of democracy and, as much as possible, rule without it.
New Delhi wasn’t supposed to have a Parliament building; the British, who designed the city, didn’t intend for India to be a democracy. When King George V decreed that India’s capital be moved from Calcutta to Delhi, in 1911, the architectural mandate was to build an administrative center for a colony. To design a “new” Delhi a couple of miles from the “old” one, Raj authorities tapped Lutyens, a country-house architect who had never been to India.
That September, an informational meeting turned into a contentious affair. Representatives of interested firms crowded around a horseshoe-shaped table in a conference room at the Central Public Works Department, which has overseen civic improvements in India since 1854. When the floor opened for questions, participants took turns expressing their discontent.
In 1981, Hasmukh’s son, Bimal, who was nineteen years old, travelled through Europe by rail pass and by VW van. He was stunned by “how comfortable ordinary life can be for ordinary people.” Crowded yet well maintained, the urban streets, squares, and markets of Amsterdam, Paris, and Barcelona offered everyday Europeans a quality of life attainable only by the most privileged in India. In 1985, Bimal went to the United States, where he earned degrees in architecture and city planning from U.C.
The promenade, meanwhile, was almost entirely empty. More than eight million people live in Ahmedabad, but this was the only space where I saw almost no pedestrians—save for a few canoodling couples who seemed to have come precisely because it afforded them so much privacy. It has little shade and virtually no street venders.
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