A City's Story Told
Words WORTH
| DELHI NOW Dilip Bobb |
| A CULTURAL MELTING POT |
| Admittedly, few agencies in the world would be required to cater to the huge number of migrants that the city has attracted in recent years. Delhi's polyglot nature has aided that process: it welcomes nobody but accepts everybody. In recent years, the most visible "" some would say most welcome "" change is that the city's strident Punjabi culture has been strongly diluted by the new economic immigrants at the corporate and entrepreneurial level. Delhi's contemporary charm lies in the fact that no community dominates. Punjabis now represent less than a third of the population, with the result that everybody is a minority, making the city truly a melting pot of ethnic identities. As in most cities, the 'outsiders' have formed their own gated enclaves in an attempt to preserve cultural identity and the security blanket that safety in numbers provides. The Bengalis have virtually taken over Chittaranjan Park, complete with well-stocked fish stalls and puja pandals come festival season. The affluent Sindhi community has established their own commune at the grandly-named Mayfair Gardens, while one entire phase of Mayur Vihar is called Mallu Vihar because of the predominance of Malayalees, so much so that even the signboards over shops are in the Malayalee script. The Tamilians, present in comparatively large numbers, have used other methods to maintain their cultural standards and give them an edge over other residents. Many of the 'To Let' advertisements in the Sunday newspapers boldly state 'South Indians preferred'. Post 1990, the city has, like in 1947, attracted an influx of forced migrants. Kashmiri Pandits from Jammu and Srinagar, who became refugees in their own country following the onset of terrorism. Another influx of refugees, this time from war-torn Afghanistan, added to Delhi's population. Officially, there are 11,684 Afghans registered with the UN High Commission for Refugees in India but around 30,000 are believed to be unrecorded, mostly concentrated in Malviya Nagar and Savitri Nagar. |
| Fortunately for Delhi, it is the economic migrants who have changed the face of the city and added a new dynamism. The visible upward mobility and new affluence have, inevitably, brought cultural and social changes. If the first post-Partition influx brought in a strong, earthy Punjabi culture, the second wave of immigrants has brought a new energy and sophistication, and altogether a new beat. As member of parliament and now Delhi resident Sachin Pilot, says: 'The corporate culture and young professionals has added a new zest and pace to the city'. From the stodgy, bureaucratic city of the past, it is now a thriving community of artists, fashion designers and cultural impresarios, apart from prominent museums, art centres like the Museum of Modern Art and Lalit Kala Academy, as well as the National School of Drama which has given birth to a thriving theatre scene, not to mention actors of the stature of Naseeruddin Shah. A majority of the country's fashion designers: Tarun Tahilani, Rohit Bal, Ritu Beri, Rina Dhaka, J J Vallaya, Suneet Varma and Ravi Bajaj to name a few, are based in Delhi, as is the National Institute of Design [sic] where many of them learnt their craft. They have not only put Indian fashion on the global map but turned the city into a thriving centre of creativity. |
| DELHI THEN Narayani Gupta |
| PANAH |
| In its continuous history from the 12th century, the city of Delhi became known through the subcontinent and beyond. It spelled power, wealth, but also sanctuary and opportunity. Its rulers became legendary for their large kingdoms and their wealth, and its saints are still commemorated by thousands of people every year, long after they have passed on. |
| Despite the sense of the great power of Delhi's rulers, Delhi was very vulnerable, as were all Indian cities. Till 1857, all political powers in India defined their strength in terms of the territory under their control or of other rulers who acknowledged their superiority. Boundaries were not demarcated in documents. It was Europeans who introduced the notion of marking out political boundaries (but this did not prevent them from invading and annexing the territories of other rulers). |
| There have always been two Delhis "" the citadel of the rulers, a fort or a palace-complex, invariably walled. And a compact and growing city next to it, not always completely or strongly protected by a wall. The fort of Tughlaqabad was built as a bastion for the very likely eventuality of an attack by the Mongols who, in the 13th century, cobbled together a vast empire but also destroyed with great zest the towns of older Asian empires. In the event, Taimur the Mongol, when his troops set upon Delhi, destroyed not the distant Tuglaqabad but Firozabad, the spacious fort by the river. A few days before the storm broke, he had stood admiring the architecture of the magnificent walls of an older citadel, Siri. A century and a half earlier, it was the city next to Siri Fort which had given refuge to the scholars of Baghdad who had fled from the Mongol invaders. These men of learning in return contributed to making Delhi a great intellectual centre in Asia. |
| While these were open cities, in the welcome they afforded to strangers from far-off lands who knocked at their gates, the Delhis were walled "" in the sense that their inhabitants usually looked inward, and had little interaction with the farmers and shepherds who lived beyond the wall. Within the shahar was a beehive of mohallas, with single entry-points that made for perfect security. Apart from a reference to a protest by a group of shoe-makers, there are no accounts of tension between sections of city inhabitants. |
| From the 17th century to the 19th, Delhi acquired a quality of permanence, and became effectively the capital, not just one of the three great Mughal cities. Shahjahanabad became more crowded, and areas outside its walls grew into populous suburbs. The walls of Shahjahanabad were not as formidable as those of Siri, they were low, made of mud. The Red Fort or Qila-e-Mo'alla was ringed by high walls, and a moat. But the remoteness one experiences when viewing it today was absent "" the neighbourhoods came up to the maidan in front of the moat, and the people of the city could enter the Qila, as far as Diwan-e-Aam. It was only beyond that that the walls "" or curtains "" of privacy and security fell into place. And till Aurangzeb had the screen of sandstone built in front of the Lahore Gate, people with good eyesight could, sauntering in Chandni Chowk, see the Emperor in his durbar. |
| DELHI THEN & NOW |
| Authors: Dilip Bobb & Narayani Gupta Picture Research & Editing: Pramod Kapoor Publisher: Roli Books/Lustre Press Pages: 202 Price: Rs 2,475 |