Peaks & Valleys

Like the Yamuna that flows past it, Delhi’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed greatly over time. Often raised to glory and yet oddly abandoned several times over a thousand years, the city is no stranger to strange contradictions. And despite coming to epitomise the worst excesses of power and corruption, Delhi has also repeatedly shown, with its long history of famous protests, how the mighty may be well and truly humbled by dissenting masses.
In keeping entirely with such character New Delhi’s first high point was also quite dramatic: the city itself was a surprise. After having been crowned ‘King-Emperor ’ at the Delhi Durbar of 1911 -— and paid homage to by a bevy of Raj grandees in a dazzling ceremony held just north of the old Mughal Shahjahanabad — George V abruptly announced that Delhi would be British India’s new capital.
Construction soon began on a new city of imposing imperial splendour. Its inauguration, in 1931, by the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, was also an august affair; even if a new Gandhian-inflected nationalism led many to tut-tut in disapproval of its grandness. The Raj also founded the University of Delhi in 1922. With the post-independence addition of other such institutions — notably IIT Delhi and JNU, in the 60's — ‘DU’ would help place the city on the global education map.
Independence itself brought both dizzying highs and tragic lows. Indeed, India's famous ‘tryst with destiny’ in 1947 is also firmly tethered in the public imagination to Delhi. As is the annual Republic Day parade, once a vitally symbolic event for a young and fractious nation.
But it was partition that truly shaped Delhi. The city saw much bloodletting and refugees, many of whom had been uprooted from urban centers like Lahore, poured in. Delhi’s population doubled. And then, on an infamous January morning in 1948, as much hatred still smouldered across the country , Nathuram Godse pumped three bullets into Mahatma Gandhi. “The light has gone out of our lives,” announced a distraught Nehru to a devastated nation. It was new India and New Delhi’s darkest hour.
Even so, a silver lining slowly emerged. In those grim beginnings was forged the steel that would build a megacity. A mammoth two-decade resettlement programme would help most refugees strike roots into the city. Many would also set out to grittily rebuild much of what they had lost. It makes for a sombre achievement today.
But violence returned in 1984, another black year for Delhi. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated, a pogrom followed , 4000 Sikhs perished, and a new PM Rajiv Gandhi, shrugged off the violence. Yet only a year ago, the city had basked in the afterglow of a grand Asian Games, in 1982, and an impressive 1983 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) conference.
1983 also saw Maruti Suzuki roll out its first car. Besides pushing Delhi into becoming a car-crazy city, it also focused attention on a bucolic Delhi suburb. A visionary real-estate kingpin soon pitched in and the city’s second building boom was triggered. New localities and townships sprang up all around New Delhi, migration increased, and a new National Capital Region became one of the world’s largest urban agglomerations.
And since its fortune we’re largely on about, the city’s luckiest patch of land would probably be the Ferozshah Kotla. The cricket stadium has seen Team India notch up 11 Test wins and remain unbeaten since 1987. There was some talk of abandoning it recently. But in keeping with another old Delhi tradition, however, wiser counsel prevailed.