Delhi is the eternal phoenix-destroyed a hundred times and a hundred times resin from its ashes. It is the symbol of India’s indestructibility and agelessness. And, it is a place where files can be made to move through the judicious use of whisky, women and wealth.
The modicum of planning was by itself not enough. What saved Delhi’s newly-built areas from being plagued with slums, locally called jhuggis, or from being smothered by filth and, stench, were the massive clean-up drives.
Both Delhiwallas and the visitors must be grateful for the manner in which slums have been ruthlessly cleared and the slum-dwellers given alterative accommodation. Filthy shops moved into clean, often multistoried buildings. Roads have been winded and provided with properly illumined signs, public parks, rocks gardens, playgrounds laid and fountains put up. Altogether the capital has become a place of beauty, a garden city which it always should be.
To say that has been done at the expense of other cities and towns would be absurd although it is patent that the capital of every country inevitably has some advantages.
It will be equally churlish to deny that the campaign to beautiful Delhi has been greatly helped by the vision and farsightedness of Lutyens and Baker who planed and built New Delhi in the first place.