City with Open Hand turns 75: Can Chandigarh grow without losing itself?

As Chandigarh marks 75 years of its making this October, that difference matters. Its population is at an all-time high, while there is little land left to build upon. The amended Chandigarh Master Plan 2031 has opened the door to vertical growth. But can the city grow upwards without damaging the character of a place built around three cardinal principles: sun, space and greenery?

And who gets to decide? Residents who have repeatedly gone to court to preserve the city’s character? Elected councillors, who can sometimes appear more interested in real-estate development than heritage? Or itinerant bureaucrats who spend two or three years here before moving on? Less said the better about politicians in Punjab and Haryana, whose interest in Chandigarh is often confined to periodically laying their respective claims on it.

A city meant to be different

The Chandigarh story began in March 1948, when the Punjab government, in consultation with the Centre, earmarked a 114-sq-km site near the Shivalik foothills, as the site for its capital after an aerial survey. It was chosen for its natural drainage, elevated terrain, and accessibility.

The city began to take shape in 1951 when the government turned to Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, who conceived Chandigarh as a living organism. The Capitol Complex was its head, Sector 17 its commercial heart, the Leisure Valley its lungs and the residential sectors its organs. Roads numbered V1 to V7 separated different kinds of traffic.

Its spirit was embodied in the Open Hand: a symbol of giving and receiving, welcoming everyone.

Pierre Jeanneret, Corbusier’s cousin, spent 15 years as the city’s Chief Architect, utilising local materials and workmen to build its soul. Architect S D Sharma, who worked closely with him and contributed to landmark structures like PGIMER, remains a living link to that era. At a seminar for critiquing the city’s planning, the 94-year-old patiently listened before quietly declaring: “Chandigarh is perfect. It has no flaws.”

This sentiment has found powerful defenders among the city’s denizens. Senior advocate Mac Sarin and other residents fought all the way to the Supreme Court, which delivered a landmark judgment in January 2023 banning the apartmentalisation and floor-wise sale of residential houses in Phase 1, Sectors 1 to 30, to safeguard its heritage character. Citizens also legally challenged a proposed flyover on Dakshin Marg, arguing it violated the city’s pedestrian-friendly grid ethos.

Lawyers vetoed a proposal to relocate parts of the Punjab and Haryana High Court away from the Capitol Complex. A metro also met the same fate for threatening the city’s character.

While the Capitol Complex became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016, Chandigarh’s true heritage lies in its green belts, strict sector grids, tree-lined avenues, low-rise skyline, light-filled openness and the Shivaliks.

That is what is now under pressure.

New faultlines

Chandigarh has never been frozen in time. It has grown and changed. The city’s industrial belt has new malls, it has built a new underpass, and parts of the high court complex have been modified.

Bylaws too are being relaxed. As Bimal Patel, who designed the new Parliament, argued, why should residents not be allowed to make need-based changes in their houses if they do not affect neighbours?

Last month, the Administration approved amendments to the Master Plan 2031, allowing high-rises (10 storeys) in selected areas, subject to studies on traffic, water, sewerage and ecology. The rationale: Chandigarh has only about 114 sq km of developable land. If the city cannot expand outwards, it must grow upwards.

Former Chief Architect Sumit Kaur, who helped shape the original Master Plan 2031, disagrees, arguing that drastic changes in one phase risk undermining the idea of Chandigarh as one organism, besides straining its already creaky water, sewage, roads and social amenities. She also underlines the fact that the city falls in Seismic Zone IV. “It is strange but we seem to be copying our neighbours instead of the other way round,” she says.

Architects such as Pallav Mukherjee underline the idea of a pan-regional urban plan and suggest a rethink of transport, with mini-buses running across its vertical and horizontal grids every 10 minutes, to allow for better commute for both locals and those living on the city’s outskirts.

‘City Beautiful’

Chandigarh is not merely an architectural experiment. It is a much loved home, each sector unique.

For locals, it’s truly “City Beautiful”. Speaking on the legacy of Partap Singh Kairon, the Punjab chief minister who championed Chandigarh, the current Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, Partap Bajwa, insisted that “it is peerless”. “There is no city like this in the country,” he said.

BJP national president Nitin Nabin, when asked about the proposed changes to Chandigarh during his visit to Jalandhar a few months ago, also said: “It’s a concept city, it should remain the way it is.”

Its history is also political. Chandigarh has been the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana as well as a Union Territory (UT) since 1966.

That complicated history is captured by rappers Navdeep Singh and Harsimranjit Singh, who sang “Shehar mera Chandigarh”. Their ancestral village, Fatehgarh Madran, is now Sector 34. “Before Chandigarh was built, this area was the heart of Puadh,” they say. “We’ve always been Chandigarhians.”

Chandigarh cannot become a museum. It must provide homes, jobs, transport and opportunities for those who have streamed in after its first settlers. But can the city grow without erasing or diluting the very idea that made it different?

Perhaps the bolder question is this: Why turn Chandigarh into just another city when India could build more Chandigarhs? Seventy-five years from now, the goal should be an India dotted with cities that breathe, walk and shine like Chandigarh, not a Chandigarh that gasps amidst an urban sprawl.