New Delhi, the capital city, had its foundation stone laid by George V, the then Emperor of India. The event took place in the Delhi Durbar of 1911. The city’s architecture and planning were done by two British architects, namely Sir Herbert Baker and Sir Edwin Lutyens. It was on 13 February 1931 that Lord Irwin, India’s Viceroy, inaugurated New Delhi as the new capital of the country. Since then, New Delhi has become the center of government, with all the branches (legislative, judiciary and executive) needed to run the country.
Before New Delhi became the capital of India, Kolkata had the privilege of being the country’s capital till 1911. However, Delhi had been the financial and political center of many empires that had earlier ruled India. Some of the best examples of this are the reign of the Delhi Sultanate as well as the reign of the Mughals from 1649-1857. With the coming of the British in India, many things changed. It was in the early period of the 1900s that the British administration thought of shifting the capital of the British Indian Empire from Calcutta to Delhi.