Elaborate vistas of monumental glory

Mina Surjit Singh

When Pliny the Elder, the great Roman philosopher, referred to the Egyptian pyramids as “idle and frivolous pieces of ostentation of their resources, on the part of the monarchs of that country”, he set into motion a whole process of thought on the utility or futility of raising such elaborate monuments at the behest of a ruler’s whims or insecurities, arguing that there was great vanity in the construction of such humongous structures.

Centuries later, the same idea found an echo in Milton’s imaginatively constructed palace of gold in Paradise Lost. An alluring citadel of incomparable grandeur, ‘Pandemonium’ had been conceived as a democratic alternative to the autocratic regime in heaven, built at the suggestion of Mammon. However, as the name suggests, it remained a place of utter darkness devoid of order or moral light.

While one acknowledges that reconstruction and innovation in architecture are important, is it ethical or even reasonable to prioritise grandiose projects at a time when matters of greater urgency demand our resources, planning and attention? When a nation ravaged by natural or man-made calamities is struggling to stay afloat, when the rancid stink of bodies burning in heaps or decaying for want of proper burial clouds the landscape, when the threat of a near collapse of the medical infrastructure haunts the mind, the construction of a lavish monument to vainglory is justly reprehensible.

The ambitious Central Vista Redevelopment Plan— a complex touted as much for its aesthetics as for being a huge source of employment — which includes a luxurious residence for the PM, aims to redesign and interconnect the ‘corridors of power’ of India through underground tunnels and labyrinthine passageways, possibly rife with intrigue. It proposes to uproot and replace Lutyens’ and Baker’s legacy with media-shy Bimal Patel’s grand design, anticipated to be played out in a Parliament complex where our chosen representatives will gather to engage either in vigorous desk-thumping or uproarious disorder.

Ostensibly conceived as a tribute to our architectural excellence, it also seems a furtive attempt to pull down everyone and everything, including the stately ceremonial boulevard of New Delhi, which acts as a reminder of India’s past subjugation and runs contrary to the present dispensation’s notion of its rich religious and cultural tradition.

Much has already been said and written about the Central Government’s raison d’etre, yet its very mention remains a cause for national anxiety and dissent against such wasteful expenditure at the cost of the public exchequer. Meanwhile, amidst all this chaotic reality, the towering Statue of Unity looks vacantly at the sad spectacle of a country whose freedom the patriots had fought for so valiantly and passionately.