 "Rashtrapati Bhavan undergoes a resplendent makeover")
When C Rajagopalachari succeeded Lord Mountbatten as the governor-general of India in June 1948, he refused to live in the magnificent, 340-room palace on Raisina Hill designed by Edwin Lutyens. It was Jawaharlal Nehru who made Rajagopalachari change his mind. But the Congress leader who began life in a small south Indian village did not give up his Gandhian disdain for the place. He agreed to move into the outsized pink-and-yellow sandstone building created as a residence-cum-office for British viceroys. But he turned his back on the grand viceregal suite and instead occupied the rooms previously used by Edwina Mountbatten’s lady-in-waiting, setting a precedent for those who came after him.
Nearly three decades later, India’s sixth president, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, also hailing from a south Indian village, wanted to vacate even the lady-in-waiting’s quarters. He made officials search for a “simpler” presidential home. The idea was finally dropped when, as with Rajagopalachari, it was pointed out that it would only add to the government’s expenditure, since the existing Rashtrapati Bhavan building would also have to be maintained.
Though they were differently motivated — one was genuinely Gandhian, the other was trying to score a political point against the imperious Indira Gandhi —, both Rajagopalachari and Reddy underscored an essential dilemma faced by successive occupants of Rashtrapati Bhavan: how can the head of a poor and democratic state live and work in an ostentatious palace created for colonial empire builders?
Besides the scale and splendour of the building, the problem also emanates from the nature of the presidency itself, which is largely ceremonial. Other “extravagant architectural piles” in Lutyens’ Delhi — the North and South Blocks, the former commander-in-chief’s mansion at Teen Murti used by Nehru, and even the Parliament building — could more easily shake off their colonial associations since real power is (or was, in the case of Teen Murti) exercised from these buildings on behalf of the people of free India.
Not so the Rashtrapati Bhavan. It remains perched on a hill at the centre of the national capital, but appears distant, grand, and imperious, wrapped in protocol and pageantry. As the American architect W Gavin Robb observed in an unpublished thesis: “Rashtrapati Bhavan exists, highly self-consciously, in a symbolic spotlight… (it) is a lightning rod of Indian history, and encapsulates a dichotomous post-colonial identity as a built legacy of imperialism.”
Every occupant has tried to deal with this symbolic challenge in his own way. Rajagopalachari lived very simply, washing his clothes and polishing his shoes. He also ploughed up the 9-hole golf course on the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s vast 330-acre estate to produce food grain for the Grow More Food campaign.
Rajendra Prasad, the first president, also adopted a simple lifestyle, even using chaukis for eating while sitting on the floor. His successor, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, gifted the viceregal lodge in Shimla to the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, seeking to transform at least one presidential property “from a symbol of imperialism to one of freedom”. At a less lofty level, V V Giri sent vegetables every day from the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s kitchen gardens to an orphanage.
Pranab Mukherjee, the 13th president, ever the consummate politician, has found his own solution — with his characteristic urgency he is seeking to “democratise” Rashtrapati Bhavan.
“I’m an ordinary student of history,” he told journalists last week at a tea to mark his two years in office, as he spoke of undertaking “the gigantic task” of restoring and transforming a building which “once symbolised the mightiest colonial power in the world”.
No president has opened up Rashtrapati Bhavan to the people the way Mukherjee has. Besides the hordes that annually visit the Mughal Garden in spring, 105,198 took the much-improved guided tour of the palace in 2012-13, while another 10,000 witnessed the revamped Changing of the Guard ceremony on Saturdays. Hundreds also came to meet the president, or attend conferences chaired by him.
Last week, another gate opened to welcome visitors — to a charming little museum telling the story of New Delhi from the Delhi Durbar in 1911 to the birth of the republic in 1950, and displaying some of the art and artifacts in the presidents’ collection as well as the distinctive furniture designed by Lutyens, his architectural drawings and his pastels. A major three-storey underground museum is also coming up, besides an auditorium and a ceremonial hall.
The main bronze door leading to the regal Durbar Hall under the Dome is opened frequently now. A row of buses was recently parked in the forecourt where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in — a large group of young civil service probationers had come to meet Mukherjee.
Nearly three decades later, India’s sixth president, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, also hailing from a south Indian village, wanted to vacate even the lady-in-waiting’s quarters. He made officials search for a “simpler” presidential home. The idea was finally dropped when, as with Rajagopalachari, it was pointed out that it would only add to the government’s expenditure, since the existing Rashtrapati Bhavan building would also have to be maintained.
Though they were differently motivated — one was genuinely Gandhian, the other was trying to score a political point against the imperious Indira Gandhi —, both Rajagopalachari and Reddy underscored an essential dilemma faced by successive occupants of Rashtrapati Bhavan: how can the head of a poor and democratic state live and work in an ostentatious palace created for colonial empire builders?
Besides the scale and splendour of the building, the problem also emanates from the nature of the presidency itself, which is largely ceremonial. Other “extravagant architectural piles” in Lutyens’ Delhi — the North and South Blocks, the former commander-in-chief’s mansion at Teen Murti used by Nehru, and even the Parliament building — could more easily shake off their colonial associations since real power is (or was, in the case of Teen Murti) exercised from these buildings on behalf of the people of free India.
Not so the Rashtrapati Bhavan. It remains perched on a hill at the centre of the national capital, but appears distant, grand, and imperious, wrapped in protocol and pageantry. As the American architect W Gavin Robb observed in an unpublished thesis: “Rashtrapati Bhavan exists, highly self-consciously, in a symbolic spotlight… (it) is a lightning rod of Indian history, and encapsulates a dichotomous post-colonial identity as a built legacy of imperialism.”
Every occupant has tried to deal with this symbolic challenge in his own way. Rajagopalachari lived very simply, washing his clothes and polishing his shoes. He also ploughed up the 9-hole golf course on the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s vast 330-acre estate to produce food grain for the Grow More Food campaign.
Rajendra Prasad, the first president, also adopted a simple lifestyle, even using chaukis for eating while sitting on the floor. His successor, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, gifted the viceregal lodge in Shimla to the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, seeking to transform at least one presidential property “from a symbol of imperialism to one of freedom”. At a less lofty level, V V Giri sent vegetables every day from the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s kitchen gardens to an orphanage.
Pranab Mukherjee, the 13th president, ever the consummate politician, has found his own solution — with his characteristic urgency he is seeking to “democratise” Rashtrapati Bhavan.
“I’m an ordinary student of history,” he told journalists last week at a tea to mark his two years in office, as he spoke of undertaking “the gigantic task” of restoring and transforming a building which “once symbolised the mightiest colonial power in the world”.
No president has opened up Rashtrapati Bhavan to the people the way Mukherjee has. Besides the hordes that annually visit the Mughal Garden in spring, 105,198 took the much-improved guided tour of the palace in 2012-13, while another 10,000 witnessed the revamped Changing of the Guard ceremony on Saturdays. Hundreds also came to meet the president, or attend conferences chaired by him.
Last week, another gate opened to welcome visitors — to a charming little museum telling the story of New Delhi from the Delhi Durbar in 1911 to the birth of the republic in 1950, and displaying some of the art and artifacts in the presidents’ collection as well as the distinctive furniture designed by Lutyens, his architectural drawings and his pastels. A major three-storey underground museum is also coming up, besides an auditorium and a ceremonial hall.
The main bronze door leading to the regal Durbar Hall under the Dome is opened frequently now. A row of buses was recently parked in the forecourt where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in — a large group of young civil service probationers had come to meet Mukherjee.