Dominion Geometries : Colonial construction and Postcolonial persistence of the Imperial in the New Delhi Plan

Abstract

New Delhi is not only the capital of India but the capital of the world's largest democracy. Conceived and built by the British, the New Delhi plan translated British India's home policy in sandstone. The government's administrative hierarchy and centralization of power was directly represented in the physical plan that impressed its magnificence and power over a country awakening to freedom. A realized grand vision imperial plan in an ideologically contradictory circumstance of independence and democracy is the unique departure point for this work. Divided in two parts corresponding to the colonial and postcolonial timeframes, this thesis attempts to answer the central questions of: -How was the Imperial constructed in colonial Delhi? -How and why has it persisted in the postcolonial evolution of New Delhi? At the macro level, this research engages intersecting themes of political ideology, physical planning, policy, culture and evolution in contemporary city form. the motivation for this research emerges from my own subscription to the fact that "[New Delhi today is] a kind of an overgrown capitol complex, resolutely detached from the rest of the city." In my view, it is the persistence or resistance of the "Imperial" in the post colonial democratization of New Delhi that is largely responsible for the fractures in the city's identity, urban form, sustenance and evolution.