Interestingly, a map dating from the eighteenth century in the Oriental and India Office Collection at the British Library (Add.Or.1790, OIOC, BL) also depicts the Fort as a mere shell, its outer red walls simplified into a rectangle, with the gardens around, enclosing a blank open space inside. Whatever the reasons for representing it in this manner then, today literally and figuratively, this is more or less what the Qila-i-Mubarak has been reduced to, both in the real and the virtual world.

That brings us to another intriguing secret, which is the fact that it was deliberately refashioned into this image by the British following their victory over the last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar. They destroyed more than 80% of the original built and open spaces of the Qila-i-Mubarak, and remodelled it into a garrison fort. A photograph after the demolition by the British in 1860, shows the empty spaces around and within the Fort[2], making it a depleted island severed of its connecting links to the rest of Shahjahanabad. The implication of this destruction and rebuilding can be understood when we compare the configuration within the Fort today, with that before 1857, as for instance here―where the extant Mughal structures have been outlined on a redrawn version of one of its most detailed representations, the mid-1840s map; or in these plans of the Fort, derived from the same map, where the built structures have been shaded black, before and after the events of 1857.

But this secret continues to remain hidden from most of us, which is why we concentrate attention entirely on this reduced existence of the Fort in its most feted images today. Ironically enough, these images, repeatedly used to symbolise the identity of independent India, are linked to the celebrations that commemorate the country’s freedom from British rule. This is also probably why we countenance and emphasise a colonial slant in the conservation of the Red Fort, even though the Fort suffered its most pervasive destruction when it was occupied by the British. This can be seen in the wide swathes of high-maintenance lawns developed around its walls, at complete variance with the original Mughal orchards; or in this rendering depicting the restoration of the Chatta Bazaar arcade with shop-fronts and lighting reminiscent of a ‘Victorian’ market, published in theHindustan Times of 2nd February 2009.

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