INDIA'S CAPITAL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 27, 1 February 1912, Page 3

INDIA'S CAPITAL.

IMPERIAL CITY OF DELHI. " MAGNIFICENT, REALISTIC* The most dramatic announcement made at the Durbar was undoubtedly tho removal of the seat of Goverment from Calcutta to Delhi. Here, at any rate (writes Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald, M.P., in the London Daily Mail), there is the evidence of a bold imagination. Calcutta is of the West, sordid, materialist, commercial ; Delihi is of the East, magnficent, idealistic, imperial. All day long through the streets of Calcutta pour the noisy streams of trade. You can get enthusiastic about them if you j like — but you need to bo born, and brought up in Western ways to succeed. All day long through the streets of Delhi pour the softly-flowing streams of humanity, leisurely, dignified— trading no doubt, chaffering of course, but as though trade were the recreation of idle moments and chaffering tbo pastime of gentlemen of iienage. Warehouses, steamer funnels, Government offices, bourgeois© mansions compose the one; mosques, palaces,, tombs, memories compose the othe.r. Calcutta ia a comitinghouse; Delhi' is a palace, Imperial India is now to dwell in an Imperial city. EFFECT. ON THE INDIAN OFFICIAL. j Will the Indian official ruling from the city of Shah Jahan become more godlike than ever? What wUI bo lhb psychological effect of the Hall of Public Audience, as rich in autocratic memories as it is graceful in its architectural proportions, upon one who already is blamed for being too much of an Emperor and too little of a citizen? Calcutta was like a weight of lead bound to his ankles, a skeleton in the cupboard that whispered to him in the dead of night that he was human. Over it and through it swept th© tides of agitation to sway him now this way and now that, and he could hear in his offices the scratching- of the mercantile pens next door forbidding him to forget the business sid;e of all his enterprises and the business character of his raison d'etre. Delhi is an Olympus. They say that political tides sweep below it, but do not trouble it, ana mundane affairs only, send up to its gates a feeble whisper. I am not at all sure that this is to be good for our rulers. That fond delusion of the Western mind that India is to.be ruled by pageantry — which today will be' taught to credulous millions on these cold shores^ — will possibly be strengthened; that cherished error. that to copy Akbar is th© essence of wisdom in the Indian Civil Service will probably become deeper. The administrator will rise higher than ever above public opinion, and the shock which the denizen of Delhi will receive when the House of Commons puts questions to him and about him will snake his vital self-re-spect far mor« jarringly than would have happened if he had remained in Calcutta. What will be' the effect upon tho people of India? Opinions upon that will be divided. Bengal wilFobject to lose the glory of government even if it has received some compensation by the overdue reversal of the Partition. But there is a cottideration more important than that. What will be the effect upon racial and religious divisions? Delhi is essentially a Mohammeran city. It istrue that the district around is eh« scene of those heroic exploits of the early Hindu Keroe3 s told in the "Mana^rata;'* and they,.still point out to yoa the' Ghat which stands on th© spot where the Vedas were recovered from the bottom of the sea. Go out from the modern city towards the south, and you will find the remains of the Hindu Delhi in neglected palace and_ fort, and above all th© famous iron Kutab Pillar. But that h not the Delhi whose youth is now to be renewed; those ruins are not to be clothed again in Imperial raiment. * A MOHAMMEDAN CITY. . It 16 the Delhi of Shah Jahan that is to be the Imperial city, and I am much mistaken if any pride except that of the Mogul- Empire will be roused by the news. True, Delhi proclaimed the pass ing of the Mohammedan to the Maharatti and later on to th© English, and to this day the low ridge to the north of the town, with its monument^ seems like an English frown overlooking the city. But yet, somehow or other, Delhi remains a Mohammedan city, famous and beautiful because it passed under the heel and tho hand of the Mohammedan. ' I believe, therefore, that the thought which will pass through the Hindu mind when he is told that Delhi is once more to be his capital city will not be one of the heroes of tho Hahabharata,' but of the Moslem conquest, and that the change will only add to the suspicions ■ of the Mohammedan supremacy. From an- imaginativ© point of view there can b© no doubt but that Delhi is superior as a capital city to Calcutta, just as Oxford is a better seat- of a University than London. Ghastly in their barbarism are our deeds in desecrating Delhi, but recently we have tried to atone for them. Our white-washed barrack rooms are still cheek-by-jowl with some of th© finest pieces of Shah Jahan architecture, but whoever stands on the walls of the fort and is not moved by the grouping of minaret and dome around him, by thoughts of what has taken place at his feet, by the beauty of the marblft and 'sandstone work blazing in the sun close by him, is a poor creature. GOVERNMENT'S SIMLA ARCHITECTURE. But is the English Government to guard the spirit of the city or is it to vulgarise it? We shall have to build great mansions for our clerks and our staffs. Are w« to tak© Calcutta with us in spite of our moving from tho Hoogly to the Jumna? Heaven foi'bid. The precious stones have been picked from the walls of the palaces, and Lord Curzon tried to restore them. That was bad enough. They jar upon you as you stroll past them now. And yet yon understand why those knotted Persian letters carved in th© marble of the Hall of Private Audience tell you : "If a paradise bo on the face of th© earth, it is this, it is this, it is this." It will be very easy for the Government to dispel the illusion of this paradise by some of its Simla architecture. As a political move the flitting to Delhi may be good or it may be bad, but it is to bo hoped that the very greatest efforts will be made to prevent th© destruction of th© architectural beauty and the historical feeling of th© place by those ugly erections in which the British Government in India appears to delight to do its work.