Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part H (2025)

This paper examines the urban development of Delhi as a contested palimpsest of visual languages, reflecting the complexities of postcolonial modernity. It argues that the city's architectural history is defined by a perpetual conflict between successive state-imposed aesthetic regimes used to formalize power and ideology, and the dynamic, informal aesthetics of everyday life. This tension necessitates a re-evaluation of modernity as a non-linear, multiply-inflected postcolonial project rather than a singular Western concept.

The analysis traces this conflict through several key phases: The imposition of colonial rationality in Lutyens’ Delhi, which established an aesthetic of subjugation that was paradoxically inherited by the new nation; the post-independence dilemma between Nehruvian state-led modernism and the emergence of a critical regionalism seeking contextual relevance, the proliferation of a vernacular counter-language through informal settlements and commercial signage that challenges state planning and the contemporary shift towards "aesthetic governmentality," where a "world-class city" ideal justifies urban cleansing and exclusion. This is coupled with a new wave of state-sponsored Neo-Monumentalism, exemplified by the Central Vista Redevelopment, which aims to impose a singular nationalist narrative.

The article ultimately contends that the visual languages used in Delhi serve as fundamental tools for ideological control, social stratification, and assertion of claims. The city's unique postcolonial modernism is shaped by the ongoing visual interplay between the designed "Static City" and the organic "Kinetic City".