Rajpath has evidently replaced Lodhi Gardens and even Sunder Nursery in the affections of the chatterati, which is why there has been a surfeit of lamentation over the future of this central spine of New Delhi. No wonder all manner of grim fairy tales are being spun and disseminated about the boulevard that would confound not only Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, but also Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the original iconoclast1.

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Yet not many realise (and a few ignore) the fact that Lutyens’ original vision for the greenery of Central Vista was altered first not long after the British Raj officially shifted from Calcutta to New Delhi in 1931. By 1933, courtesy the Raja of Bhavnagar, a multipurpose Irwin Amphitheatre (now Dhyan Chand National Stadium) came up on the spot where he had envisaged a public garden that would lead onto Purana Qila and the Yamuna riverfront.

This breach of Lutyens’ plan was followed by the redevelopment of that stadium for the Asian Games in 1951, in a mere 300 days from the time Nehru laid the foundation stone in 1950. This success is what must have led to our first prime minister to embark on another speed building project: the commissioning and opening of Vigyan Bhavan on Rajpath (altering Lutyens’ plan again) and Ashok Hotel in 15 months for the 1956 UNESCO conference.

If anything, the New India Gardens now earmarked for a spot behind Purana Qila, on the same axis as the Central Vista, is a fulfilment of Lutyens’ public gardens plan. Of course, sceptics have interpreted that as well as the 45-acre National Arboretum to be created behind Rashtrapati Bhavan—both totally accessible to the public—as a feint by the government to push its line that the Central Vista redevelopment will not reduce green spaces2.

Which brings us to the moot question: will the green spaces of Rajpath really be reduced in the new plan? A few weeks ago, the war cry was Protect Rajpath’s Jamun Trees as photos of dug up lawns implied uprooted trees too. That proved to be wrong as 18 jamun trees (out of 1,000-odd) are to be transplanted—not even chopped down—and the lawns will be re-grassed as soon as underground utilities are laid. So the cry is now more broadbased.

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• 1. Of course, the discourse has been progressing downhill, quite literally. Beginning with the purported demolition of North and South Blocks atop Raisina to the need for the new Parliament below and thence, to the supposedly imminent destruction of the trees and waterbodies of Rajpath and the post-Lutyens effulgence of revivalist Rajput-Mughal and socialist prefab Moscow apartment block type government office buildings on its flanks.
• 2. The line being peddled is that the Arboretum is a devious plan to encroach on the forest area behind Rashtrapati Bhavan and “turn it into a manicured space” and the Nav Bharat (New India) Park will be yet another assault on the Yamuna flood plains. The aam janta who wait a whole year to see Rashtrapati Bhavan’s Mughal Gardens when it opens for barely a month will surely regard the Arboretum (to be open year-round) in a different light.