On November 1, 1956, another important chapter was added to the grand old story of Delhi when it became a union territory of the Indian Union.
The formal history of Delhi goes back to at least 1100 years. There are several legends about how Delhi got its name, but no single definitive account. According to one, a king called Dhillu or Dilu built a city here as early as 50 BC, and his name stuck. A second story claims that it derives its name from the Prakrit word dhili (which means loose), used by the Tomar rulers around the 8th century, as the foundation of the Iron Pillar of Delhi was weak and it had to be shifted.
Evidence suggests that under the reign of the Tomars, the coins in circulation were called ‘dehliwal’. Whatever the origins of its name, Delhi, or rather the area around it, is believed to have been inhabited since the 6th century BC.
Remarkably, remains of at least eight cities have been discovered in what is now Delhi.
The Chauhans captured Dhillika (Delhi) from the Tomars in the mid-12th century.
However, Muhammad Ghori (also known as Muizzuddin Muhammad bin Sam), a ruler from the (present-day) Afghanistan-Iran belt, defeated Prithviraj Chauhan in the second battle of Tarain in 1192, marking a turning point in Indian history and the beginning of several centuries of Muslim rule.
After his defeat, Prithviraj was allowed to rule for some time, but later executed. Historian Satish Chandra describes the subsequent momentous events in his book History of Medieval India: “The ruler of Delhi was ousted and Delhi was made a base for further Turkish advance into the Ganga valley. Following a rebellion, a Muslim army recaptured Ajmer and installed a Turkish general there. Prithviraj’s son moved to Ranthambor . . . [T]he Delhi area and eastern Rajasthan passed under the Turkish rule.”
Qutb-ud-din Aibak became the first Sultan of Delhi, and it was under his reign that construction of the city’s Qutb Minar started. Ala-ud-din Khalji extended the territories of what is known as the Delhi Sultanate. In an audacious move, Muhammad bin Tughluq moved his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad (Deogir) in the present-day Maharashtra, and later shifted it back to Delhi. “Many of those (Delhi residents) who reached Daulatabad felt homesick, for some of them had lived for several generations in Delhi and looked upon it as their home,” Chandra writes.
The year 1398 was one of the bloodiest in Delhi’s history, with the invader Timur capturing and looting the city, and massacring an estimated 1 lakh of its residents. The Delhi Sultanate recovered briefly after that under the Lodhi dynasty, but the stage was now set for Delhi’s—and eventually much of India’s—takeover by the great Mughal dynasty. Babur, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, founded the Mughal empire in 1526. In his fascinating memoirs, Baburnama, Babur describes his entry into Delhi as a conqueror thus (Wheeler Thackston’s translation): “[. . .] I circumambulated Shaykh Nizam Awliya’s tomb and camped beside the Jamuna directly opposite Delhi. That evening I toured Delhi fortress, where I spent the night [. . .] I made Dost the divan of the province of Delhi.”
Except for a short rule by the Suri dynasty at Delhi, the Mughals would dominate Hindustan for the next two centuries. In 1553, Hemu Vikramaditya, a Hindu army chief of the Suris, briefly captured Delhi; but Humayun’s son, the great Akbar, took back the capital in 1556.
The seventh city of Delhi, called Shahjahanabad (today’s Old Delhi), was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, and was the capital of the empire after 1638.
After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the Mughal Empire became a pale shadow of its former self, and its rulers were helpless in protecting even the capital. Thus, in 1737, the Marathas sacked Delhi after defeating the Mughals in what is known as the First Battle of Delhi. In 1739, the Turkic ruler Nader Shah looted Delhi.
The city was again looted, by the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani, in 1757. More battles to seize Delhi followed, as it was clear that the Mughal rule was rapidly disintegrating. But a new power from the West now loomed on the horizon: Britain.
In 1803, an army led by the British East India Company was victorious against the Marathas, and later the British installed the Mughal emperor in Delhi as a nominal head.
When Bahadur Shah Zafar became the Mughal emperor on September 28, 1837, he had very little real power, but Delhi was peaceful for a few decades. Describing a typical day at Chandni Chowk during Zafar’s time, in his superb book, The Last Mughal, William Dalrymple writes: [I]t was eleven o’clock before the first shopkeepers began turning up. They opened the shutters of their booths, fed their canneries and caged parakeets, and began fending off the first of the beggars and holy mendicants who bounced coins in their bowls and the passed the gauntlet of shops.”
The once-mighty Mughal empire finally and formally ended when British forces crushed the 1857 rebellion, and Zafar was sent to exile in Rangoon, Burma. Delhi was in ruins. The last Mughal died in a British prison in Rangoon, at the age of 87, far away from his beloved Delhi.
The British later made Delhi a province of the Punjab. Then, in 1911, Delhi was again in the centre of things, so to speak, with the capital of British India transferred from Calcutta to Delhi. ‘New Delhi’ came into being on February 13, 1931.
On August 15, 1947, New Delhi became the capital of a free India. With The States Reorganisation Act, 1956, coming into force on November 1 of that year, Delhi became a union territory. In 1991, through an amendment, the Union Territory of Delhi became the National Capital Territory. Delhi now has its own legislative assembly, though power is jointly shared with the central government.
Delhi has been the seat of power and prestige, and has witnessed the rise and fall of countless rulers and pretenders to the throne of India, for over a thousand years. Today, as the modern capital of the Republic of India, its importance remains undiminished.
Also on this day:
1950 — Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Bengali writer, died
1973 — Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, film actress and model, was born
1974 — V.V.S. Laxman, Indian cricketer, was born
