114 Years of Delhi as India's Capital: Inside the Historic Shift from Calcutta at the Durbar of 1911

Today,

114 years ago, on 12 December 1911, the British colonial government made the historic announcement to shift India’s capital from Calcutta (Kolkata) to Delhi.The Delhi Durbar of 1911 was a milestone in Indian history and the last of the great coronation gatherings held by the British Raj. Unlike the earlier Durbars of 1877, when Queen Victoria was formally proclaimed the Empress of India (Kaiser-e-Hind), and 1903, held in honour of Edward VII’s coronation, the 1911 Durbar was remarkable for being personally attended by the monarchs.

The Delhi Durbar also marked the symbolic return of the imperial capital to Delhi, the celebrated city of the Mughals. Even though Calcutta served as the capital of the imperial administration, all three Durbars were held in Delhi. Was it the glory and memory of the Mughals that the British wished to appropriate or revive?In 1638, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan shifted his capital from Agra to a new city on the banks of the Yamuna, Shahjahanabad, now known as Old Delhi. By 1648, the Mughal court had moved too, and the new gilded capital rose with monumental landmarks such as the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid. The suppression of the uprising of 1857 brought the long Mughal rule to an end, but the city’s imperial legacy endured.

Calcutta, however, had become a major political and revolutionary hub and the epicentre of nationalist agitation. The decision to move the capital must also be understood against the backdrop of the 1905 partition of Bengal, a move that unleashed widespread anger, protest and nationalist defiance.Historian Thomas R. Metcalf, in An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj, writes that the shift of the capital was “a move undertaken in large parts to enable the government to escape the uncomfortable political atmosphere of Calcutta, marked by continued and often violent demonstrations of nationalist sentiment since Lord Curzon’s 1905 partition of Bengal.”The idea of relocating the capital to Delhi was not new. As CS Jain notes in The Change of Capital in 1911, “Lord Lawrence had considered the scheme and was in favour of it, but he did not succeed in overcoming the opposition of his Council. Lord Curzon had also considered the removal of the capital to Agra, but he had not the courage to press it.”On 17 June 1911, John Jenkins, the Home Member, wrote to the Viceroy stressing the urgency of transferring the capital from Calcutta to Delhi. He believed it “would be a bold stroke of statesmanship which would give universal satisfaction and mark a new era in the History of India,” as Jain records.

Delhi was a city that had witnessed cycles of creation, destruction and rebirth. Writer and historian Rana Safvi, in her article in Scroll titled Delhi Durbars, ‘Kaiser-e-Hind’: How the British appropriated Mughal symbols to cement their rule, writes, “Sometimes it was the defensive position offered by the Aravalli hills, sometimes the need to repel the Mongols, or just the need for water that led to Delhi being built many times over till 1947, but the popular notion, and perhaps even a romantic one, suggests the capital took shape seven times till 1857, because only that many number of citadels are still extant.”She adds, “Lal Kot, the first city of the Tomars, Chauhans and Aibak, was followed by Siri built by Alauddin Khilji. The Tughlaq dynasty that succeeded the Khiljis gave us the next three cities: Tughlaqabad, Jahanpanah and Firozabad. After that we have Dinpanah built by Humayun. The culmination of all these cities was Shah Jahan’s magnificent Shahjahanabad, where the three imperial durbars were held. The eighth city, the last one, was designed and built by Sir Edwin Lutyens.”

The decision to shift the capital shocked many, particularly Europeans in Calcutta. According to The Heritage Lab, The Capital, the mouthpiece of Calcutta’s European business community, termed the decision a “bolt from the blue”, while The Englishman described it as a “thoughtless infliction of loss on a progressive community”.The Mercury, a newspaper at the time, reported that shifting India’s capital from Calcutta to Delhi would cost £4,000,000. The announcement paved the way for the creation of New Delhi by imperial architects who expanded far beyond the old walled city. The Government House for the Viceroy rose as a monumental centrepiece, while spacious colonial bungalows were built for British officials. The University of Delhi was established in 1922, and the Lady Hardinge Medical College for women doctors opened in 1916.The Imperial Record Department, later the National Archives of India, was also moved from Calcutta to New Delhi, taking up residence in its Lutyens-designed building in 1926. Robert Tor Russell, built the life line and commercial hub of Delhi - Connaught Place in 1933. What began as an imperial escape from Calcutta’s unrest ultimately created a city whose grandeur would far outlast the empire that conceived it.