As we all know, the Red Fort has had a very long and chequered history through the almost 400 years of its existence. I’ve written about this at length in the book. It is not possible to convey all of that in 10 to 15 minutes. So I will focus on what I believe are the most important and least understood part of its story: the logic and attributes of its original design — and how that embodies military heritage, among other aspects.
The first thing I’d like to underline is that we cannot see this building complex as just a fortification. It is quite unlike garrison or frontier forts, or the popular image of dramatic forts atop craggy peaks. It was built as an urban Fort-complex along with its contemporary city of Shahjahanabad, at the height of the political power of Shah Jahan in the second decade of his reign. In that capacity, the Red Fort did of course contain military functions.
If that sounds rather too prosaic, we must recollect that the Red Fort has also been eulogised as ‘The Most Magnificent Palace in the East—perhaps in the World’ — not by what may be considered biased Mughal court-writers, but by the pioneering British architectural historian James Fergusson in his monumental History of Eastern and Indian Architecture. However, though magnificent it certainly was, the Red Fort was not just a palace either. In addition to being the Mughal Emperor’s personal residence and that of his large extended family, it contained many other functions. It was the cultural and urban focus of the city, a centre of patronage of the highest art and music, as well as an important factor in the economy of the entire empire. It contained within it administrative halls, courts of justice, karakhanas, markets, reception areas, orchards, formal gardens, dwellings of attendants, soldiers’ quarters, and much more.
Principles of Design
In other words, it had multiple functions and worked as a miniature city-within-a-city in the tradition of other large urban forts of this time, such as Agra and Lahore. However, unlike these other urban forts, instead of being commissioned piece-meal by different rulers, the Red Fort was unique in that it was conceived as a composite whole along with its supporting city. Thoughtfully planned, with deliberation and with underlying guiding principles to simultaneously satisfy its various functions, the Red Fort was the grand finale to imperial Mughal urban forts — just as the Taj Mahal, a contemporary act of patronage by Shah Jahan, was the grand finale to imperial Mughal tombs.
As I see them, the principles underlying the design of the Red Fort complex are:
- Optimisation—of space, infrastructure, energy and resources.
- Consideration—for the context and conditions of its time and place.
- Flexibility and permeability—in the detail and use of its architecture.
I will explain these directing principles and how the military function of the Fort was achieved within them, with the help of some images from the book. This is a map of the Fort, which dates from the 1840s. It has one of the most detailed available representations of the Red Fort. Naturally enough, in the 200 years between the Fort’s establishment in 1648 CE and the making of this map, there were changes within and around the Fort— including the construction of secondary gateways in front of its main entrances, the moving away of the Yamuna river, the appropriation of buildings and gardens by the British, etc. Nonetheless, the Fort’s overall planning and organisation were not altered. A key attribute of this planning and organisation was the way in which buildings and open spaces were connected to each other: these were devised as a series of walled forecourts, streets and gardens that were disposed around a succession of buildings, as we may see in the map.
This allowed them to be used in multiple ways and in different seasons and occasions. Usable space was extended through awnings, and the surrounding forecourts and gardens accommodated more people if occasion demanded. This also helped to derive maximum benefit from the Yamuna to create a favourable microclimate for living within the Fort. To appreciate how such an organisation helped to optimise space and infrastructure in the context of its time and place in an incredibly efficient way, we can compare it with the range of activities now carried out in the Rashtrapati Bhawan, North & South Block, Parliament House, cantonment, Mandi House, Crafts Museum, etc. — all of which were combined within the Fort itself! And on analysing the proportions, sizes and locations of the buildings and open spaces, we discover that there was a definite geometry that linked them formally through an organising system of grids: as we can see in these drawings.
Military Heritage
While this may all sound very well, it appears at first glance that the security of the Fort was insufficiently attended to — and even compromised by — its site planning and architecture. So, the emperor’s palaces in the Fort close to the river, instead of being towering closed buildings, were permutations and configurations of delicate single-story open or semi-open pavilions — and were interspersed with arcaded verandahs and open-to-sky marble terraces. Unlike the rest of the Fort edges which were located behind high walls with continuous walkways patrolled by soldiers, these palace-pavilions were built right atop the Fort walls on the Yamuna banks. Within the pavilions, there were areas where the emperor displayed himself to public view at fixed times every single day. Each morning after sunrise, he sat at the palace window, the Jharokha-i-Darshan facing the riverbanks. After that, he dispensed justice, surveyed parades, dealt with petitions, met ambassadors and envoys, from his throne in the Jharokha balcony of the Hall of Public Audience, the Diwan-i-Am. This balcony was in direct axis with the main ceremonial entrance street to the Fort and its Lahori Gate, and further on to a great chowk just outside the Fort walls and the main urban street of Shahjahanabad. The Red Fort was thus, spatially, culturally and socially integrated with its city and surroundings.
However, contrary to conventional perception, all this actually worked well in providing security. The Fort’s complex sequence of pavilions set within a series of walled forecourts and gardens, were not merely intended to generate an awe-inspiring aesthetic experience, or just create a comfortable micro-climate for living. They additionally constituted multiple rings of secure enclosures around the Emperor. His Private Imperial Domain within the Fort where he and his family stayed, was normally disallowed to other occupants. It had its own walled forecourts and arcades, which separated the Emperor’s movement routes from those of other occupants. It was extremely difficult, if not impossible to enter, or even come close to the imperial quarters without permission.
Within the rest of the Fort too, areas of use by different occupants were separated into different domains, where everyone moved through specific passages in a sequence of walled forecourts, after passing through carefully positioned and guarded drawbridges and towering gates set in the high western and southern walls. Protected by moats, the boundaries towards the north-west had additional security in the form of the older 16th century strategic island fort of SalimGarh established by Salim Shah Suri. The soldiers stationed in the Red Fort had their living quarters adjacent to Salimgarh, which was used as a stronghold and prison connected by a solitary bridge to the Red Fort. Stables and patrolling walls ran continuously along the boundary.
This ring of high boundary walls and sequence of forecourts, had strict regulations about who could enter through their guarded gateways, and how these were to be entered: on horseback or on foot; with or without swords or entourages — even blindfolded as the French traveller and physician, Francois Bernier, was when summoned to examine a patient in the Emperor’s family! The number and complexity of these forecourts kept increasing as one moved further into the Red Fort closer to where the Emperor stayed. They formed a labyrinth which completely disoriented new visitors, and was difficult to penetrate even for habitual users to the Fort. If by chance or connivance, anyone did get in, leaving the palace without being discovered was next to impossible — as happened reportedly to a young man during the reign of Aurangzeb.
And when the Emperor made his public appearances, he did so only within designated areas — in screened chambers at a higher level, separated from those around by railings and pillars — which allowed him to be viewed but not physically approached. The eastern side of the Fort: without a moat, external walls or forecourts towards the adjacent river-banks, was safe-guarded in similar ways. The palace-pavilions here were on much higher ground from the riverbank; their few windows were filled in with intricate jalis; their verandahs and arcades were away from the river-face. Even the emperor’s own gateway, which was for his private entry and exit from the banks, did not lead directly to any of the pavilions but instead to a series of narrow internal forecourts, negotiated under strict surveillance. These architectural devices of allowing visual connection but limiting physical access through different layers, heights and levels — were a continuation of the principle of controlled access achieved at a site-level through the multiple forecourts-within-forecourts. This is one of the reasons that textual and visual descriptions of the Fort are contradictory or incomplete. Even those allowed occasional entry could only access specific guided routes, and much of the Fort remained invisible to them — as seen in this 1812 map by Ensign Peter Lawtie, depicting most of it as an empty area.
Transformation, Conservation and Interpretation
This designed form of the Fort worked well to satisfy multiple functions, including that of security and defence, till there was political and military power to back it. In the mid-17th century when the Red Fort was established, strict rules governed its use. The French merchant and traveller, Tavernier, observed that no one was allowed to leave the court till the Emperor arose from his throne. Even envoys and other rulers had to follow a detailed protocol. Mughal chronicles relate how the ex-King of Kashgar, on his visit in 1688 CE, was allowed to enter only till the doors of the Forecourt to the Diwan i Am on horseback. After this, he had to dismount, ride a palki till the sandstone railing outside the Hall, then climb up past a barrier of a silver railing around its outer bays, to finally stop outside the gold railing below the throne-balcony.
Even after 1803 when the British took over administrative and fiscal control, and later moved in their Commandant of Guard above the Lahori Gate, the rules controlling the use of the Fort and its forecourts afforded a measure of security to the Emperor. Even the chief representative of the British in Delhi, the Resident, was not allowed to ride in on horseback. Failure to follow this rule on one occasion led to the jurisdiction of the Palace Affairs being taken away from them. So, we see that the siting of the Fort; the allocation of the functions within it; its buildings and forecourts; the rules governing their use, are vital components of its tangible and intangible military heritage.
All this transformed radically after 1857. Almost 90% of the original design of the Fort was looted and demolished as a planned reprisal by the British in 1857 and this is covered at length in the book. The expulsion, execution, and exile of the Mughal rulers and almost the entire original population of the Red Fort, and its subsequent occupation by the British military, reduced the Fort to virtually a shell. Its multiple functions were erased. Its connected forecourts and buildings that catered for these functions were destroyed. Its eventual restoration, initiated half a century after its destruction, was primarily catalysed by the need to use the Fort for British imperial ceremonies such as on King George V’s state visit— rather than to reinstate original functions and uses. This thus failed to communicate the vital relationship and principles of its unique original design that underlay all its functions.
Why is it that we are not told any of this at the Fort today? I have written at length about this in the book. Here I would just like to state that we can still read evidence of the destroyed Mughal buildings in the British barracks constructed from their rubble and fragments. However, this evidence — contrary to good conservation practice — is neither used for its historical value, nor interpreted to add another layer to its military heritage. Neither is the stellar role of the Indian Army in the history of our nation — the Headquarters of which were briefly located in the Fort in 1947 — communicated in any way.In fact, the battalion of the Indian Army posted in the Red Fort for ceremonial and security reasons, coincidentally operated from its south-western and south-eastern parts: echoing the historical area-usage by the original Mughal military in the Fort. The cessation of this sole continuing historic use after the Indian Army was asked to vacate the Fort, has been accompanied by great degradation of the overall appearance and upkeep of the Fort as well as a reduction of its ceremonial formality. The condition of its few Mughal buildings, the sole surviving examples of its unique design, has perceptibly worsened.
To end, I’d like to reiterate that the iconic value of the Red Fort in shaping the very identity of the entire subcontinent, stems from the fact of its establishment as an urban fort-complex by Shah Jahan. Its relationship with the Mughal rulers after Shah Jahan, with the War of 1857, its subsequent occupation by the British military, its association with the Indian Army, with Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s rousing slogan to the Indian National Army, with the INA trials, which invest it with multiple aspects of military heritage — are all an outcome of that fact. There is thus a great deal to be done if the value of the Fort as a cultural icon, as well as its symbolic and actual military associations are not to be jeopardised. For this, it is first, absolutely essential to communicate the logic and principles of its original design and expand our understanding of what constitutes military heritage, and secondly, how and why it transformed into the strange cohabitation of British and Mughal structures we see today, and thirdly, what the Fort means means for the heritage of independent India — and indeed for the entire world. We need to look after better what exists on ground, and explain better the absence of what no longer exists — and the connection of all this with our lives today. I look forward to discussing with all of you how we may do this for the continued well-being of the Red Fort and the conservation of its outstanding and universal cultural values.
