“Let this be a new town, symbolic of freedom of India unfettered by the traditions of the past….. an expressions of the nation’s faith in the future” – Jawaharlal Nehru, on Chandigarh (HISTORICAL BACKGROUND | Chandigarh, The official website of the Chandigarh Administration, no date)
The British departure from Indian territory in 1947 resulted in a political vacuum as their main legacy. The British departure from India in 1947 resulted in the creation of physically and emotionally divided cities while displaying the tension of imperial rule. The urban areas stretching from Delhi to Lahore displayed clear signs of colonial influence through their divided residential areas, broad imperial streets, and grand civic structures that served to impress rather than provide practical functions.
The newly independent nation of India received the responsibility to establish self-rule while simultaneously creating new environments where their emerging identities would take shape. Urban planning functioned as a method for nations to develop their historical narratives. One city rose as a purposeful representation of post-colonial sovereignty during this period: Chandigarh.
The question persists about whether Chandigarh removed colonial influences from its landscapes. Did the post-colonial state of Chandigarh in India paradoxically (Roy, 2005) continue colonial modernity’s legacy using a new national flag?
The Colonial City of Order and Control
During British rule, cities throughout South Asia existed to fulfil the needs of imperial administration. The architects designed these areas for domination rather than creating spaces where different cultures could thrive together. A colonial city, such as Delhi, maintained a system of segregation through separate living areas for British residents and native subjects, military encampments, and commercial districts. The infrastructure existed to extract resources. Trains led to ports, not people. Roads followed revenue, not reciprocity.
As the urban historian Nezar AlSayyad notes, colonial architecture functioned to build an empire, naturalise dominance, and establish itself. In this context, cities were not only lived but scripted to extract.
So, when independence came, breaking this architectural and spatial script was as crucial as breaking colonial rule itself.
Chandigarh: India’s Tryst with Modernism
Punjab needed a new capital – not just as a replacement but as a symbol of rebirth. Prime Minister Nehru wanted it to be a city that would propel India into the modern world. “Let this be the first large expression of our creative genius…” he said. (David, 2016)
In 1951, Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier was invited to bring this dream to life.
Chandigarh, the city he designed, was based on his modernist ideals: zoning by function, geometric order, and a clear separation of the working machine-like town into parts- “head,” “heart,” “lungs,” and “circulatory system.” It was efficient, rational, and clean. (Kalia, 2000)
But here’s where the story unfolds differently from our usual narratives.
While Chandigarh was celebrated as a bold departure from the colonial past, it was also profoundly foreign to its cultural and geographic context. The grid, the brutalist concrete, the sparse public spaces – all seemed imported from a different ideological world. In their ambition to escape the past, the planners often dismissed the local vernacular forms, community-based living, and the unplanned vibrancy of Indian towns.
Rethinking Modernism: The Difficulty of Being “Modern”
In his 2018 essay “Planetary Crisis and the Difficulty of Being Modern”, Chakrabarty critiques how the global South – India included – has often been compelled to chase a European idea of modernity. He argues that this imported vision of modernism, rooted in Enlightenment thinking, was never neutral – specific histories of industrialisation, empire, and anthropocentrism helped shape it. (Chakrabarty, 2018)
Applying Chakrabarty’s thesis to Chandigarh raises an uneasy yet necessary question about whether modernism brought liberation to this context.
The development of Chandigarh occurred through external imposition, even though the makers held benevolent intentions. The city adopted progressive elements while ignoring the complex, diverse nature of Indian society. The zoning regulations that aimed to enhance efficiency disrupted the regular patterns of daily life, particularly for people with lower incomes.
The establishment of Chandigarh succeeded as a project despite everything. Through its design, India received fresh concepts for urban development. The path between striving for betterment and feeling disconnected from the newly created environment is thin. According to Chakrabarty, the post-colonial world makes it challenging to commit to modernity.
Continuities, Ironies, and Possibilities
The post-colonial state attempted to eliminate colonial cities through its ideology, ironically replicating similar alienated urban structures. When seeking inspiration from the West, planners rejected vernacular spatial practices, such as dense markets, walkable neighbourhoods, and communal courtyards. The modernist design introduced critical infrastructure and sanitation but sacrificed cultural uniqueness for a universal approach.
The analysis, though, does not reduce Chandigarh’s accomplishments. It represented bold transformations that rejected traditions but ultimately failed to transcend their historical roots completely. The colonial urban planning systems continue to exist in present-day India. Cantonments are still closed military zones, and civil lines are elite enclaves. The absence of planning has led to numerous informal settlements throughout the area.
Decolonising Today
A new generation of South Asian architects and urban thinkers actively oppose Eurocentric modernism in their field. A question now emerges about the definition of decolonised design, which extends beyond architectural forms into organisational methods.
Indian movements focused on the “right to the city” promote participatory urbanism because communities can design their neighbourhoods.
Vernacular architecture is admired because it combines local materials with responses to cultural and climatic conditions. These architectural methods oppose universal modernist designs by establishing a dialogue between built forms and their specific environments.
According to Dipesh Chakrabarty, we must recognise modernity’s boundaries and costs when it operates independently from the cultural context. The objective should be to establish radical contemporary approaches that reflect individual cultural contexts rather than following someone else’s modernity standards.
The City as a Conversation
The process of decolonising the city requires dialogue through time rather than destruction. The buildings of Chandigarh represent attempts by a post-colonial nation to demonstrate its modernity, rationality, and independence. The concrete manifestations of its dreams occasionally eliminated the traditional patterns of the past.
Urban planners must actively listen to the perspectives of people who live informally, while architects should focus on studying the land and culture. Today’s citizens must actively design their environments by reflecting on their living experiences instead of constructing monuments honouring external historical legacies.
The conclusion of this narrative demonstrates that cities can only achieve decolonisation through human involvement rather than architectural interventions. People achieve decolonisation through their active process of walking and building while remembering and re-imagining their own culture.
References:
Chakrabarty, D. (2018) ‘Planetary Crises and the Difficulty of Being Modern’, Millennium, 46(3), pp. 259–282. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829818771277.
David, R. (2016) ‘The Chandigarh exception: It’s the only city in India where the streets have no (political) name’, The Times of India, 10 June. Available at: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/On-the-bounce/the-chandigarh-exception-its-the-only-city-in-india-where-the-streets-have-no-political-name/?source=app&frmapp=yes (Accessed: 1 April 2025).
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND | Chandigarh, The official website of the Chandigarh Administration (no date). Available at: https://chandigarh.gov.in/know-chandigarh/planning-architecture/historical-background (Accessed: 1 April 2025).
Kalia, R. (2000) Chandigarh: The Making of an Indian City. New edition. New Delhi; New York: Oxford University Press.
Roy, A. (2005) ‘Urban Informality: Toward an Epistemology of Planning’, Journal of the American Planning Association, 71(2), pp. 147–158. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01944360508976689.
