A Brief History of Shahjahanabad

Carrying on with my Dilli Darshan posts, Im going to put up a series of them about Shahjahanabad
(Old Delhi). Shahjahanabad is the 17th century Mughal walled city that also contained the Mughal
palace and court, and which was the occupied part of Delhi during the time the British took
increasing control of the city throughout the first half of the 19th century. Which means that
Shahjahanabad was what they took increasing control of, and was the core area that Delhi grew out
of in the late 19th c. and throughout the 20th c.
The 19th c. also saw the consequent dimming of the Mughal empire (which had been in decline
throughout the 18th c. as well), and its eventual snuffing out after the unsuccessful 1857 rebellion
against British rule. Shahjahanabad was the main site for all this. After 1857 the British took
complete control of Shahjahanabad, converted the walled palace area into their garrison in the city,
and destroyed many structures within both the palace and city areas. They initially resided within the
walled city, but later moved out to the Civil Lines area just north of Shahjahanabad, and the
cantonment was subsequently moved to the area that is now Delhi Universitys North Campus. Of
course once the decision came through in 1912 to move the capital of British India from Calcutta to
Delhi, the focus slowly drifted to the site south of Shahjahanabad that came to be known as New
Delhi.
The present urban fabric of the walled city can be traced back to the late 19th c. and early 20th c.,
when the British directly and indirectly reorganized the city. The sprawling havelis of Mughal nobles
and royalty were replaced by smaller havelis, houses and shops. After independence and partition in
1947, these structures were further subdivided and altered by refugees moving into the empty
houses and shops left behind by fleeing Muslim residents of Shahjahanabad. The Shahjahanabad
we see today is a result of these series of subdivisions, combined with the particular nature and
scale of commerce that has taken place here over the past few decades.
Some of this commerce has its roots in the distant past, with certain shops, streets and localities
tracing their trade back to Mughal times. Other areas have more recent commercial histories, though
in the lore of contemporary Delhi, these trading areas are no less potent in their mythos than the
older ones.
The fact that Old Delhi (Im going to use Old Delhi and Shahjahanabad interchangeably throughout
these series of posts, so non-Dilliwalas please bear with me) has become/remained a center of
commerce since the 1940s is itself an interesting phenomenon. My take is that since it was always
centrally located in expanding Delhi (whether expanding in the 50s or 80s); was not affected by
zoning and development laws in the same way as the rest of Delhi was (similar in this sense to many
of Delhis urban villages); and was a preexisting built up area (so there was no need to build from
scratch), it became a magnate for small-scale industries and wholesale commerce in ways that other
areas of Delhi were not allowed to become, or had to be planned and constructed to become. This
led to the present matrix of commerce that takes place in Old Delhi till today.
I feel that this grip on Delhis commercial psyche is slowly being loosened (and probably has been
since the early 90s when Indias economy opened up), but to what extent this is true is to be seen,

and in any case Old Delhi still holds a special place for people looking to purchase particular kinds of
goods.
The focus of these Shahjahanabad photos is to capture the old city with its architecture (such as
they exists today) as well as contemporary life in the city, since both occur simultaneously in this
space, and cannot be extricated from one another, especially when the canvas of the photographs is
the broad urban landscape.

Khari Baoli & Katra Neel areas (& Lahori Gate & Fatehpuri
Chowk)
As Ive said before, my whole Dilli Darshan project is based on and heavily influenced by Luck
PecksDelhi: A Thousand Years of Building, and these Shahjahanabad posts are no different
Ive organized my exploration of the walled city in much the same way that Peck organized her
descriptions. So I begin with the north western corner of Shahjahanabad in the Khari Baoli and
Lahori Gate areas.
An idea of the extent of Shahjahanabad which is the densely built-up semi-circular
area that covers most of the image. The general area covered by the photographs in
this post are marked

The general sequence of photos is indicated by the numbering below. Click on the
image to enlarge

Fatehpuri Chowk
Beginning with Fatehpuri Chowk, which lies at the far end of Chandni Chowk road the most
famous stretch of Shahjahanabad (arguably apart from the area around Jami Masjid). I had never
been to Fatehpuri Chowk before these visits, and it really gives a sense of what the city would have
looked like in decades past.
As far as I can tell, Fatehpuri Chowk is actually the single name given to two chowks (road
intersections) that are very close together. Chandni Chowk road and Khari Baoli road are offset by a
few dozen feet, and the two intersections caused by this offset are both covered by the name
Fatehpuri Chowk. Fatehpuri Masjid, which lies at the end of Chandni Chowk road, is responsible for
this offset, since the road needs to skirt this mosque (which also gives the chowk its name). In any
case, this offsetting has now led to Chandni Chowk and Khari Baoli being very different entities, as
we shall see below and in subsequent blogs.

Fatehpuri Chowk where Kahri Baoli road begins (or ends), which is definitely the more
interesting of the two intersections visually

Khari Baoli Road

Khari Baoli road, beginning from Fatehpuri Chowk, is a wholesale spice market, and the activity of
porters, sellers and shoppers is quite fascinating, as is the pungent odor of the area!

Porters awaiting work on Khari Baoli road

Khari Baoli road