The City Beautiful turns 71
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ October 7,2024
‘The Governor and Council of Ministers of Punjab request the pleasure of the company of… on the occasion of the inauguration of the Capital at Chandigarh by the President of India on Wednesday, the 7th October 1953 at 4 pm’ reads the invitation card on the inauguration of City Beautiful .
On October 7, 1953, then President of India Rajendra Prasad inaugurated Chandigarh as the new capital of Punjab. After Partition, Shimla was designated as the temporary capital of Indian Punjab. However, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted a modern city to replace Lahore as Punjab’s capital. Therefore, in March 1948, the Punjab government, in consultation with the Centre, chose the picturesque foothills of the Shivaliks as the site of the new capital. The capital was officially moved from Shimla to Chandigarh on September 21, 1953, and remained the capital of Punjab until Haryana was born.
“I consider it a great pleasure and a privilege to inaugurate this new capital town of Punjab. It is a pleasure because the new capital symbolizes the urge, the indomitable desire of the people of this State to come into their own by getting over the temporary set-back which partition gave them. It is a privilege because an opportunity of inaugurating the capital city of a State like Punjab comes only rarely. I congratulate the Government of Punjab, specially the engineers and the administrators whose doggedness is mainly responsible for turning a dream into a reality.” said the President in his speech.
Chandigarh is one of the earliest planned cities in post independence India and is internationally known for its architecture and urban design. The master plan of the city was prepared by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, which built upon earlier plans created by the Polish architect Maciej Nowicki and the American planner Albert Mayer. Most of the government buildings and housing in the city were designed by a team headed by Le Corbusier, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. Chandigarh’s Capitol Complex—as part of a global ensemble of Corbusier’s buildings—was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO at the 40th session of the World Heritage Conference in July 2016.
Partap Singh Kairon, then the Chief Minister of Indian Punjab, and Edward Nirmal Mangat Rai, then the Chief Secretary of East Punjab, was instrumental in creating Chandigarh as the capital of the state. The government carved out Chandigarh from about fifty Puadhi-speaking villages in the then-state of East Punjab (Indian Punjab). As per available information, over 50,000 people witnessed the colourful inaugural ceremony of Punjab’s new capital . The gathering, which included the Rajpramukh of P.E.P.S.U., the Lieut. Governor of Himachal Pradesh and two Central Ministers, Swaran Singh and Surjit Singh Majithia. Also, most of those ousted from the villages that comprise the 9,000 acres of the capital site had also come to see the rising town.
The name Chandigarh is a compound of Chandi and Garh. Chandi refers to the Hindu goddess Chandi and Garh means fortress. The name is derived from Chandi Mandir, an ancient temple devoted to Chandi near the city in Panchkula District
