India's confused attitude to its heritage is on full display when it comes to the proposal that the Raj-era bungalows of central Delhi be rebuilt, at a cost to the Indian exchequer of almost Rs 3 crore each. The proposal betrays a confusion not just about what constitutes "heritage" but also about good practices in conservation and urban planning.
In most parts of the world, buildings less than a century old are not considered heritage properties. Even in history-deficient North America, "pre-war" buildings and areas - the war being World War II - are not treated with the kid gloves that are being suggested for their contemporary creations in central Delhi.
It is important to remember that many of the bungalows that constitute the Lutyens' zone are hardly creations of unique brilliance. Few were designed by Edwin Lutyens himself or by the equally gifted Herbert Baker. Many of them are poorly designed. Nor are they reasonable residences in the modern age. Spread over acres of land, they nevertheless sometimes have barely more than two bedrooms. In others, bathrooms have had to be tacked on later.
Delhi, it must be noted, is a city that has been capital to many empires. The layers of history in the National Capital Region have not all received the same level of care. The capital before New Delhi, Shahjahanabad (or Old Delhi), is not that much older than some of the great cities of northern Europe. And it is a living city - one in which, in fact, more heritage preservation would be an asset. If in one segment of Delhi - the Lutyens' Bungalow Zone - preservation is all and dynamism is nothing, then in another segment of Delhi - the walled city - preservation is ignored completely. Surely a more reasonable middle ground can be found that applies to both equally?
Much is wrong with how central Delhi has been conceptualised. As a city that was meant for a small expatriate elite that had been set down in the middle of an alien countryside, it had few intimate neighbourhoods where people could meet each other by chance. It is no surprise that the only part of the Lutyens' Bungalow Zone that feels alive is Khan Market, which has been allowed to grow and change organically while retaining its distinctive character.
So very heavy-handed was the plan for this expatriate bubble that the very horticulture of the area was changed. Trees were imported from all over the country to line the boulevards of the new imperial city - trees with no connection to the local vegetation. When we praise leafy Delhi, we should never forget that it is a deeply unnatural, water-hungry creation.
True, the sad fact is that this history of blood-soaked privilege may be the case with many places and things now acclaimed as treasures - after all, who remembers how many died while building the Taj Mahal? Azam Khan of the Samajwadi Party showed unaccustomed sensitivity to the complex history of architectural heritage when he spoke of its construction as being "unjustified". But of all these, Lutyens' Delhi is unique in that it is both relatively new, far from unique, and above all it continues to be used for the purposes for which it was designed - as the home of an elite. The problem is that, given the power of those who reside in those shining white bungalows, claims that they all are heritage sites are difficult to evaluate neutrally. After all, the centre of Kolkata, say, had palaces of much greater architectural worth - but the worthies of New Delhi had little to say about their decay and destruction.
Perhaps, the simple truth is this: if Lutyens' Delhi is declared a heritage zone, then too much else will not be. If we buy the arguments that force a pristine perfection on the place where our powerful live, then we associate pristine perfection with heritage and with power - instead of with the messy, alive reality that characterises the rest of India's historic towns, and indeed is visible in the rest of Delhi.
After all, capitals reflect their time, and reflect the countries that they serve. Washington, DC, has monumental sections that are meant to embody the grandeur of the American project - but the rest of the town, with bustling ant-hills of office buildings and town houses on rent to government functionaries for months or years, does not quite reflect the same sensibility as its central mall. The real imperial capital, London, was never designed to overawe and exclude in the same way as was the faux-imperial capital of New Delhi. If anything, central London reflects the restrained clubbish aristocratic tone of the Georgian age that gave it, and the empire, birth. India needs a capital, certainly. But it need not be the one we have.
The writer is a Delhi-based architect
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