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....
