Omaxe Connaught Place in Noida draws its name (and little else) from Delhi’s famous colonial shopping plaza. Inside, Oh!Max, billed as the country’s largest indoor theme park, has a replica Taj Mahal, a holographic show about Shahjahan, a ‘6D’ movie theatre and a Mughal garden. Fifty kilometres away in Shahjahan’s actual capital, Omaxe is building Omaxe Chowk, a mall justified by its multilevel parking, a major requirement for old city traders and residents.
When one contemplates Omaxe Chowk’s made-up mélange of “Mughal, British and Indian” architecture, the recent unveiling of Chandni Chowk’s first phase of pedestrianisation seems like a tiny footnote on the changing landscape. Yet this pedestrianisation, which will stretch from the Red Fort to Fatehpuri Masjid by November, is a significant first step in the redevelopment of the old Mughal capital.
Once a 17th-century high street, Chandni Chowk had become a traffic-choked thoroughfare, and the retrofitting project recasts it as a promenade with limited and light vehicular access. Major achievements include burying cables, paving wide walkways, and adding street furniture like jaalis, lampposts, signage, and planters. If the new design, red sandstone, low benches, looks familiar, it’s because architect Pradeep Sachdeva (who died this year) is also behind landmarks like Dilli Haat and the Connaught Place State Emporia
“In the grand scheme of things, we should just be thankful that at least something is being done,” says A.G.K. Menon, architect and former convenor of INTACH’s Delhi chapter. Though the Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Corporation was established in 2008, its work existed mostly on paper, in “files full of proposals at the MCD,” as Menon says, until Manish Sisodia kickstarted the stagnant body in 2015.
Heritage experts were cautiously optimistic, but not fully on board. “Even we felt a bit guilty about putting our foot in it and objecting in court,” says Menon, who was friends with Sachdeva. The main issue the petitioners had was over a wall-like central ‘verge’, which would ruin the sightlines from Fatehpuri to Red Fort with toilets, police posts and large transformers in the middle of the road.
“Chandni Chowk cannot be treated like a highway,” says conservation architect and petitioner Smita Makhija, stressing that one-size-fits-all refurbishing, like an earlier proposal to impose uniform shopfronts on buildings from different centuries, was misguided. “There has been continuous change,” says Swapna Liddle, convenor of INTACH’s Delhi Chapter. “So when you ask which point of history, to some extent we need to allow for all of them.” Because of the case, some elements of the project were renegotiated (existing toilets incorporated, for example) after a survey of the area by various stakeholders.
There was also a feeling that heritage experts, some of whom have put decades into documenting the architecture of Shahjahanabad, ought to have been included seriously in the planning stages. Makhija says, “We need designers who have the sensibility to work within the historical parameters, to make a contextual solution that will stand the test of time.” So, for example, as history buff Sohail Hashmi observes, “The paving stones and bollards they have put are all sandstone, which Chandni Chowk never had. All the paving in Delhi was done with Delhi quartz.” He added, “There has been systematic neglect for 60 years now. I’m not saying go back to the 17th century, but take it into account. And the 19th, and 20th.”
“On one level it is the problem of working without documentation,” says Makhija. “But with the digital technology and tools we have now, I can survey a whole street in one day and generate plans. Conservation can be done in a much more scientific and sustainable way. Information management has become easier. I don’t have to carry a letter to the transport guy, the electricity guy, the Jal Board, it is all on one email.”
At times, says Menon, Delhi’s “fragmentation of authority complicates the story”, when “each autonomous agency, and the fiefdoms of the MCD, the state and even central government” are involved. “One thing we have learned is, it’s not my point of view that will prevail, it’s going to be negotiated,” he adds. “But this opportunity is not going to come again, so let’s have a more inclusive dialogue.”
This means involving residents as well. With the delays around the case and coronavirus, the project was a nightmare for locals, says Abu Sufiyan, founder of Purani Dilli Walon Ki Baatein, a cultural organisation. “For the last two years, residents have been discussing it. The elderly and children especially face problems related to accessibility. It’s the backbone of the city.”
“Any civilised country has incentives for residents of a heritage area,” says Ratish Nanda, head of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. “Here it’s only penalties. Heritage and development are like a horse and carriage.” Specific bylaws, transferable development rights (so people could convert havelis into hotels, for example), tax incentives and access to funds for maintenance work better, experts say, than poorly enforced encroachment rules. “Bringing different stakeholders together is very important,” Liddle says. “Government bodies have that potential, though they don’t always utilise it. They are ideally placed to bring everybody together, and they should try more.”
With the Central Vista and Pragati Maidan projects ripping out New Delhi’s colonial and modern roots in other parts of the city, and with Omaxe Chowk next door, experts and residents hope Chandni Chowk’s pedestrianisation opens a path to more informed, inclusive and incremental “custodianship” of heritage, as Makhija puts it. “The memories embedded in our heritage give you an identity,” she adds. “And you want that multicultural, shared identity. Look at Shahjahan. How many cultures did he draw upon to create a style?”
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