‘Being a Delhiite for over four decades, the challenge to me has been to not become insensitive to our surroundings – we are present in this vast changing space and among the few to have witnessed this evolution from close quarters. It’s not only the big events but ordinary daily life, which complete the circle. Today, when I look back at some of the photographs I took 30-40 years ago, I see a Delhi that does not exist anymore or has changed so drastically, that these images stand as testimony of that period – A photo history that cannot be written,’ – Raghu Rai, an Indian Photographer and Photojournalist

A walk in the narrow and wide lanes of  Chandni Chowk took me to Raghu Rai’s famous Chawri Bazaar photograph. While a 600-meter distance separates the two places, both the markets scream the story of a lost city. In this essay, I aim to visually construct the social field (through field notes, photographs, videos, and memory) and give coherence to my loosely braided thread of thoughts by broadly extrapolating on two themes – Architecture and people.

The Architecture

The Chandni Chowk Bazaar is a testimony of what once stood tall and how rampant changes over time led to the creation of all that the market is today. The coexistence of old structures adjacent to newly built buildings speaks volumes about the continuously evolving society we live in. This part of Delhi echoes the remains of the olden times which is unique in the sense that no other part of the city displays the same.

A significant feature of the bazaar is the direction boards with red paint, displaying vernacular diversity. There are traces of Urdu language in particular, whether written over the walls or on the signboards, present everywhere in the bazaar. The Chowk is a multi-religious abode with structures like Jain Lal Mandir, Gauri Shankar Mandir, Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib, Central Baptist Church, and Fatehpuri Masjid. Then comes the Red Fort, a building symbolic of the freedom struggle, and of the developing nation-state. Chandni Bazaar is thus symbolic of both religion and nationalism, the two ideals intertwined in Indian politics and one now more visibly present than ever. We live in troubling times and the peaceful existence of multiple religious places in the space offered by Chandni Bazaar sends a strong message to the incessantly growing bigotry. On our walk, we also visited Mirza Ghalib’s Haveli at Qasim Jaan Gali Ballimaran.

A Ghalib ghazal on the walls of Haveli read,

‘کوئی ویرانی سی ویرانی ہے

دشت کو دیکھ کے گھر یاد آیا’

whose Hindi and English translations are as follows,

 ‘कोई वीरानी सी वीरानी है,

 दश्त को देख के घर याद आया’

and,

 ‘I wondered if any wilderness would be more desolate than this!

And then I remember another of the kind – the home I’d left behind.’

The quote was translated only into two other languages for the audience to read, portraying the dominance Hindi and English have acquired and are continuing to do so, and similar is the case when one goes to any place of historical significance or national monuments in Northern India. The traces of multilingualism (Hindi-English-Urdu) are also visible on the name-boards of the shops. When I entered the premises, I felt like I had left all the noises of the bazaar – from vegetable vendors shouting out the prices, shopkeepers luring the passersby in, telephonic conversations of a stranger near me, to screeching tyres of a two-wheeler, and horns of a four-wheeler stuck in traffic – behind me. The brown-bricked walls of the Haveli kept the chaos outside.

Chandni Chowk underwent a redevelopment programme, changing it. Let us discuss in brief the redevelopment project that began in 2018. Following is a paragraph taken from a 2020 Citizens Matter Article written  by Vijaya Pushkarana, Chandni Chowk, from Shah Jahan to Kejriwal:

‘The present redevelopment makes the road look wider. Gone are the encroachments. There are no rickshaws, e-rickshaws and auto rickshaws zigzagging their way through the heavily congested road. Absent too are the irate owners of swanky cars, impatient cyclists and motorcyclists, jostling for space with pedestrians and human-drawn carts laden with tons of everything from fabrics to spices to plastics to steel, and much else.’

Often dubbed as the pedestrianization programme, the most crucial aspect of the plan was to make the streets open to only pedestrians and non-motorised vehicles such as cycle rickshaws from 9 am to 9 pm. Such redevelopment and beautification programmes have far-reaching consequences for the people.

The People

The Bazaar is always busy, attracting a large crowd from different classes, religions, regions, caste, language, and age. Every individual visiting the market comes with a different purpose. For some, the Red Fort in the bazaar is a picnic spot wherein one can spend quality time with the family while for others, it is a one-stop destination for all the wedding shopping. Some come here to worship while the food connoisseurs come to try the famous Natraj Bhalla and roam in the Paranthe Wali Gali soaking in the odour of the freshly-made parathas. The range of consumers visiting the bazaar is extensive while the shopkeepers are predominantly men.

Another significant feature of the bazaar is its popularity as a bridal shopping destination. A televised screen displays the idea of a perfect red lehenga for the wedding day for consumers. All the people visiting the market are subject to such advertisements. They may not buy what adverts do is provide ideas about what is desirable. It creates aspirations and turns a thing into a status symbol. The experience of buying a wedding dress from a market like Chandni Chowk as opposed to ordering a customized Sabyasachi are two different realities existing in the same country, throwing light on the glaring inequalities.

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation. By paraphrasing Marx, Debord (1983) immediately establishes a connection between the spectacle and the economy. He writes in his seminal work, Society of the Spectacle – ‘The spectacle is not a collection of images but a social relations among people mediated by images.’

Chandni Chowk is an essential urban space as well which when combined with consumption further leads to the making of an idea of the middle class. Sanjay Srivastava in his study of Akshardham Temple dwells on the‘relationship between urban spaces, new cultures of consumption, the state, and the making of middle-class identities in India’ (Srivastava 2009). While Akshardham Temple is a very different urban space in comparison to Chandni Chowk Market, some points made on consumption and the middle class can be taken in this analysis as well. The Redevelopment project which re-defined the bazaar led to the making of  ‘clean spaces’ with the removal of ‘unclean spaces’ such as the encroachments. Can one ask whether the idea of shopping in a bazaar-like Chandni Chowk relates to the ‘idea of becoming middle class’? Srivastava establishes a link between the idea of becoming middle class and certain practices of housing and residence. The same could be applied to the practices of shopping thereby placing it in the larger process of development of urban spaces. Chandni Chowk Bazaarcan be understood as an urban space with a unique culture of consumption. It is a ‘particular constellation of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus’ (Massey 1996).

References:

Debord, Guy. 1983. Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red.

Massey, Doreen. 1996. Space, Place and Gender.Cambridge: Polity Press.

Pushkarna, Vijaya. 2020. Chandni Chowk, from Shah Jahan to Kejriwal. Citizen Matters. 3 December 2020. Chandni Chowk, from Shah Jahan to Kejriwal

Srivastava, Sanjay. 2009. Urban Spaces, Disney Divinity and Moral Middle Classes in Delhi. Economic and Political Weekly. XLIV(26 & 27): 338- 345.

The Indian Express. 2024. Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha Constituency: Praveen Khandelwal From BJP and JP Aggarwal From Congress to Lock Horns. The Indian Express. 15 April 2024. Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha Constituency: Praveen Khandelwal from BJP and JP Aggarwal from Congress to lock horns

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Bhoomi Bohara is a graduate of Sociology from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi.