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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 Britain's imperial home policy verbatim in sandstone. The government's administrative hierarchy and 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 research. Divided in two parts corresponding to colonial and postcolonial periods, this book attempts to answer the central questions of: (1) How was the "imperial" constructed in colonial Delhi? (2) How and why has it persisted in the postcolonial evolution of New Delhi? This book engages intersecting themes of political ideology, physical planning, policy, culture and evolution in contemporary city form. It makes a compelling case that the persistence of the "imperial" in the post colonial democratization of New Delhi is largely responsible for the fractures in the city's identity, urban form and evolution today.
