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Journalism of Courage
Renaming a place is seldom inconsequential. It tinkers with geography,reorders memory and reveals,like a palimpsest does,the politics of the time. In its wrenching away of a part of a city,the act often becomes controversial. But if a case can be made for renaming a street or a stretch,or a roundabout,in the heart of New Delhi,it can be done for Sobha Singh one of the builders of the city exactly
100 years after King George V announced the shifting of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has forwarded a well-timed request to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to memorialise Sobha Singh. The government,in turn,has chosen the roundabout Windsor Place and since sent a proposal to the home ministry to name it after Sir Sobha.
Here a reordering of memory seems fitting,for this would be a retrieval of the first chapter of New Delhi. For one of the earliest stories associated with its building,after that romanticised instance of architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker glimpsing a rainbow where India Gate stands now and thus deciding on Raisina Hill as the site for their grand capital city,is of 18-year-old Sobha moving the citys foundation stones in a bullock cart from Kingsway to Raisina Hill in the dead of night. He went on to build what became the markers of the city from South Block and India Gate to the earliest buildings of Connaught Place and the first cinema hall,Regal. Yet,like other builders and architects Baisakha Singh,Teja Singh Malik and even Baker
Sobha Singhs name was confined to a slab in a South Block alcove. It is time they were brought back to public memory and celebrated among the grand façades they built.
