The old Parliament building, an architectural splendour and a historic landmark that guided the destiny of India for nearly a century and whose illustrious legacy will now be consigned to the pages of history, was inaugurated on January 18, 1927, by then Viceroy Lord Irwin.
On May 28, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new Parliament building and dedicate it to the nation, the old Sansad Bhavan will also hand over its position as the country’s hallowed legislature, a privilege it enjoyed for over 96 years.
Revered today as India’s temple of democracy, the old Parliament House has for these nine-and-a-half decades witnessed the imperial rule of the British and its chamber has heard the echoes of bombs hurled by revolutionaries Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt in a bid to attain freedom.
The building has seen the dawn of Independence and its halls have reverberated with the historic “Tryst with Destiny” speech delivered by first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on August 15, 1947.
An architectural marvel with its charming circular design and an impressive colonnade of 144 creamy sandstone on the first floor, the old building was opened amid much fanfare at a time when the new imperial capital of the British Raj — New Delhi — was being built at a site in Raisina Hill area.
According to archival documents and rare old images, a grand ceremony was held on January 18, 1927, to mark the opening of the majestic building, then called Council House.
Over a century ago, when the nation was still in the making and Independence 26 years away, Britain’s Duke of Connaught had laid the foundation stone of Parliament House on February 12, 1921, and said it would stand “as the symbol of India’s rebirth to yet higher destinies”.
The building, with a diameter of 560 ft and circumference of one-third of a mile, was designed by Sir Herbert Baker, who along with Sir Edwin Lutyens was chosen to design the new imperial capital in Delhi. According to the book “New Delhi — Making of a Capital”, Lord Irwin had arrived in his viceregal carriage at a pavilion set up at the Great Place (now Vijay Chowk), and then “proceeded to open the door of the Council House with a golden key, handed to him by Sir Herbert Baker”.
The sprawling edifice covering an area of nearly six acres and its creamy sandstone colonnade, is one of the most distinctive parliament buildings anywhere in the world, and one of the most defining and widely-recognised structures.
The last legislative sitting in it before the inauguration was the Budget session of Parliament which concluded in April.
Over the decades, as India evolved into the nation it is today, Parliament House has been witness to many a moment in history from cerebral debates to high-decibel, raucous discussions and the passing of legislations — some landmark and others controversial.
The multi-chequered history of the old Parliament building will now be frozen in time.
The odyssey of the old Parliament building is also the journey of the new capital of India built under the rule of the then monarch King George V, later christened New Delhi by him in 1926, less than a month before the inauguration of the circular landmark.
It was conceived by the British in 1920s after the imperial capital was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. Lutyens and Baker gave shape to the new imperial capital, with the Viceroy’s House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan) and the North Block and South Block as the centrepiece of ‘New Delhi’.
Lord Irwin inaugurated the Parliament building in 1927, and four years later led the inauguration ceremony of “New Delhi” which started on February 10 and lasted about a week.
A viceroy in India was the representative of the British Crown in the country, and Lord Irwin was the first to occupy the Viceroy’s House built atop the Raisina Hill. After India turned a Republic in 1950, it became known as the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the abode of the President of India.
Till the Council House or Parliament House as it is known today, was built, the legislature was housed in the iconic Old Secretariat building of the government, which today is home to the Delhi Assembly.
In 2006, the Parliament Museum was added to showcase the 2,500 years of rich democratic heritage of India.
Once the new Parliament building, part of the redevelopment of Central Vista, is inaugurated, India will in many ways, turn a page, since the opening of the old Parliament in 1927.
“Today, you meet for the first time in your new and permanent home in Delhi,” Viceroy Lord Irwin had said, addressing the first session of the third legislative assembly on January 24, 1927.
