Among the many theories that have been suggested an insight has been offered most recently by Giles Tillotson, writer and lecturer on Indian history and architecture. In his book ‘Delhi Darshan’ Tillotson suggests that two acts of brutal repression by the British committed within the walls of the Red Fort elevated the palace to a ‘site of national resistance’ and gave it the credibility to represent the Freedom Struggle.

The first act Tillotson refers to dates back to 1857. When the British marked their triumph over the mutineers with the barbarous massacre of innocents in the Red Fort’s palaces and many vistas. The second act Tillotson cites was when the British chose the Red Fort as the site of the court martial of Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon. According to the author these were ”three token individuals, selected from the many thousands of Indian officers and troops who had joined the Indian National Army and fought against the British during the Second World War.”

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In fact, the British ensured that the Red Fort would cement its place in the Indian imagination as a seat of authoritarian over lordship and not republican values. In several images the onion dome of the Red Fort rises majestically above the sepia tinted subjugation of Indian Maharajas (unelected representatives of the People) as they vied with each other to fawn over the British sovereign George V at the Delhi Durbar of 1911.

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