Delhi

Written by Administrator on Wednesday, 18 November 2009 13:56

Delhi, also know as Dilli, is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest metropolis by population in India. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with more than 12.25 million inhabitants in the territory and with over 15.9 million residents in the National Capital Region (which also includes Noida, Gurgaon, Greater Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad).

Located on the banks of the River Yamuna, Delhi has been continuously inhabited since at least the 6th century BC. After the rise of the Delhi Sultanate, Delhi emerged as a major political, cultural and commercial city along the trade routes between northwest India and the Indo-Gangetic plains.

It is the site of many ancient and medieval monuments, archaeological sites and remains. In 1639, Mughal emperor Shahjahan built a new walled city in Delhi which served as the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1649 to 1857.

After the British East India Company gained control of much of India during the 18th and 19th centuries, Calcutta became the capital both under Company rule and under the British Raj, until George V announced in 1911 that it was to move back to Delhi.

A new capital city, New Delhi, was built to the south of the old city during the 1920s. When India gained independence from British rule in 1947, New Delhi was declared its capital and seat of government.

Owing to the migration of people from across the country, Delhi has grown to be a cosmopolitan metropolis. Its rapid development and urbanisation, coupled with the relatively high average income of its population, has transformed Delhi. Today Delhi is a major cultural, political, and commercial center of India.

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Tale of seven cities

The Indian capital city of Delhi has a long history, including a history as the capital of several empires. The earliest architectural relics date back to the Maurya Period (c. 300 BC); since then, the site has seen continuous settlement. In 1966, an inscription of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka (273-236 BC) was discovered near Srinivaspuri, which is near Noida. Two sandstone pillars inscribed with the edicts of Ashoka were brought to the city by Firuz Shah Tughluq in the 14th century. The famous Iron pillar near the Qutub Minar was commissioned by the emperor Kumara Gupta I of the Gupta dynasty (320-540) and transplanted to Delhi during the 10th century. Eight major cities have been situated in the Delhi area. The first four cities were in the southern part of present-day Delhi.

The first instance of the region being capitalised was in the Ancient Era, during the time of the Mahabharata War, when the five Pandava brothers built an immense and highly sophisticated fortress called Indraprastha and ruled the country from there.
According to Indian folklore, Delhi was the site of the magnificent and opulent Indraprastha, capital of the Pandavas in the Indian epic Mahabharata, founded around 2500 BC. Hindu texts state that Delhi used to be referred as Hastinapur, which means ‘elephant-city’. A village called Indraprast existed in Delhi until the beginning of the 19th century.

The British demolished the ancient village to make way for the construction of New Delhi in the late 19th century. Archaeological evidence suggests that Indraprastha once stood where the Old Fort is today. Excavations have unearthed shards of the grey painted ware (c. 1000 BC) that some archaeologists associate with the age of the Mahabharata, but no coherent settlement traces have been found.

The name Delhi may be derived from the word 'Dhillika', though there are other theories. According to Satyarth Prakash (1875 CE) of Swami Dayanand, Raja Dhilu (King Dihlu) founded ancient Delhi in 800 BC, however it is not supported by any older texts.

It was the name of the first medieval township of Delhi, located on the southwestern border of the present Delhi, in Mehrauli. This was the first in the series of seven medieval cities. It is also known as Yoginipura, that is, the fortress of the yoginis (female divinities). It gained importance during the time of Ananga Pala Tomar. In the 12th century, the city was included in the dominions of Prithviraj Chauhan.

Pasanaha Chariu of Vibudh Shridhar (VS 1189-1230) an Apabhramsha writer, provides the first reference to the legend of the origin of the name Dhilli for Delhi

There are countless villages in Haryana country. The villagers there work hard. They don't accept domination of others, and are experts in making the blood of their enemies flow. Indra himself praises this country. The capital of this country is Dhilli.

The ruler Anangapal is famous, he can slay his enemies with his sword. The weight (of the Iron pillar) caused the Nagaraj to shake.

The Tomar Rajput dynasty founded Lal Kot in 736 near the Qutub Minar, at Mehrauli. The Prithviraj Raso names the Tomar Rajput Anangpal as the founder of Lal Kot, whose name is inscribed on Iron Pillar of Delhi at Qutb complex, ascribed to Chandra or Chandragupta II.

A contemporary account of the city of Delhi in the Tomar period is given by Vibudh Shridhar. He describes an immense fort surrounded by a moat beside the Ananga lake. The markets were full of commodities like cloth, grain, betel-nuts, sweets etc as well as accounting books. He also implies that Delhi was a center of learning where eloquent language was spoken. The pinnacles of the city gates were gilded with gold and buildings were studded with gems.

The Chauhan Rajput kings of Ajmer conquered Lal Kot in 1180 and renamed it Qila Rai Pithora. The Chauhan king Prithviraj III was defeated in 1192 by the Afghan Muhammad Ghori. Anangpal Tomar, a Chandravanshi Rajput ruler of Delhi, often described as the founder of Delhi, built the citadel some 10 kilometres from Suraj Kund around 731.

From 1206, Delhi became the capital of the Delhi Sultanate under the Slave Dynasty. The first Sultan of Delhi, Qutb-ud-din Aybak, was a former slave who rose through the ranks to become a general, a governor and then Sultan of Delhi. Qutb-ud-din started the construction of the Qutub Minar, a recognisable symbol of Delhi, to commemorate his victory but died before its completion. In the Qutub complex he also constructed the Quwwat-al-Islam (might of Islam), which is the earliest extant mosque in India. He was said to have destroyed twenty-seven Jain temples initially housed in the Qutb complex and pillaged exquisitely carved pillars and building material from their debris for this mosque, many of which can still be seen. After the end of the Slave dynasty, a succession of Turkic Central Asian and Afghan dynasties, the Khilji dynasty, the Tughluq dynasty, the Sayyid dynasty and the Lodi dynasty held power in the late medieval period and built a sequence of forts and townships in Delhi.

In 1398, Timur Lenk invaded India on the pretext that the Muslim sultans of Delhi were too tolerant of their Hindu subjects. Timur entered Delhi and the city was sacked, destroyed, and left in ruins.

In 1526, following the First Battle of Panipat, Zahiruddin Babur, the former ruler of Fergana, defeated the last Afghan Lodi sultan and founded the Mughal dynasty which ruled from Delhi, Agra and Lahore.

In the mid-sixteenth century there was an interruption in the Mughal rule of India as Sher Shah Suri defeated Babur's son Humayun and forced him to flee to Afghanistan and Persia. Sher Shah Suri, built the sixth city of Delhi, as well as the old fort known as Purana Qila even though this city was settled since the ancient era. After Sher Shah Suri’s death, Humayun recovered the throne with Persian help. The third and greatest Mughal emperor, Akbar, moved the capital to Agra resulting in a decline in the fortunes of Delhi. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1628-1658) built the city that sometimes bears his name Shahjahanabad, the seventh city of Delhi that is more commonly known as the old city or old Delhi.

This city contains a number of significant architectural features, including the Red Fort (Lal Qila) and the Jama Masjid. The old city served as the capital of the later Mughal Empire from 1638 onwards, when Shah Jahan transferred the capital back from Agra. Aurangzeb (1658-1707) crowned himself as emperor in Delhi in 1658 at the Shalimar garden ('Aizzabad-Bagh) with a second coronation in 1659. Nader Shah defeated the Mughal army at the huge Battle of Karnal in February, 1739. After this victory, Nader captured and sacked Delhi.

The decline of the Mughal Empire had led to territorial gains for the Maratha Confederacy. The decline of the Mughal Empire had accelerated since the death of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, in 1707. Continued rebellions by the Marathas in the south, and the de-facto separation of a number of states (including Hyderabad and Bengal), weakened the state further. The Marathas reversed all Mughal territorial gains in the Deccan, and conquered almost all Mughal territory in central and north India. Mughals had thus become just the titular heads of Delhi and remained so till 1857.

In 1761, Delhi was raided by Ahmed Shah Abdali after the Third battle of Panipat. At the Battle of Delhi on 11 September 1803, General Lake's British forces defeated the Marathas.

Delhi passed to British control in 1857 after the First War of Indian Independence; the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II was exiled to Rangoon and the remaining Mughal territories were annexed as a part of British India.

Shortly after Indian Rebellion of 1857, Calcutta was declared the capital of British India but in 1911 the capital was again moved to Delhi. Parts of the old city were pulled down to create New Delhi, a monumental new quarter of the city designed by the British architect Edwin Lutyens to house the government buildings.

A brief but fascinating account of the Indian contractors behind this construction can be found in Khushwant Singh's autobiography Truth, Love and a Little Malice. New Delhi was officially declared as the seat of the Government of India after independence in 1947.

During the Partition of India thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees from West Punjab migrated to Delhi, and subsequently settled in North and West Delhi areas, while Hindus from East Pakistan, settled in late 1960s at EPDP Colony (EPDP: East Pakistan Displaced Persons) in South Delhi, later named Chittaranjan Park in 1980s.

Tags: Delhi Dilli Srinivaspuri elephant-city Indraprastha Hastinapur Dhillika Mehrauli Ananga Pala Tomar Lal Kot Ananga lake New Delhi Tughluq Shahjahanabad Maratha Confederacy Chittaranjan Park

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