Art curators Swapna Liddle and Rana Safvi stand beside a silver albumen print on paper of Chandni Chowk by Samuel Bourne, circa 1860. The venue is DAG’s ongoing exhibition Delhi Durbar: Empire, Display and the Possession of History. They elaborate, “Historically, Chandni Chowk was divided into four sections. Right opposite the Lahori Darwaza stood the Urdu Bazaar or camp market, which led to Jauhri Bazaar. Beyond this was a 480-yard-long market with a central square commissioned and conceptualised by Princess Jahanara Begum in 1650. This was flanked by Begum ki Sarai and Begum ka Bagh. The Sarai was destroyed by British soldiers after the 1857 Mutiny. Begum ka Bagh was renamed Queen’s Gardens and is today called Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Park.” The historians take spectators around the exhibition hall, explaining the images.
Liddle walks up to a small watercolour of the Qutub Minar as seen in 1830. While the tower looks similar to what exists today, it has an addition, tiny enough to be missed: cupola atop the Minar. It was added in 1829 by British architect Major Robert Smith. “It was removed less than two decades later since it was thought unsuited to the Minar because of its Western aesthetic. This picture is one of the few remaining ones that depicts the Delhi landmark with the cupola,” she says.
The first-of-its-kind show features photographs, paintings and artefacts, such as medals and even chairs designed for dignitaries, drawn from the gallery’s archives that cover the period when three Imperial Durbars were held in Delhi—1877, 1903 and 1911. There are also a few prints dating back to before the Mutiny. For example, a photograph taken by Felice Beato, who came to India in 1858, shows the Naqqar Khana (drum house) at the Red Fort, marking the spot where 56 Europeans, mainly women and children, were massacred by Indian sepoys on May 16, 1857.
The purpose of holding the durbars was to legitimise and popularise British rule in India. The 1877 Durbar marked the formal announcement of Queen Victoria as Empress of India, or Kaiser-e-Hind. “This was the first time that a ceremony of such scale was organised, not in Calcutta, the then British capital of India, but Delhi, which was seen as the symbolic heart of India,” says Safvi. The 1903 Durbar was held to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra as Emperor and Empress of India. Bringing splendorous past to the present day, a photograph of Viceroy Lord Curzon and his wife leading the procession seated in a silver howdah on a bejewelled elephant shows the grand scale of the event organised by the Viceroy. “Unlike the one in 1877, this durbar had mass participation of Indians.
A state ball was organised at the Red Fort,” says Safvi. There is a painting of the ball venue—the original Diwan-e-Aam of the Red Fort, which the authorities had enlarged to thrice its size by adding replicas of the columns to accommodate the innumerable guests. Another unique photograph from the procession along Chandni Chowk shows electric poles—electricity came to Delhi with the second durbar. The 1911 Durbar was held again to mark an imperial coronation—that of King George V and Queen Mary as Emperor and Empress of India.
“This was the only time in the history of British India that a ruling monarch travelled to the country,” says Safvi, pointing to a painting as imagined by MV Dhurandhar that shows the queen seated on a throne with the king by her side, as Indian royal women dressed in their finery stand around paying homage. The announcement of the transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi was made during this durbar. In that sense, 1911 can be said to be the point when the foundation for New Delhi was laid.
Safvi’s favourite image is from 1911—a watercolour of the imperial couple in full ceremonial regalia standing in the Musamman Burj of Red Fort. “This practice was called ‘Jharokha Darshan’ and was borrowed by Mughal Emperor Akbar from the Rajputs as a way of connecting with his subjects. This tradition was co-opted by the British monarch,” she says.
At a time when Delhi’s landscape is changing what with a new Parliament building and Central Vista, Liddle says it is always good to revisit the city’s history. “Delhi has played an important part in our nation’s history, and if we must understand how we have arrived here, in the present, we need to look back to the past.” The past is alive in the shadows, waiting to be brought into light by the city’s persistent historians.