Need to reimagine Chandni Chowk redevelopment plan

Hindustan Times

22-05-2025

The changes proposed by the Delhi government to the Chandni Chowk Redevelopment Project will result in recasting the earlier Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Project. The proposals include raising the height of structures in Chandni Chowk, Khari Baoli, Naya Bazar, Jama Masjid, Kashmiri Gate, Sadar Bazar, Daryaganj, and Chawri Bazar up to four floors from the current two floors and renaming Shahjahanabad as Indraprastha. The new proposals amount to jettisoning the idea of restoring the facades of the structures, a key element of the original proposal, and erasing the very heritage of Chandni Chowk and seven other markets. The suggestions are touted as Phase II of the redevelopment project; the pedestrianisation of Chandni Chowk, completed in 2021, was the first phase. The new proposal seeks to convert 'existing wholesale markets into four-storey commercial buildings to ease congestion and optimise space usage'.
Shahjahanabad was once among the greatest cities in the world and a centre of the anti-colonial struggle. Its preservation has to be at the heart of any scheme of redevelopment. Retrieval of that heritage, increasingly buried under sheets of glass and metal frames, is needed. It has been said that Chandni Chowk served as a model for Louis XIV when he laid out the Champs Elysees in Paris. The new proposal threatens to erase this heritage.
Travellers visit Chandni Chowk and the narrow streets of Shahjahanabad to experience the charm of the old world, walk in the narrow streets and see old havelis, taste savouries from small street-food stalls, breathe in the fragrances of perfumes, and smell the spices. They do not come to Shahjahanabad and Chandni Chowk to shop at glitzy malls. And, Shahjahanabad is not just eight markets; it is a living city with kuchas, katras, galis, mohallas, and chowks, where different religious, linguistic, and regional communities, in diverse professions and of varied artistic and literary skills, have lived together for the last 377 years, creating one of the richest cultural vocabularies of co-existence.
The proponents of optimal space use forget that, unlike the more recently built, segregated residential and market areas of Rohini, Vasant Kunj, Maharani Bagh and Defence Colony, the 17th-century Shahjahanabad — like all medieval cities in India and elsewhere — was planned as a city where the markets were primarily two-storied structures with shops on the ground floor and residences on the upper level. The markets were placed amidst residential areas, which were mostly single-storey structures, with the occasional haveli consisting of two floors.
This layout of markets, surrounded by residential kuchas, katras, and havelis, was continued in Kashmiri Gate (built in the 19th century), Connaught Place (built in the early 20th century), and in modern markets like Khan Market and Pandara Road Market (built in the immediate post-Independence period). This unique design needs to be preserved.
The 17th-century design and layout of Shahjahanabad has undergone changes, but we have enough miniatures, East India Company-period paintings, and photographic records of what these markets looked like in the middle- and late-19th century. Any attempt to restore these markets must recover the heritage of Shahjahanabad and remove the glass and metal facades pasted over the galleries, verandas, and trellis-work fences that adorned the terraces.
The new proposal talks of relocating existing occupants of one block of buildings to a vacant space nearby, demolishing that block, replacing it with a four-storey structure, and moving the original occupants back before demolishing another set of buildings. This sounds good on paper and may work at the Lajpat Rai Market, which, unlike the rest of Chandni Chowk, is a single-storey construction from the 1950s. But it won't work in the combined residential and market spaces of the other markets. Even if the government successfully convinced, cajoled, or pressured people to move, the spirit of the medieval city would be lost forever.
People who understand the city — historians, conservation architects, and people who have roots in Shahjahanabad, traders and others whose livelihoods are integral to the city, functionaries of the utility and other government agencies that serve the area — should be consulted to work out a democratically-agreed plan to preserve its heritage.
Shahjahanabad does not need the wholesale markets that cater to the needs of the neighbouring states for grains, cooking oil, soaps, candles, hardware, sanitary fittings, etc. These markets must move out; many were allotted spaces in West Delhi years ago. Once that is done, we will have enough space to do all that is necessary to revitalise and recover the old city and convert it into a space that will be the pride of India and its Capital. We can learn from the Unesco world heritage centres and cities, especially those in South Asia and Central Asia, even as we evolve our own parameters. We need to revamp the drainage, sewer and water-supply systems, take all the wires underground, provide funds to restore and repurpose the grand havelis, create craft centres, libraries, performance areas, chai-khanas, homestays, and quaint hotels, as has been done in hundreds of old cities all over the world.
We need to bring in pedal-rickshaws, battery-operated and animal-drawn vehicles to reduce emissions in such areas, and restore the old facades while modernising the structures from the inside. The National Heritage Board of Singapore, the City of Khiva in Uzbekistan, Fez, Rabat and Marrakesh in Morocco, and Kandy in Sri Lanka have successfully demonstrated that this can be done. Shahjahanabad must retain its name because that is integral to the heritage of the place, which, in turn, is what drives tourism, the lifeblood of sustaining heritage.
Sohail Hashmi, writer and filmmaker, also conducts Heritage Walks in Delhi. The views expressed are personal