Some time soon the new parliament building of the world’s largest democracy, India, will open for business. No one quite knows when, except perhaps for the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and those close to him, but it has been imminent for months. There were suggestions that it would open in time for the 75th anniversary of Indian independence last year, but the high steel hoardings around it remain in place.
The £120m project is at the centre of a culture war. For Modi and his supporters it is a statement of freedom from colonial legacy, and a poke in the eye for the old governing class of New Delhi. It is the centrepiece of the Central Vista Project, an ambitious plan to make over the city’s British-built administrative centre. Critics of the new building say that it is an unnecessary replacement of the existing parliament, that short cuts were taken with its procurement and the obtaining of permissions, and that there was minimal consultation with parliamentarians and the public.
