The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1931. THE NEW DELHI.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 36, 12 February 1931, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1931. THE NEW DELHI.

For the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

From three points of view—the historic, the political and the artistic —the new capital at Delhi, which has been inaugurated this week with appropriate ceremony, is an achievement of extraordinary interest. Artistically it is one of the most important enterprises of modern times. The British Empire has never attempted anything so large and so important as this building of a capital in open country. The two most prominent English architects of their time, Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker, were commissioned to lay out a capital and design a great series of buildings that would be a worthy political centre for an Empire within an Empire, a congeries of peoples and creeds with a history far older than that of the ruling race. The intention Avas that the new city should hold 70,000 persons and be capable of unlimited expansion.. In carrying out this huge task the architects have not forgotten Indian history and Indian art. Like all such projects, it has been much criticised. The English, official mind does not like novelty, and "barrack-like" and "bare" are said to be stock epithets hurled at the new capital. According to a critic in the "Architectural Review," ,"Akbar or Shah Jehan would have cried for joy at the seventh Delhi, and have hailed its builders as their worthy successors" —the exquisite Taj Mahal, thought by many to be the most beautiful building in the world, Avas built under Shall Jehan's direction —but Indian princes commiserate Avith Lady Invin on having to' live in "such a plain house." According to the same critic, the significance of the neAv Delhi from the artistic standpoint has scarcely been, realised. • "Of the city's permanent value as an aesthetic mpnument, posterity must be the final judge. But to contemporaries, and in the darkness of contemporary standards, the event shines with Periclean importance." • ' The transfer of the capital of India from Calcutta to its ancient site of Delhi offended the Hindus and pleased the , Moslems. "Calcutta, founded amidst the vilest climate,' the remotest marshes, and the most intemperate people in India, embellished and aggrandised by successive viceroys with • monstrous buildings and preposterous statues, and. breathing a preponderantly commercial opinion upon the fate of 300,000,000 people, clamoured to retain the eminence for Avhich it ! was so patently unfitted." That Avas one trouble started by the decision. There has been violent criticism of the, cost. The poverty of India is one of the stock arguments of the Nationalist agitator, and he is quick to contrast the lot -of the poor Avith the expenditure of ten millions on a capital. "The educated Indian, soaked in the utilitarian doctrines of the West, sees only SAveated blood in the gorgeous and variegated buildings that shine over the plain, Avhile the Indian population, grovelling in the fields beneath, possesses an average income of £ 2 a year," According to this hoAvever, "no city in -the world exhibiting the least pretension to aesthetic virtue has ever been created Avith such astonishing economy." But, of course, most people-interested in India, Avhen they read of this Aveek's ceremony, will think first of the political conditions in Avhich it has been held. This splendid neAv capital, built by British and Indians, adornpd Avitli Indian art and- commemorating Indian history, contributed to by the Dominions, with Avhich India hopes to take, r&nk, inaugurated Avith such splendour—'what scenes will it Avitness in the next generation? It -is presumably dedicated to democracy, but democracy is a very tender plant in a country that throughout the ages has been governed by the opposite principle. The only comment that can be made Avith certainty is that the neAV Delhi is a magnificent gesture to ! India's ...new. age.