Chandigarh row lays bare misplaced priorities

LEAVING aside the politics of the current contestations over Chandigarh by Punjab and Haryana — with the local Municipal Corporation throwing its own tiny hat into the controversy — it’s time to reflect more seriously on the paucity of quality cities in the country.

Why is Chandigarh like a latter-day ‘Helen of Troy’, hotly contested and coveted by both warring states? Is it just historic symbolism or something more compelling? It’s perhaps a combination of history, geography, political rhetoric and the magnetic pull of 20th century’s lone ‘urban utopia’ amidst a sea of chaotic urbanisation. Salivating over what the founding fathers of the City Beautiful gave us with their lofty vision, rather than building something ourselves, is therefore not surprising. Even when Chandigarh was built in the early 1950s, soon after Independence, to resettle refugees of Partition and compensate for East Punjab’s loss of its much-loved capital city of Lahore, there was plenty of pessimism. The prophets of doom compared the audacious leap of faith by a state running empty on coffers and high on ambition, as the next historic folly after Daulatabad or Fatehpur Sikri.

They touted reasons like poor connectivity, shortage of water and the high cost of making a brand-new ‘greenfield’ city rather than choosing an existing one like Ambala, Jalandhar, Kapurthala or even Amritsar. Then there was the quaint and charmingly naive proposal by the then Health Minister of the Government of India, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, recommending Simla with an impassioned letter to the Prime Minister, ‘Dear Jawahar… the British bequeathed beautiful hill stations to India… it is our duty to look after them…the minor issue of poor connectivity of the hill city to the rest of the state could surely be solved with the services of a few good Swiss mountain railway engineers and road experts.’

But both the then Punjab ‘Premier’ Gopi Chand Bhargava and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru politely set aside all proposals of converting the existing old, overcrowded, decrepit cities as locations for the new capital and had their heart set on ushering in a new dawn of Indian urbanisation, ‘unencumbered by the traditions of the past…’ Chandigarh, the new well-planned state-of-the-art city, was not only to be viewed as a provincial project but one for the entire country to look up to as a model of India’s excellence in urbanisation. The rest is history.

Why not then use the present political impasse over Chandigarh to usher in the next wave of high-quality urbanisation for both Punjab and Haryana? This will not only make political and geographic sense, as the new capitals could be more centrally located in their respective states but also enthuse citizens to fulfil their regional aspirations.

The new capitals should not be inspired by the skylines of Dubai, Shanghai or Manhattan scripted by high-rise glass and steel glitz, but derive their identity from critical regionalism and the ethos of environmentally responsible sustainable cities. This will also engender a cascading effect of high quality planned urbanisation in the respective regions. Their creativity will be beyond the repetitive monotony of the myriad ‘urban estates’ dotting existing cities, crafted by sarkari planners and their limited imagination.

Chandigarh, with its visionary planning, spawned such an attractive ‘urban product’ that today its runaway success and demand have become its burden. Landlocked within its 114 sq km Union Territory, flanked by Punjab and Haryana making their imprimaturs through Mohali, Mullanpur and Panchkula, it has no room even for its natural organic growth — not to mention a place for settlers from other parts of the country, attracted by its high quality of life and civic services.

To the question that what will then be the fate of Chandigarh when both Punjab and Haryana make their own respective capital cities and empty out its administrative content — the answer lies in reconfiguring Chandigarh’s identity. It needs to be reimagined as a ‘national-international city’ than just a provincial capital. With the halo of UNESCO heritage tag already, it should be envisioned as the country’s convention-cum-cultural city. With its close proximity to New Delhi and good air/rail connectivity, it can become a veritable nucleus of holding various international summits, conventions, art biennales and cultural festivals etc. With the presence of Le Corbusier’s iconic architectural and art marvels, enriched further by the responsible modernism by his team of Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew and the Indian associates, it can become a big global draw. Many of the Gulf countries are marketing their cities as global hubs of art and tourism by inviting iconic brand name museums. As the world’s foremost green city with planned landscaping, tree plantations and sprawling gardens woven into its master plan — it has become the country’s ‘oxygen capital’ as was realised most significantly during the recent pandemic.

Along with these inherent attributes, the recent innovative initiatives of smart bikes, garbage disposal systems and renewable energy goals — Chandigarh can emerge as India’s showcase city in the realm of city planning, architectural tourism, knowledge hub and as a model of post-pandemic urban resilience.

But let our politicians at least talk urban excellence than spewing political rhetoric and passing resolutions. Let’s not gobble up the one world-class city that we have instead of building more.