Anish Kapoor: Modi the fanatic is using the coronavirus crisis to destroy India's heritage

Mr Patel has destroyed the city of Ahmedabad by cementing over the banks of the Sabarmati river that runs through it, he is in the process of ruining Varanasi by building roads through it and covering it in concrete with no regard to it’s people or it’s history. All this of course under Modi’s BJP government’s direction

“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” Winston Churchill once declared … Crisis offers, of course, an opportunity for draconian governments to hide their deeper purpose. Just such deeper purpose is hidden in India’s fascist government’s decision to push forward now in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis with the redevelopment of the so-called central vista in Delhi.

The high court of India has been coerced into giving the go ahead to this hair-brained scheme in the last few weeks without consultation or due process. The central vista is Edwin Lutyens’ design for the parliament buildings and the grand avenue of Janpath (People’s Road) which were built between 1912 and 1931. Lutyens’ buildings are laid out in grand style with great wide avenues befitting the late British fantasy of imperial colonial power.

The buildings are made with the red stone used by the Mughal emperors of India to build their forts and palaces such as the great Red Fort on the other side of Delhi. Lutyens and his fellow architects used quotations from all the architectural styles of India: Hindu temples, Mughal forts, Jain and Buddhist edifices to festoon his buildings and give a theatrical sense of pomp and glory. Lutyens fashioned the central vista as a Greek ceremonial path of glory with the parliament building sitting at the top of the grand avenue as if a temple to the power of the state. Undoubtedly this is Lutyens’ masterpiece. Love it or hate it it is a grand vision of governmental power and the so called will of the people. In my view perhaps the grandest government building in the world.

Modi and his fascist government have commissioned architect Bimal Patel to redesign this central vista. This without consultation or any understanding or regard to the importance of Lutyens design. One would have at least hoped for due process in Mr Patel’s appointment to such an important task. Mr Patel’s talent is not up to the task....


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