Ever since the Modi administration announced a plan for the redevelopment of the Central Vista in 2019, there has been growing public worry about the protection and preservation of the capital’s prime heritage zone along with its institutions, monuments, parks and roads. It appears that the Master Plan aims to “modernise” New Delhi by obliterating the aesthetic imprimatur of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
From its very inception, the Central Vista Redevelopment Plan (CVRP) has attracted criticisms and objections from art historians, urban planners, heritage experts, architects, conservationists, writers, artists, curators, activists, environmentalists, opposition leaders and concerned citizens. Thus far, these concerns have not been adequately addressed – neither in the media, nor in the courts, nor in the parliament.
The Central Vista plan includes a new parliament building next to the current one. Photo: HCP Designs
Instead, over the past four years, despite legal challenges, public campaigns, and the Covid-19 pandemic, Rajpath has been renamed “Kartavya Path”; the India Gate lawns and the grounds alongside the ceremonial avenue leading from the India Gate to Vijay Chowk have been landscaped afresh; the Mughal Garden in the Rashtrapati Bhavan has been renamed “Amrit Udyan”; the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA) had its contents shifted to Janpath Hotel, after which its buildings on Dr. Rajendra Prasad Road were demolished; a new – triangular – Parliament building has been inaugurated; the existing – circular – Indian Parliament is set to be repurposed as a “Museum of Democracy”; the national emblem, instead of being a replica of the Sarnath Lion Capital, was remodelled to give it a ferocious look before setting it atop the new parliament building; Teen Murti Bhawan, formerly preserved as Nehru’s residence, was extended and named “Museum of Indian Prime Ministers”, and a statue of Subhash Chandra Bose (1897-1945) was installed in the previously empty canopy at India Gate.
New residences for the prime minister and vice president situated close to the Rashtrapati Bhawan, and a national biodiversity arboretum inside the Presidential Estate, are on the cards.
The Annexe Building of the National Archives of India, Nehru Bhawan that houses the Ministry of External Affairs, Vigyan Bhawan, Shastri Bhawan, Nirman Bhawan, Udyog Bhawan, Krishi Bhawan and as well as numerous other government offices will be taken down and relocated.
The National Archives of India in New Delhi. Credit: Twitter.
The next building slated for demolition is the National Museum on Janpath. Its contents are to be shifted up the Raisina Hill, to the North Block and the South Block, which will be refashioned into a space called “Yug Yugeen Bharat”, the world’s largest museum. Though not confirmed, word is that the Indian authorities have sought advice from the French government on how to retrofit these colonial-era office blocks into a state-of-the-art museum.
While the CVRP in its entirety poses a grave threat to the very character of post-colonial Delhi, scholars have been particularly exercised about the fate of the National Museum. Shockingly, close to 70 years after it opened in 1955, a complete inventory of its holdings is still not available in the public domain. Nor is there any clarity from the government about when the existing museum will be closed to visitors; where its priceless contents will be housed while the current building is demolished and before the new premises are ready; how long it will take for the North and South Block to be refurbished and repurposed; how and where researchers will have access to the museum’s artefacts during the transition, and what, if any steps will be taken to ensure that nothing is lost, stolen or damaged in the move.
The National Museum, like most of India’s central and state museums, is significantly understaffed. How a change of address will be managed without adequate personnel is anybody’s guess.
Courtyard of the National Museum. Photo: Wikimedia commons
Equally worrisome is the prospective change in the narrative under which the new museum will organise its display. Since 2014, this dispensation has sought to hijack Indian history for the glorification of Hindutva through new school and college textbooks, culture warriors masquerading as experts, powerful propaganda machinery, and relentless popular messaging.
Whatever threatens the Hindu right wing’s communal agenda – whether so-called “external” or “foreign” elements emanating from Islam and Christianity, or political ideas associated with the inclusive secularism of Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore, or dissenting movements originating in non-Brahmin, Dalit and tribal traditions – anything, in short, that has defined and complicated Indian identity both within the domestic sphere and globally for the past century, is now increasingly being purged from public life.
Will the Indus valley civilisation, Mughal India, the national movement, or the making of the Indian constitution under Dr. Ambedkar’s leadership find a place in India’s past, as revised and reconstituted from a majoritarian perspective?
What assurance can the government give us that the material repository of our complex, diverse and fragile history will survive the arduous journey from Janpath to Raisina Hill, with its multi-religious and multi-cultural mosaic still intact?
If recent exhibitions and shows at other major venues in central Delhi, like the National Gallery of Modern Art at Jaipur House and the newly-inaugurated “Bharat Mandapam” at Pragati Maidan are any indication, the national museum of the Hindu Rashtra will probably look nothing like the national museum of the Republic of India.
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What steps are being taken to ensure that the new National Museum will be truly “national” – and not communal and exclusionary? How will all Indian citizens, regardless of their religion, caste, language, ethnicity, sexual preference or political affiliation find their story reflected in the polarised and partisan account likely to be constructed for Yug Yugeen Bharat?
The final and, in a sense, most difficult issue is that the very historicality of India – its journey through recorded time, and its emergence as a modern nation through actual events – is, under the current regime, sought to be muddied with terminology like “Yug Yugeen” and “Amrit Kaal” – conjuring up fuzzy notions of timelessness, eternity, immortality, and perfection.
The conflicts and struggles of real people in empirically verifiable contexts vanish under these vague fictions of an unchanging and unproblematic “Bharat”, which has no beginning and no end, whether temporal or spatial. If our government is going to resort to anachronistic and obfuscatory language, edit and erase troublesome facts, ignore whole communities and sideline entire cultures, no matter what their demographic dimensions; if it is going to project an imaginary “Amrit Kaal” nowhere in evidence while ignoring the devastating “Aapad Kaal” of the pandemic, how are we supposed to trust it to make the world’s best museum for the world’s largest democracy?
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In May 2021, leading art historians and museum curators from within the country and overseas signed a plea to save India’s National Museum, National Archives and National Centre for the Arts from the depredations of the CVRP.
In October 2023, a public petition to save the National Museum began circulating once again, this time initiated by university students and young people interested in Indian history. Thousands of people have signed, both times. It is urgent that the authorities – in the ministries of housing and urban Affairs, as well as culture – take cognisance of the concerns of ordinary citizens. After all, the National Museum is about our shared history and whatever goes in it belongs equally to all of us. We have every right to know what it contains, why it is being demolished, when and under what conditions its contents will be safeguarded, and how our treasures will be managed and displayed in their new home. It is high time the government came forward with some answers.
Ananya Vajpeyi is a cultural historian and political theorist. Views are personal.