Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Delhi

Starting point is 00:00:00 Located in India is one of the largest cities in the world, Delhi. Delhi has a history that dates back over 2,000 years, and it's been the seat of power for multiple emperors and kings. However, in addition to being an ancient city, Delhi is also a modern city that serves as the capital of the Republic of India. Learn more about Delhi and the difference between Delhi and New Delhi on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong?

Starting point is 00:00:41 throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thurline podcast from NPR. Before I get into the history of Delhi and the differences between Delhi and New Delhi, I should provide a bit of background on the city. Delhi can actually mean a few different things, which are all called. closer related and sort of overlap. The difference between a state and a union territory in India

Starting point is 00:01:20 is that a union territory is somewhat controlled by the federal government. So to this extent, it's sort of like Washington, D.C. in the United States, Brasilia in Brazil or Canberra in Australia. However, there are differences in how they're managed and organized. The city of New Delhi has the same boundaries as the National Capital Territory of Delhi, the name of the Union Territory, again, similar to how the city of Washington has the exact boundaries as the District of Columbia in the U.S. The actual city of Delhi has a current estimated population of approximately 16.7 million people. This would make it the fourth largest city in the world based on the number of people living within the actual city limits. However, the Delhi metropolitan area extends well beyond the borders of

Starting point is 00:02:04 the National Capital Territory. It has a population of 33 million people, which makes it the second largest metropolitan area in the world behind only Tokyo. Delhi has three primary divisions. The largest which covers most of the city is the municipal corporation of Delhi. This is basically the part of the city that contains most of the homes and businesses. The other parts are the Delhi Cantonment, which is a small area run by the Indian military, and New Delhi, which is the district that contains most of the government buildings. While Delhi is similar to other capital cities, as I mentioned earlier, it differs from them in one important respect. All the capitals I just mentioned were built rather recently for the purpose of being a capital city. Delhi, on the other hand, has an origin that goes back at least 2,000 years.

Starting point is 00:02:53 The first mention of what would become Delhi dates back to the Mahabharata, one of the great Sanskrit epics. The city at the time was known as Indra Prasta. According to the Mahabarata, the city was established by the Pondavas who were five brothers at the heart of the epic story. These writings are mostly considered to be mythology, but there has been evidence of pottery fragments dating back about 4,000 years, which have been found in the area where the old fort currently stands. The area of Delhi had human settlements for centuries, but it wasn't until the medieval period that the place we know today as Delhi came to be.

Starting point is 00:03:27 The founding of Delhi is believed to have occurred in the year 1052 by Angapal Tomar, ruler of the Tomar dynasty. The Tomar dynasty existed from the 8th to the 12th centuries in northern India. Ungapal Tomar called the new city Dehili or Dehilika, which is the origin of the modern name Delhi. There's debate about where it came from, but it may have been a corruption of the Hindu-stanny word for a threshold or gateway, as the city served as a gateway to the plains of the Ganges River. The city itself sits on the Yamuna River, which is a tributary of the Ganges. Angapal Tomar brought what is today known as the iron pillar of Delhi to the city, which was originally commissioned by the Emperor Chandra Gupta II, the ruler of the Gupta Empire around the year 400.

Starting point is 00:04:11 You can still see the iron pillar of Delhi today, and it's in remarkable condition, not having rusted or corroded in over 1,600 years. With the establishment of Delhi as an imperial capital, as other empires, kingdoms, and sultanates came and went, many of them use Delhi as their capital. The next major empire that used Delhi was the Delhi Sultanate. The Delhi Sultanate, as the name would suggest, was an Islamic empire that had its capital in Delhi. It ruled over much of the Indian subcontinent for a period of 320 years, from 1206 to 1526. The Delhi Sultanate ushered in a period of building an expansion in the city, which included Kutab Minar, one of the tallest minarets of the period, and which is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 1526, the Delhi sultanate was conquered by Babur, the descendant of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, who swept down from what is today Uzbekistan. Babur founded the Mughal Empire, which had its capital in Delhi.

Starting point is 00:05:07 The Mughal Empire covered a large area, including almost all of India, and extending northwards into what is today Pakistan, Afghanistan, and much of Central Asia. The Mughals were great builders, constructing such architectural treasures as Fadi Bersikri and the Taj Mahal. In Delhi, they left a lasting mark that can still be felt today. The Red Fort was the royal palace for most of the Mughal emperors and can still be visited in the old city of Delhi. The red fort was commissioned by the Emperor Shah Jahan, who was the same man who built the Taj Mahal. Emperor Humayun's tomb was built in Delhi in the 16th century. It was considered a precursor to the Taj Mahal, and it too is a UNESCO World Heritage Site today. The early 18th century saw the decline of the Mughal

Starting point is 00:05:49 Empire. In 1737, Delhi was sacked by the forces of the Hindu Maratha Empire. Just two years later, in 1739, the city was sacked again, this time by a Persian army under the command of Nadir Shah. In 1752, the Maratha Empire signed a treaty with the Mughals that put Delhi under a Marata protectorate, but in 1757, the city was sacked, yet again, by Ahmed Shah Durrani, founder of the Afghan Empire, although he didn't annex the city into his empire. The city nominally remained under Mughal control throughout the rest of the 18th century, say for an invasion by the Sikh Empire. However, Europeans, primarily the British,

Starting point is 00:06:26 had been slowly gaining control throughout all of India. In 1803, the British East India Company defeated the forces of the Maratha Empire at the Battle of Delhi. Despite de facto control by the British East India Company, Delhi was still controlled nominally by the last vestiges of the Mughal Empire. Delhi was the center of a failed rebellion against British rule, known as the Indian Rebellion of 1857. However, it was quashed by the British East Union,

Starting point is 00:06:51 India Company, which also proved to be the final nail in the coffin of the Mughal Empire. As a result, Delhi came under the direct rule of the British government in 1858. The next big change for Delhi took place in 2011, when the British moved the capital of British India from Calcutta to Delhi. Being inland and not on the coast, it provided a more central location for the capital. It also saw the return to Delhi as a capital city, something which it hadn't been for several decades at this point. The Red Fort and other administration, administrative buildings that were used by the Mughals in Old Delhi weren't modern enough for British administrators. So they began construction of a new government district on land that was

Starting point is 00:07:30 acquired in 1894, which was named New Delhi. Most of the buildings in New Delhi were built after the end of the First World War and were completed in 1931. Most of the buildings that housed the British Raj were designed by the architect Sir Edward Luchins. Luchins designed the India Arch, the central monument in the district, as well as the Viceroy's palace. and the Secretariat Building. When India achieved independence on August 15, 1947, they took over all the buildings used by the British and declared New Delhi to be the new capital of the Republic of India.

Starting point is 00:08:02 It was in Delhi on that day that Jalal Harla Nairu, the first Prime Minister of India, gave his famous Trist with Destiny speech, which is considered one of the most important speeches of the 20th century. Independence and partition with Pakistan saw dramatic changes to the population of the city. Soon after independence, a flood of refugees descended on Delhi. Half a million Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab and Pakistan came to Delhi and 300,000

Starting point is 00:08:27 Muslims left Delhi for Pakistan. In 1956, the States Reorganization Act created the new Union Territory of Delhi. The act eliminated local rule in Delhi and put it under direct federal control. However, local control was returned in 1993, along with an elective legislative assembly and an elective chief minister. Since independence and the creation of Delhi is the nation's capital, the importance of the city has only increased, and the population of the city has grown dramatically as people have been drawn to the city from all over India. In 1950, the population of Delhi was approximately 1.3 million people. By 1970, it had grown to 3.5 million people. By 1990, it had 19.3 million people. And by 2010, it had 22 million people. The estimated population

Starting point is 00:09:14 today is around 33 million, including the urban population, which extends outside. side of the political boundaries of the region. It is believed that the Delhi metropolitan area will surpass 40 million people sometime around the year 2032. Given the current demographic trends, Delhi may become the largest city in the world sometime in the next two decades. However, it might not remain the largest city in the world for very long. Some demographers put the population of Delhi in the year 2100 at 57 million, which would actually put it behind the Indian city of Mumbai, which is projected to have a population of 67 million. As you can imagine, with such rapid growth in population,

Starting point is 00:09:53 Delhi has had challenges keeping up with the growing population of the city. Delhi has been ranked as one of the top 30 cities in the world for worst air quality. This growth has also led to new construction projects in the city. In 2002, the first line in the Delhi metro system was opened. With 10 lines now open, the system is one of the busiest in the world with over 1.7 billion passenger rides per year. It probably could handle even more riders, but it's much more expensive than buses are in the city. In 2023, a new Indian Parliament building was opened, which gave the Indian government a new modern building to work in. Delhi is truly unlike any other capital city in the world. It's a large bustling city that blends the modern alongside the historic.

Starting point is 00:10:36 It's a city that is a mix of people from all over India with a diverse collection of religions and ethnic groups. I personally spent several days in Delhi, visiting the various monuments and attractions, and it really wasn't close to enough time to see everything. In addition to the many historical sites I've mentioned, I managed to visit and eat in a Sikh temple, watch kids playing cricket in the street, and visit some of India's most important monuments in New Delhi. With India now the most populous country in the world

Starting point is 00:11:01 and the country's economy continuing to grow, Delhi will probably only increase in importance as a global city in the years to come. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just want to thank everyone, including the show's producers, who support the show over on Patreon. If you'd like to support the show, just head over to patreon.com, which is currently the only place where you can get show merchandise. Also, if you want to talk to other listeners about the show, head over to our Facebook group or Discord server, both of which have links in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Delhi

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