At the turn of the twentieth century, India was the brightest jewel in the British crown. During the nineteenth century, Indian cities were developed on the models and European ideas of town planning and architecture. They also made urban design inserts and urban renewal schemes, added to existing medieval cities, built numerous cantonments and civil lines. The history in the first half of the century speaks of two strong and conflicting undercurrents that India experienced within the framework of modernity. On the one hand, the rulers attempted to project their presence and power through an imperial attitude. On the other hand, Indian nationalism increasingly had a parallel effect on the creation of appropriate symbolism. Revivalism became a political tool affecting all aspects of the society as the struggle for Independence intensified. Personalities like Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore had a strong impact on the ideology of the society. Art Deco often transformed into Indo Deco in architectural and urban design projects in metropolitan presidency towns such as Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. They shared a distinctive pattern of urban morphology and were centres of modern education, science, industries, culture and politics. The shifting of the capital from Calcutta to New Delhi in 1911 heralded critical and all-pervading British efforts at the making of a new “Rome”. The last strokes of the colonial era were found in Lutyen’s Delhi (1913–1930). Thus, there were internal (nationalist) and external (modernist) ideas and forces simultaneously at play within the pace of modernization. This paper will attempt to analyse the ideology, events and other forces that shaped the notion of nationalism as reflected in modern architecture and urbanism of this historic era.