4 min readJul 16, 2026 04:08 PM IST
First published on: Jul 15, 2026 at 06:24 PM IST
Where is Shahjahanabad? In the mental map of the modern Delhiite, the name barely exists. One knows it as Purani Dilli or Old Delhi, sometimes as the Walled City — that part of the city with the famous paranthe wali gali. There is also Chandni Chowk, the name originally assigned to one square on the street that stretches out from the Lahori Gate of the Red Fort to Fatehpuri Masjid. Ask Google Maps for Shahjahanabad, and it will redirect you to Old Delhi — one might be thankful that modern technology at least has some remembrance of the name that gave Old Delhi its unique character.
The Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Corporation was perhaps among the few formal government institutions to preserve the historic name of the city. With the body being renamed as the Indraprastha Virasat Punarvikas Nigam, the city has lost its last remaining link with Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, whose ideas of a glamorous imperial capital had given birth to Shahjahanabad.
One can read this as an obvious move by a government obsessed with renaming projects and streets. But the erasure of Shahjahanabad goes back to the time when the British established a new imperial capital adjacent to the Mughal city. British administrative records increasingly referred simply to “Delhi” rather than Shahjahanabad. The walled city underwent a rapid transformation after the revolt of 1857. The British army captured the Red Fort and demolished a number of palaces, replacing them with barracks. Outside the fort, several shops, havelis, public buildings and mosques were destroyed. Among the demolished structures was the bustling marketplace built by Shah Jahan’s daughter Jahanara Begum, upon the street that we now know as Chandni Chowk. The name “Chandni Chowk”, in fact, was reserved for the marketplace alone, as seen in maps predating 1857. Maps of the city after 1911 show the entire street named as Chandni Chowk. By this time, the British had built New Delhi as their capital. Shahjahanabad increasingly came to be known simply as Old Delhi.
It saw yet another wave of changes after Independence, amidst large-scale riots following Partition. With thousands of Muslims leaving for Pakistan and Hindu refugees coming in from West Punjab, the demographic character of Old Delhi underwent a significant shift. It also accelerated the transformation of Shahjahanabad into a wholesale commercial district. Chandni Chowk emerged as its commercial centre, gradually becoming shorthand for Shahjahanabad itself.
In electoral geography, the entire area comprising Shahjahanabad came to be known as Chandni Chowk since 1956, and after the 2008 delimitation went even beyond it. When the nearest Metro station was being named, it was on the insistence of traders’ bodies and residents’ welfare associations that it came to be called Chandni Chowk from the original “Delhi Main” envisaged by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. Shahjahanabad did not even feature in the discussion.
The name Shahjahanabad encapsulates the grand ambitions of a ruler to move out of his father’s shadow and build, brick by brick, a magnificent city of his own. Shah Jahan’s biographer Inayat Khan noted the emperor’s plans to “select some pleasant site on the banks of the river, distinguished by its genial climate, where he might found a splendid fort and delightful edifices”. That vision bears little resemblance to reality today. Centuries-old heritage coexists uneasily with chronic congestion, crumbling infrastructure, overcrowding, and mounting conservation challenges. Much in Shahjahanabad needs to be revamped. Retaining the name of its redevelopment body, however, might have served as a reminder of the urban imagination of the emperor who conceived the city.
Roychowdhury leads the research section at Indianexpress.com. adrija.roychowdhury@indianexpress.com
With thousands of Muslims leaving for Pakistan and Hindu refugees coming in from West Punjab, the demographic character of Old Delhi underwent a significant shift. (File Photo) 
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