New Delhi

• 1. Introduction

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  New Delhi is the capital city of India, but for decades it did not exist at all. In December 1911, at the grand ceremonial gathering known as the Delhi Durbar, King George V stood at Coronation Park and announced that the seat of British power in India would move from Calcutta to Delhi. Three days after that declaration, he returned to lay the first stone of an entirely new city. That city would take twenty years to build and would reshape the map of the subcontinent. What drove the British to abandon their existing capital? Who designed the metropolis that rose from the Delhi plains? And how did a planned imperial showcase become the nerve centre of an independent republic? Those are the questions this documentary will answer.

• 2. Why Calcutta Had to Go

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  Calcutta had served as the capital of British India for well over a century when political pressure made it untenable. Since the late nineteenth century the city had become the engine of India's nationalist movement, drawing activists, agitators, and organizers into its dense urban fabric. The situation grew acute when Viceroy Curzon partitioned Bengal, a decision that ignited a fierce backlash. Political assassinations of British officials followed, and the public mounted a full boycott of British goods. Facing both violence and an economic squeeze, the colonial government reversed the partition of Bengal and simultaneously resolved to shift the capital away from the turbulent east coast. Delhi sat in the centre of northern India, and the Government of British India judged it far easier to administer a subcontinent from that central position. The land for the new city was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, giving the colonial authorities the legal mechanism to clear and purchase the territory they needed.

• 3. The Architects and Their Vision

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  Edwin Lutyens first arrived in Delhi in 1912, a year after the foundation stone was laid, and immediately began shaping the city that would eventually carry his name. He worked alongside Herbert Baker, and both men were among the leading British architects of the twentieth century. The contract for construction was awarded to Sobha Singh. The original plan placed the new capital inside Tughlaqabad Fort, but a trunk railway line running through that site ruled it out. A Delhi Town Planning Committee was formed with George Swinton as chairman and John A. Brodie and Lutyens as members. That committee weighed a northern and a southern site; the viceroy rejected the northern option when the cost of acquiring its properties proved too high. A site atop Raisina Hill, formerly a village called Raisina, was chosen for the Viceroy's House. The hill lay directly opposite the Dinapanah citadel, which was also held to be the site of Indraprastha, the ancient precinct of Delhi. Lutyens designed the central administrative zone as a statement of British imperial ambition. Yet the persistence of Viceroy Hardinge and historians like E.B. Havell ensured that elements drawn from Hindu and Islamic architecture were woven into what was otherwise a British Classical and Palladian framework. The gardening and planning of plantations fell to A.E.P. Griessen and later to William Mustoe.

• 4. Building a City from Scratch

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  Before a single government building could rise on Raisina Hill, engineers had to solve a railway problem. A circular railway line called the Imperial Delhi Railway was built around the Council House, later known as Parliament House, to carry workers and construction materials across the rocky ridge for roughly twenty years. A second obstacle was the Agra-Delhi railway line, which cut directly through the planned route of Kingsway, the grand ceremonial boulevard, and the site of the hexagonal All-India War Memorial. The solution was to shift that line so it ran along the Yamuna River; it began operating in its new alignment in 1924. The New Delhi Railway Station opened in 1926, starting with a single platform at Ajmeri Gate near Paharganj, and was ready for the city's inauguration five years later. Construction of the Viceroy's House, Central Secretariat, Parliament House, and India Gate wound down first. Then in 1929, work began on Connaught Place, the large circular commercial district modelled after the Royal Crescent in England. It was named after Prince Arthur, 1st Duke of Connaught, who lived from 1850 to 1942, and was designed by Robert Tor Russell, chief architect to the Public Works Department. The entire city was formally inaugurated in ceremonies beginning on the 10th of February 1931, with Viceroy Irwin presiding. Connaught Place itself was not completed until 1933.

• 5. Layout and Landmarks

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  New Delhi is structured around two central promenades that meet at right angles. The Rajpath, known in the colonial period as King's Way, stretches from the Rashtrapati Bhavan at Raisina Hill to India Gate. It was built in deliberate echo of the Champs-Elysees in Paris. The Janpath, formerly called Queen's Way, begins at Connaught Circus and cuts across the Rajpath. Nineteen foreign embassies line the nearby Shantipath, making it the largest diplomatic enclave in India; the city as a whole hosts 145 foreign embassies and high commissions. India Gate, completed in 1931, was inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It commemorates the 90,000 soldiers of the Indian Army who died fighting for the British Raj in World War I and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. Gandhi Smriti marks the location where Mahatma Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life before being assassinated on the 30th of January 1948. Gandhi was cremated at Rajghat the following day, on the 31st of January 1948, and his ashes were buried there beside the Yamuna River. The Rajghat memorial, built as a large square platform in black marble, was designed by architect Vanu Bhuta. Jantar Mantar, located in Connaught Place, was built by Maharaja Jai Singh II of Jaipur and comprises 13 architectural astronomy instruments whose purpose was to compile astronomical tables and predict the movements of the sun, moon, and planets.

• 6. The Air Quality Crisis

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  The World Health Organization ranked New Delhi as the world's most polluted city in 2014, tracking pollution levels across roughly 1,600 cities globally. Two years later, the United States Environmental Protection Agency placed it at the top of the same ranking. November is typically the month with the worst air quality in the city. On the 5th of November 2020, PM2.5 concentrations reached 14 times the WHO's safe limit. On the 7th of November 2017, the Indian Medical Association declared a public health emergency; the Punjabi Bagh district recorded an air quality index of 999 on that day, while RK Puram reached 852 and Anand Vihar, the lowest of the three, still recorded 319. PM2.5 levels that day were measured at 710 micrograms per cubic metre, more than 11 times the WHO threshold. To fight the problem, the Delhi government introduced an odd-even vehicle scheme in December 2015, restricting cars with odd- and even-numbered licence plates to alternate days from the 1st of January 2016 for an initial trial of 15 days. Analysis of real-time speed data from Uber Delhi showed that during the programme, average vehicle speeds rose by a statistically significant 5.4 per cent. The Supreme Court of India separately mandated on the 16th of December 2015 that registrations of diesel vehicles with engines of 2,000 cc and over be suspended until the 31st of March 2016, and that all taxis switch to compressed natural gas by the 1st of March 2016. In December 2019, IIT Bombay partnered with the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis to launch the Aerosol and Air Quality Research Facility specifically to study pollution in New Delhi and other Indian cities.

• 7. Transport and Connectivity

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  Delhi Metro is the world's 12th largest metro system by length, with a network of 348.12 km spanning 255 stations across 10 colour-coded lines. The system extends beyond Delhi into Ghaziabad and Noida in Uttar Pradesh, and Faridabad and Gurgaon in Haryana. It uses four types of rolling stock: Mitsubishi-ROTEM Broad gauge, Bombardier MOVIA, Mitsubishi-ROTEM Standard gauge, and CAF Beasain Standard gauge. A study found that the metro has removed approximately 390,000 vehicles from Delhi's streets. The project was led by E. Sreedharan, the managing director of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited, popularly called the "Metro Man" of India. He resigned from the position to take moral responsibility after a metro bridge collapse that killed five people. The French government awarded him the Legion of Honour for his contribution to the Delhi Metro. On the aviation side, Indira Gandhi International Airport handled more than 35 million passengers in 2012-13. Its Terminal 3, built between 2007 and 2010, handles an additional 37 million passengers annually. In 2015, Airports Council International rated it the best airport in the world in the 25-40 million passengers category. Delhi's bus network, operated by the Delhi Transport Corporation, runs the largest fleet of compressed natural gas buses in the world. A second airport, Noida International Airport, is currently under construction at Jewar.

• 8. Capital of a Republic

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  When India gained independence in 1947, New Delhi inherited its role as capital of a sovereign nation rather than an imperial outpost. The city was initially administered by a Chief Commissioner appointed by the central government. In 1966 Delhi became a union territory, and the Chief Commissioner was replaced by a Lieutenant Governor. The Constitution's 69th Amendment Act, passed in 1991 and brought into force in 1993, formally designated the territory as the National Capital Territory of Delhi and introduced an elected government with broad powers, though law and order remained with the central government. The municipality of New Delhi, covering 42.7 square kilometres, sits within this larger territory. According to the 2011 census, the New Delhi Municipal Council area had a population of 249,998, with a literacy rate of 89.38 per cent, the highest in Delhi. The city hosts the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Sansad Bhavan, and the Supreme Court, making it the seat of all three branches of the Indian government. New Delhi has also become a diplomatic hub, hosting most of the UN's regional offices in India, including the UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, IMF, and others. The city hosted the 1951 Asian Games, the 1982 Asian Games, and the 2010 Commonwealth Games. India hosted the G20 Summit in New Delhi in 2023, a gathering that reflected how far the former colonial showcase had travelled in its role on the world stage.