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Journalism of Courage
Large, leafy trees line the wide and smooth roads, leading to small clusters of yellow two- and three-storey buildings. Birds chirp and squirrels chitter, while a couple of residents sit on benches in the mellowing, approaching-winter sun.
The enclave was once home to some of the Capital’s more famous personalities. Jatin Das, the painter, used to have parties at his home where the who’s who of Delhi would come, recall some older residents. It is where the self-taught sculptor Nek Chand created his famous Chandigarh Rock Garden statues. Former President APJ Abdul Kalam — perhaps its most famous resident — would be seen taking brisk walks.
This is the Asian Games Village.
Nestled between the Siri Fort Sports Complex, the Hauz Khas Forest and the rapidly gentrifying village of Shahpur Jat in South Delhi, the serene complex will be seeing some changes soon — and residents are concerned.
Some residential flats in the Village owned by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) are going to be reconstructed. HUDCO has signed a pact with the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) to “reconstruct residential flats at the Asian Games Village Complex”.
To be sure, only a handful of the 26 properties owned by HUDCO in the Village will be redeveloped, it is learnt. Stock exchange filings show the reconstruction work order is worth only Rs 3.65 crore.
But residents and architectural critics are skeptical about the shape the new buildings would eventually take and whether they will be in symmetry with the rest of the architecture. “These are the original Camellias, Magnolias,” says a resident about the society, referring to the posh new condominiums on Golf Course Road in Gurgaon.
Constructed in 1982 by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to accommodate athletes for the IX Asian Games held that year, the construction of this residential complex is said to have been supervised personally by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
After the Games ended, the DDA tried to sell the flats to Non-Resident Indians (NRIs). When the venture saw limited success, residents claim, the houses were auctioned to the general public, various government organisations and Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs).
Currently, out of the 835 units, around 135 are owned by private individuals; the remaining 700 are owned by government organisations and PSUs which use them as residences for their top personnel and as guest houses.
One of the private individuals who bought the flats in 1986 through a DDA auction is Manju Lal. She clearly remembers paying Rs 10 lakh — a princely sum back then — to the DDA for the flat, which today costs up to Rs 10 crore.
“We used to organise a cultural festival called Utsav, where renowned artists like the [dhrupad masters] Dagar Brothers and [Kathak exponent] Geetanjali Lal would perform,” she says.
To Journalist Mandira Nayar, the most important thing is to preserve the sense of community that has been built up at the Village over the decades. “This is like a microcosm of India. We celebrate all festivals such as Durga Puja, Ganesh Chaturthi, and Dussehra here,” she says.
Nayar recalls the time when her son fell ill while she was away from home, and she asked for a doctor’s number on the society Whatsapp group. Immediately, she says, neighbours who she did not even know previously called her inquiring how they could help her. “This place has a heart,” she says.
This community feeling seems to have been consciously woven into the physical architecture of the complex. The Village is emblematic of Delhi’s housing philosophy: low-rise buildings interspersed with plenty of green spaces. The absence of high boundary walls between houses differentiates this neighbourhood from other tony South Delhi localities that house monolithic collections of glass-and-steel builder flats.
This low-rise, high-density development representative of the typical Indian ‘mohalla’ or community was conceptualised by the celebrated architect Raj Rewal. “With a mix of streets and squares, a ‘theatre of the street’ has been created, where public interaction can spill from their immediate spaces as neighbours into a community, and works towards making them active participants and not just viewers,” Rewal’s website notes about the project.
Clusters of houses overlook green courtyards and trees, which provide spaces to breathe, and connect most of the complex through internal passageways designed for walkers. Rewal wanted to create an entirely “pedestrianised precinct” where “children can run around the houses”.
Music curator Mala Sekhri who moved into the complex three decades ago, says, “Jatin Das used to have parties at his place where the who’s who of Delhi used to come. The sculptor Nek Chand created his famous Chandigarh Rock Garden statues at his residence here. The music of the Dagar brothers teaching their students at their home would drift into our place too.”
Former President Kalam was a neighbour of Sekhri’s before he moved into Rashtrapati Bhavan. “On his morning walks, he used to walk much faster than his security cordon. All of them just tried to catch up with him,” she remembers.
In 2020, several eminent artistes, including Das and Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar, were sent notices to vacate government accommodation. The government cited a policy change made in 2014 that phased out all kinds of quotas in accommodation, be it for sportspersons, journalists, or artistes.
To be sure, the complex is now well over four decades old, and in need of repairs or patch-ups in places. Several residents said the colony was built in a hurry to meet the Asiad deadline, and some of the construction is of poor quality. There have been numerous complaints relating to construction issues over the years, said a resident who wished to remain anonymous.
While some residents are concerned that the planned reconstruction may be a high-rise building or a commercial property, Billy Gupta, a resident, said it’s a very small project, and some of his neighbours were probably “overreacting”.
Rewal, the veteran architect who designed the Village, told The Indian Express over the phone that any kind of reconstruction or renovation that is undertaken should be “in sympathy and harmony with the already existing construction”.
A G Krishna Menon, architect and urban planner, said, “This project (Asian Games Village) is a historical example of modern Indian architecture. You can either be modern by copying others or you can be modern by continuing our civilisational values.” The social interaction spaces that Rewal created in the form of courtyards and open terraces are inspired by Indian urbanism which is thousands of years old, he said.
According to Menon, the question around the proposed revamp is not whether you reconstruct “three buildings or four buildings”. “Either you respect your heritage or not. Redevelopment is not the answer. It should be conserved if it is in bad shape,” he said.
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