This year end consummates 100 years of New Delhi since the British pageantry of coronation of 1911 Durbar. King George the Fifth had declared the shifting of capital of British Raj from Calcutta to Delhi. Incredulous enough, the Coronation Park of New Delhi hosted all the three British durbars of 1877, 1903 and 1911.
Ratnadeep Banerji flips across the flaxen pages of history to redeem the epochal moment.
Delhi Coronation Durbar held on 12th December, 1911saw the presence of 80,000 select people of India’s British rulers, Indian princes and nobles of the princely states and related panoplies of the powerful. This imperial assemblage by all princely states of India was to proclaim King George the Fifth as the King Emperor of India, reckoning his accession to the throne following the death of King Edward the Seventh. The coronation at Westminster Abbey had concluded on June 22, 1911. Holding the durbar was Lord Hardinge’s momentous preoccupation.
Why was the Durbar held?
There was a tacit vendetta. Historian Suhas Chakravarty feels the astute move was, ‘for strengthening the crumbling psychological sensibilities and the ideological edifice of the Raj’. The viceroy’s council had served suo moto dire warning, ‘a little more provocation [in Calcutta] might produce an Ireland within the Indian Empire’.
The India Council and the Governor General-in-council were unable to grapple with the escalating agitation of the Bengali nationalist militants who were subsequently joined by militants of other provinces. So the councils resolved secretly to concede to many of the nationalist demands. But doling out concessions might have exposed the British temerity in particular for the affected Muslims to up their ante. Fraught with this dilemma, the Secretary of State persuaded the cabinet members to convene a durbar to reckon the king’s coronation and offer the concessions and reforms as royal favours.
The Durbar tradition of British
During a period of forty years of British monarchy, three Imperial Durbars were upstaged to showcase the British prowess by commemorating the coronation of the British king and queen. In the first Durbar of 1877, Lord Lytton, then viceroy and governor-general proclaimed Queen Victoria as the Empress of India anointing her, Kaiser-i-Hind.
The Durbar of 1903 celebrated the accession of King Edward the Seventh under Lord Curzon saw a huge upsurge of pomp not matched in any of the other Durbars. The deserted plain of Coronation Park was relegated into an elaborate tented city, complete with temporary light railway, telephone and telegraphic facilities. The world’s press had dispatched their best journalists, artists and photographers to cover proceedings. Movie footage were also recorded.
Only the 1911 Durbar was attended by any British sovereign, King George the Fifth and Queen Mary.
The Coronation Park
King George the Fifth laid the foundation stone for New Delhi at this spot near a ridge where the British had smothered over the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. However, later the architects decided that the Coronation Park was unsuitable for the new city, being a river plain and liable to flooding, the cornerstone was shifted to the Raisina villages and hills.
‘Many capitals have been inaugurated in the neighbourhood of Delhi…..none ever held promise of greater permanence or of a more prosperous….future’, was declared by Lord Hardinge on 15th December at the foundation stone ceremony of the to be New Delhi. Didn’t the dubious statement fell slipshod on slippery ground?
The Durbar
Grandiose preparations for this durbar had been meticulously managed by the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge himself. Some 233 camps were set up spanning 40 square kilometres of canvas. Around 20,000 people put in their diligent work right from the spring of 1911 in developmental work. 64 kilometres of new roads were constructed; 80 kilometres of water mains and 48 kilometres of water pipes for the distribution of water in the camps were laid. Farms with herds of cows and dairies as well as markets for meat and vegetables were set up. Delhi had a population of some 233,000 people got overwhelmed by the influx of three-quarters of a million more.
Some 300 dangerous characters were arrested and thrown in the prison until the king had left Delhi. Large contingents of police were posted at vulnerable spots along the route of the procession. At Chandni Chowk, where the king and his entourage passed almost under the windows of houses of curious citizenry, a police officer was posted at every window and nobody was allowed entry into or egress from their houses after 6 a.m.
The royal couple arrived in Delhi on 7th December on an imperial train from Bombay. Thereafter their entourage proceeded in the city for around five hours.On 12th December, the Durbar was held in a purpose-built amphitheatre with some 100,000 spectators. Some 12,000 persons had the privilege to be under the canopy while the remaining 70,000 people witnessed the momentous occasion from a huge semi-circular mound. ‘With our King and Queen through India’ was a two and half hour film of the royal movement brought out on 2nd Feb 1912 by Charles Urban using the early colour process of Kinemacolour.
On 13th December The King and the Queen made their appearance before a crowd of half a million or more of common people from the balcony window, jharokha of the Red Fort. In the lawns of the fort state banquets were held and rumbunctious revelry rolled across the fort. Badshahi Mela was organised from 11th to the 13th below the Salimgarh Fort.
The King’s declarations and edicts
Pancham George, as the Indians called him doled out several plans, benefits and reforms for the Indian citizenry. They included land grants, a month’s extra pay for soldiers and subordinate civil servants, five million Taka for the establishment of a new university at Dhaka, declaration of the eligibility of the Indians for the Victoria Cross among others. 26,800 Delhi Durbar Silver Medals were awarded to men and officers of the British Regiments. Some gold medals were bestowed upon princely rulers and highest ranking government officers. Several Indians were bestowed with the title of Raja, Maharaja, Nawab, Roybahadur, Khanbahadur and Sir.
Then followed the Imperial announcements that bore a lot of gravity. Transference of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi, the annulment of the 1905-partition of Bengal, the creation of a Governor-in-Council for united Bengal, separating Bihar, Orissa and Chottanagpur from Bengal jurisdiction and integrating them into a new Lieutenant Governor’s province and the reduction of Assam once more to a Chief-Commissionership. The King made it clear that henceforth the Viceroy would be progressively concerned with imperial interests only and the Governor-in-Council and elected bodies should progressively run the provincial concerns autonomously.
These royal edicts were exclusively constitutional and political too. This led to widespread suspicion and cynicism amongst the contemporary public opinion in Britain. The press too felt quite the same. Lord was greatly annoyed at the transfer of capital
Best-kept secrets in history
At the last stage of the Durbar, the king sprang a surprise on his audience: ‘We are pleased to announce to Our people that on the advice of Our Ministers tendered after consultation with Our Governor-General in Council, We have decided upon the transfer of the seat of the Government of India from Calcutta to the ancient Capital Delhi….’The announcement was greeted by ‘a deep silence of profound silence ‘followed by wild cheering a few seconds later.
This decision had been mooted in June that year. It was known hardly to a dozen people in India and in England and the king had not even revealed it to the queen. Even the gazettes and news-sheets carrying the proclamation and distributed simultaneously with the king’s declaration had been printed in the utmost secrecy. A printing-press camp had been organized in Delhi. It had living accommodation along with printing machines were allotted to the working staff. Officials were placed in this camp three days before the durbar and was cordoned with troops and police to make sure that nothing could sneak in or pilfer out. Hardinge had later mentioned it as one of the best-kept secrets of history and rightly qualifies so.
The crowning imbroglio
King George the Fifth’s coronation happened on June 22, 1911. While preparations were on full swing, an amusing discord emerged. The king was to bring his coronation crown with him for the Durbar. But the crown could not be taken outside England. Lord Hardinge had recently arrived. He was entrusted to raise donations for the crown from the ruling Indian princes of British India. However, Hardinge in his memoir noted,’I felt that it would be highly derogatory to the position of the King to send round to collect money for His Majesty’s crown. Supposing it failed!’ Finally, the Indian government bore the cost and the crown was made in India. Several Englishmen including Curzon tried to retain the crown in india, be it at New Delhi or Calcutta’s Victoria Memorial. However, Lord Hardinge was morbid, lest the crown as regal insignia could invite revolutionary onslaught to fall into wrong hands who could elicit much esteem and prowess by dint of the possession. After all it, was ‘the Royal Crown of India paid for by the Indian people’. King George the Fifth’s crown of the Delhi Durbar now remains at the Tower of London.
The King-Emperor wore the Imperial crown of India with eight arches, containing six thousand one hundred and seventy exquisitely cut diamonds. The crown was covered with a velvet cap encrusted with emeralds, rubies and sapphires. The crown weighed 34.05 ounces (965g) heavy enough to impinge headache upon the king, kept him grouching. Queen Mary too was presented with a magnificent tiara by the Maharanee of Patiala on behalf of the ladies of India. The tiara, called the Delhi Durbar Tiara is still with the Queen of England.
Meeting of the five railways
The five railway zonal divisions jointly held several deliberations starting right from 8th February. A complete Delhi Main Station with as many as eleven platforms to receive trains from different directions was worked out. Two additional double lines were laid in the Delhi Durbar area up to Azadpur junction with branch line to Kingsway, Cavalry Camp and Army Camp.A daily fast goods train service was started from Howrah for Delhi. Military trains brought 80,000 troops.
The parody of extravagance
The Delhi Durbar siphoned off 660,000 pounds. R. Palmer, a contemporary English commentator dealt his acerbic remarks – ‘Untold millions of rupees have been spent, which go to enrich hotel-keepers, contractors, and dressmakers; and all that is got for it is three or four fine shows and the rather arrogant assertion of the British Raj. Meanwhile there is already actual famine in some districts and great distress in others…..it doesn’t seem worthwhile; it makes one think of the famine districts in the same depressing way that a London ballroom sometimes makes one think of the slums’.
Lord Hardinge was upbeat to declare the success of the durbar to showcase the prowess of the empire. ‘Ever since the King’s arrival in India, more than a year before, absolute peace had prevailed, not a single political murder having occurred in the interval, while during the three or four years immediately preceding the Durbar had been one political murder every fortnight.’ Hardly over the turn of little over an year there was an assassination attempt on Lord Hardinge himself. He recounted in his memoir,’ I was badly wounded…I fainted from loss of blood….the explosion of the bomb was so loud and crashing that it was heard six miles away’.
No further durbar
King Edward the Eighth had abdicated before he had any coronation. It was initially sought for his successor, King George the Sixth would carry forward with the durbar tradition. However the Indian National Congress passed a motion weeks after his accession calling for a boycott. Also in February 1937, Communist MP Willie Gallachner came heavily on such festivity in a poverty ridden country.The King’s speech of October 1937 pined for, ‘I am looking forward with interest and pleasure to the time when it will be possible for Me to visit My Indian Empire’. However, the second World War and the gravitating movement towards Indian Independence scuttled the king’s plans forever.
