Great Cities: Delhi's modernist dreamproves a far-fetched fantasy

Delhi today, six decades after it was originally envisaged as one centrepoint orbited by six ‘ring towns’. Photograph: Fayaz Kabli/

Reuters. MIDDLE: Emergency trains crowded with desperate refugees. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. BOTTOM: Men rest on a

construction site for residential apartments that was halted, unfinished, in 2011. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters.

The planners of independent India’s new capital tried to create a poverty-free modern utopia but

failed badly. The result is a sprawling city filled with slums and burdened by strict building rules.

On Aug. 14, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, delivered his vision for a

new capital city. It was the night before India achieved independence from the British Empire,

which had ruled India previously. “We have to build a noble mansion of free India where all her

children may dwell," Nehru said to parliament.

Just outside parliament, however, Nehru’s mansion was crumbling.

By David Adler, The Guardian, adapted by Newsela staff on 05.20.16

Word Count 1,419

Level 1180L

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In Delhi, India's capital city, mobs of young men rioted in Muslim neighborhoods as families fled

their homes. A few miles south, thousands poured into the ruins at Purana Qila and Humayun’s

Tomb, historic monuments. Fleeing violence in their home states, families found refuge in

makeshift colonies sprouting on the outskirts of Delhi.

The city appeared like a battlefield with houses on fire, crowds of refugees, gunfire, and dead

horses and cattle.

A Plan For No Poverty

After the British left, 350,000 Muslims fled Delhi for Pakistan, while 500,000 non-Muslims came

to the city in 1947 alone. It was called history’s greatest migration, and the city was not prepared

for it. Public transportation and hospitals came to a standstill and phones stopped working. When

the trains stopped running, the food supply dwindled to just two days’ worth of wheat.

Nehru developed a plan over the next decade for a capital city free of poverty and slums. He

worked with eight British and American planners and architects from the Ford Foundation, and

together, they came up with an ambitious vision for the future of Delhi. They reviewed maps, drew

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up plans, and mocked up drafts of India’s new capital city. Their goal was to bring European city

planning ideas to the chaotic and sprawling Delhi. Almost none of the committee members had

worked in India before.

Delhi has a long history of being shaped and reshaped by foreign planners. A half-century earlier,

British Edwin Lutyens was chief architect in the planning of Delhi when it became the capital of

the British Raj. The British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and

1947, and it covered almost all of present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Lutyens wanted

to make Delhi look like a “proper European capital" with wide avenues, vistas, parks and

roundabouts. Lutyens’ portion of the city became known as New Delhi.

Dreams Of A Model City

Like Lutyens, the Ford Foundation committee wanted to remake the city into a model of

development for India. On paper, their plan was a modernist dream, promising six “ring towns”

that would grow from Delhi’s outskirts, each with its own economic, social and cultural ties to the

central city.

To carry out the plan, a new organization was formed called the Delhi Development Authority

(DDA). Under the DDA's guidance, each town was given targets for population, manufacturing

and employment for the next 30 years of city growth. The plan said that the public and private

buildings should be beautiful, simple and modern.

Ashutosh Varshney, professor of political science at Brown University, said that the plan for Delhi

was a social vision as much as an architectural one, noting that the city was to include all the

languages and regions of India. For Delhi’s planners, the key to achieving this vision was

centralization. They chose to give control over the city's planning to one central authority, the

DDA. Previously, Delhi had evolved in a haphazard manner, usually without the benefit of

planning development in the public interest.

The DDA took over the sole responsibility for directing Delhi’s growth. Partha Mukhopadhyay, of

the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, said that two things happened next. First, the

government acquired a large amount of land, and second, almost all private development came to

a halt. Delhi’s major developers, who had constructed colonies through the south of the city, were

no longer allowed to build. Instead, the DDA acquired more than 50,000 acres of land for its

various construction and redevelopment projects.

The entire city was taken over as a public project, Mukhopadhyay said.

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City Lacked Resources

Gautam Bhan, professor at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements in Bangalore, said the

DDA's plan was enticing at first. It promised national land, government employment and state-

built housing that would ensure people of all incomes could live in the city. On the streets of Delhi,

however, the DDA's plan remained a fantasy.

At the root of the problem was the fact that the Delhi government was close to bankruptcy, like

city governments around the country. Mukhopadhyay said the city didn't have the resources to

put the plan into action, and as pressure continually grew, the DDA became overwhelmed.

At the height of planning, no more than 50 million rupees, or roughly $1 million, was available to

the DDA. This was not enough to build more than a few yards of metro railway, Mukhopadhyay

said.

Refugee Crisis Intensifies

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The DDA consistently fell short over the next decade, promising to develop 30,000 acres for

residential use, but delivering only 13,000. Where it did succeed in developing housing, it was

rarely for Delhi’s poorest. Only 10 percent of the DDA’s housing plots were designated for its low-

income group between 1960 and 1970.

Without support from the state, the refugee crisis in Delhi intensified, with more than 200,000 new

migrants arriving from the surrounding countryside each year. Tent cities that first appeared in the

early days of independence grew into larger neighborhoods. Residents of these tent cities moved

from "kutcha" houses of mud and wood to "pukka" houses of brick and stone. Relatives joined

their families and built new rooms, and the area on the outskirts of Delhi steadily spread outward.

Delhi's migrants had settled as residents, but the DDA refused to recognize them. All city land

was owned by the government and informal settlements were illegal, so their residents were

considered invaders. The DDA evicted and relocated many of these illegal occupants to make

way for its projects, but many other slum-dwellers were simply ignored.

Regularization Took Many Years

Occupants of the slums could apply to legally own the land, a process known as “regularization.”

But because of the government's many strict rules, this process often took years, if not decades.

The DDA put the slum occupants in an impossible position by outlawing informal construction and

failing to provide a formal alternative.

Varshney said that providing for the poor was never part of the DDA’s vision. Delhi’s planners

never adapted to reality when it became apparent that the ideal modern city planned at

independence no longer made sense.

Instead, the DDA continued to pursue its original plan without regard to the obstacles that made it

increasingly impossible. Bhan said that the biggest failure was that it took 30 years to come up

with the next plan, and that no plan can shape a city for 30 years. The most important part of

planning is reviewing, course correcting and adjustment, he added.

Even five decades after its first city plan, the DDA praised its accomplishments in its 2006/07

annual report. The DDA said they had crossed one milestone after another in the past 50 years,

and Delhi "continued to grow in glory and spread its warmth.” Even to the most casual observer,

their report is a masterpiece of magical thinking.

Today, skyscrapers, malls and gated communities sprout from farmland on Delhi's eastern edge,

and trucks flow from highways into factories along its north. Throughout, new informal settlements

continue to crop up, housing roughly half of Delhi's 18 million residents.

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Great Vision, Little Implementation

Yet, the DDA remains largely blind to these changes. At Vikas Sadan, where its headquarters are

located, the DDA remains intact, a fossil of a different era. The city plan for 2021 promises to

make Delhi a world-class city, a technological hub with green parks and new high-rise housing.

Outside the DDA office, meanwhile, lines of housing applicants snake around the block, holding

thick folders of forms. They joke that if you apply for a house from the DDA, your great-great-

great-great-great-granddaughter will live to inhabit it.

Modern Delhi was born of great vision, and little implementation. From the outset, Delhi’s

planners have imagined an ideal capital city with ordered growth and universal housing. Yet, in

doing so, they planned for a city that did not exist, and they left the city’s actual residents without

a plan.

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Quiz

1 Which option provides an accurate and objective summary of the article?

(A) India was in a state of turmoil when Nehru explained his idea for rebuilding Delhi.

He worked with foreign city planners to develop a plan that drew on European

influences.

(B) Delhi's redesign was intended to increase employment and population. Under the

DDA, the plan was poorly implemented and many poor residents were left without

a place to live.

(C) The DDA acquired a large amount of land as part of its plan to reshape Delhi. It

failed to develop the land into residential areas, using only 13,000 acres for

housing plots.

(D) While its plan was good in theory, the DDA was unable to achieve many of its

goals. Unfortunately, the DDA has refused to recognize its mistakes and even

fabricated reports of its progress.

2 Which of the following statements BEST represents Nehru's approach toward Delhi's development?

(A) He was dedicated to working alongside the DDA to ensure that Delhi's slums and

poverty would improve.

(B) He was conscientious of creating a plan that honored Delhi's cultural history.

(C) He was determined to transform Delhi into a city as grand as renowned foreign

capitals.

(D) He was careful to consider the economic challenges his plan would present.

3 Which of the people quoted in the article would be MOST likely to agree with the idea that the DDA

did not truly care about the poor people of the city?

(A) Partha Mukhopadhyay, member of the Center for Policy Research

(B) Ashutosh Varshney, a professor of political science at Brown University

(C) Gautam Bhan, a professor at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements

(D) Edwin Lutyens, the chief architect of planning New Delhi

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4 Which of the following sentences BEST develops the central idea that the DDA's plan was

unrealistic?

(A) Mukhopadhyay said the city didn't have the resources to put the plan into action,

and as pressure continually grew, the DDA became overwhelmed.

(B) Only 10 percent of the DDA’s housing plots were designated for its low-income

group between 1960 and 1970.

(C) Relatives joined their families and built new rooms, and the area on the outskirts of

Delhi steadily spread outward.

(D) Today, skyscrapers, malls and gated communities sprout from farmland on Delhi's

eastern edge, and trucks flow from highways into factories along its north.

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 8