Talk:Delhi

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Former featured articleDelhi is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
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DateProcessResult
August 16, 2006Good article nomineeListed
January 4, 2007Peer reviewReviewed
January 20, 2007Featured article candidateNot promoted
February 17, 2007Featured article candidatePromoted
May 26, 2010Featured article reviewDemoted
July 18, 2012Good article nomineeListed
January 22, 2023Good article reassessmentDelisted
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Delhi

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: No response to issues; thus delisting on basis of silent consensus. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:27, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

A GA made in 2012. Now has multiple unsourced claims that need to be addressed for this article to remain a GA. Onegreatjoke (talk) 17:19, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

This article is a mess right now. I'm gonna try to remove blatantly bad sources and content out of the article. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:26, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
CactiStaccingCrane, do you intend to continue? Also pinging potential contributors for their opinions: RegentsPark, Fowler&fowler, Vanamonde93, Kautilya3. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:12, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Delhi Is More Than Its Urban Core: Please Reflect Rural Areas Too

I would like to emphasize that Delhi’s history and development should not be represented solely from an urban perspective. While the city’s urban core, including areas such as Old Delhi (Shahjahanabad) and New Delhi, has played a central role in the region’s historical narrative, the broader Delhi province has historically encompassed extensive rural areas. These rural regions have their own distinct social, cultural, and demographic dynamics, shaped by longstanding local communities, agrarian practices, and settlement patterns that differ significantly from those of the urban center. Focusing exclusively on the urban core risks oversimplifying Delhi’s complex history and may create a misleading impression that the province’s development, cultural transformations, and demographic shifts were uniform. In reality, many rural villages retained much of their pre-Partition social and demographic structures, even as the city itself underwent dramatic changes during the mid-20th century, particularly in response to migration, urbanization, and administrative restructuring. To provide a comprehensive and accurate account of Delhi’s history, it is essential to consider both urban and rural perspectives. Recognizing the interplay between the city and its surrounding villages allows for a more nuanced understanding of the province’s evolution, capturing the full diversity of its communities, experiences, and historical developments. Including these multiple perspectives ensures that the narrative of Delhi reflects the complexity of its past rather than presenting a simplified or partial view. Thanks, HockeyFanNHL (talk) 22:07, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

As I have already said below, this article is about the city of Delhi, what is referred to as Delhi in the 1300-year history of the city. It is not about the history of the region, every bit of it, that is today called Delhi or that was called Delhi territory earlier by the British.
What changed in 1947 was not a mere demographic or ethnic change. It was a change in the character, the perceived and experienced character of the city. This is what various authors have referred to.
We are not at liberty to pick and chose or emphasize how we interpret sources. We rely on WP:TERTIARY sources to do that especially widely used textbooks published by academic publishers or encyclopedias. That is Wikipedia policy. What I had summarized was taken from such a tertiary source, Talbot and Singh's Partition of India, Cambridge University Press. I had, moreover, quoted from that source in the citation. It had stood in the lead for three and a half years, so please also don't scream in block capitals in your edit summary to deny that you are edit warring when that is exactly what you are doing.
I will now revert the lead to that version, and will add some other scholarly books or encyclopedias, that allude to the same characterization of the city. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:01, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying your point. However, I would like to respectfully note that the definition of “the city of Delhi” has not been static over its 1300-year history. The term Delhi has referred to a series of urban centers—Lal Kot, Siri, Tughlaqabad, Firozabad, Shahjahanabad, and later New Delhi—each distinct in character, demography, and governance.
When we describe Delhi as a “Mughal city,” we are primarily referring to Shahjahanabad, founded in the 17th century, which indeed reflected Mughal urban and cultural patterns. But Shahjahanabad represented only one phase in the long urban history of Delhi, and even in the Mughal period it coexisted with other settlements, marketplaces, and rural hinterlands. Likewise, post-Partition Delhi’s transformation into a “Punjabi city” largely describes demographic and cultural changes in Shahjahanabad and parts of New Delhi, not the entirety of what constituted “Delhi” either administratively or historically.
Therefore, to describe Delhi as having “changed from a Mughal city to a Punjabi one” risks collapsing multiple urban identities and historical layers into a single, simplified narrative. Recognizing this nuance doesn’t contradict the cited tertiary sources; rather, it aligns with the broader historical understanding that Delhi has been a succession of cities, not a single, continuous one.
I believe acknowledging this would improve precision and historical accuracy while still fully complying with WP:NPOV and WP:RS. HockeyFanNHL (talk) 18:06, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
There was no discernible urbanization until the Tomara and Chawahana briefly built their soon-to-crumble forts in the very southern edge of the Delhi plain. I remember reading someone, either Catherine Asher or Sunil Kumar saying this, and maybe even citing them. Delhi as we know it is a Muslim city, created because the rulers of the Sultanate chose to make their capitals there. The Urdu language arose as a result, a mix of their native Turkic dialects and the Khari boli of the region of northeastern Delhi. The Mughals displaced the Sultanate. Delhi continued, however diminished, to be a Mughal city until the Rebellion of 1857, when the British ravaged the city. You may read about it in Ulysses S. Grant's post-retirement visit to the chief-commissionership of Delhi, in the articles Ludlow Castle, Delhi or Samuel Ludlow that I wrote long ago. Grant noted the destruction. But the Mughal influence in the culture of the city remained. After the British moved the capital to New Delhi, built in 1931—see the stamps of its second day cover in the relevant section of this page—Delhi, for a very short period, acquired the trappings of British influence, but it was nothing like Agra, which the British had inhabited since 1815, and where the old houses on Civil Lines demonstrate the love and care taken by people who planned to live there long, as opposed to the functional architecture of the New Delhi beyond the grand buildings of British power.
The sentence at the end of the history and culture describes the last transition during and immediately after 1947. It does not claim that Delhi was always Mughal, only that the culture was mainly still Mughal when the Partition took place. The other identities of the city are mentioned in the previous sentences of that paragraph. Thanks for writing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:21, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler and editors,
Thanks for the quick response!
First of all, I am not denying anything.
My main problem is when it said "Delhi became a Punjabi city", I didn't have a problem with the word Mughal and all.
But I feel there are concepts which we have to go over.
I want to clarify important points regarding the scope, history, and demographic context of Delhi as presented in the article. My goal is to ensure accuracy, neutrality, and historical clarity.
1. Delhi has never been a single, continuous city
While the Turkic rulers and the Delhi Sultanate established significant urban centers, Delhi historically consisted of a succession of distinct cities: Lal Kot, Siri, Tughlaqabad, Firozabad, Shahjahanabad, and later New Delhi. Each city had its own population, culture, and administrative structure.
Treating the entire historical and modern NCT as a single “Delhi city” or a “Mughal city” oversimplifies this layered urban history. Specifically, during the British period, only two major urban entities existed:
Shahjahanabad (the Mughal walled city) – the only surviving medieval city core.
New Delhi – a completely new city constructed by the British in the 20th century with a distinct population, architecture, and administrative function.
Any statement implying that Delhi as a whole was “mainly Mughal” in 1947 conflates these distinct urban entities, erasing the historical and spatial diversity of the NCT.
2. Post-Partition urbanization
After 1947, Delhi underwent massive urbanization due to refugee resettlement. Migrants included Punjabis, Sindhis, and East Bengalis, leading to a dramatic demographic transformation and rapid expansion beyond Shahjahanabad and other older city cores.
My earlier edits included details on this post-Partition urbanization, which were entirely within the scope of the NCT. Reverting these edits excludes significant historical and demographic facts and diminishes the completeness of the article.
3. Neutral and accurate framing
To maintain neutrality (WP:NEUTRALITY) and historical accuracy, the demographic and urban changes should be presented as follows:
“During Partition, Shahjahanabad, the Mughal walled city, experienced a dramatic demographic change with the influx of Punjabi, Sindhi, and East Bengali refugees. At the same time, New Delhi, constructed during British rule, remained administratively distinct. The post-Partition period saw rapid urban expansion and settlement across the NCT.”
This phrasing:
Distinguishes between Shahjahanabad and New Delhi
Acknowledges all major refugee groups
Reflects the broader post-Partition urbanization
Avoids overgeneralization and preserves neutrality
4. Conclusion
I am not disputing Delhi’s Turkic, Sultanate, or Mughal-era history. The key issue is the oversimplified narrative that treats Delhi as a single city, or equates the 1947 transformation solely with Shahjahanabad as a “Mughal city.”
Historical accuracy requires recognizing:
Delhi as a succession of distinct urban centers over centuries
The existence of New Delhi as a separate British-era city
The demographic and urban changes across the NCT after Partition HockeyFanNHL (talk) 19:46, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler
By the way,
It is inaccurate and oversimplified to claim that Delhi “became a Punjabi city”. While Punjabi refugees constituted a large and highly visible portion of the post-Partition migrant population, other refugee communities, including Sindhis, East Bengalis, and smaller groups (Madrasi Camp) from various regions of India, also settled in Delhi, and later, the other interstate migrations post-partition. These communities contributed significantly to the city’s cultural, social, and economic development, and their presence must be acknowledged to maintain accuracy and neutrality.Furthermore, post-independence migration from other Indian states—driven by employment opportunities, education, and urbanization—further diversified Delhi’s population. The demographic landscape of Delhi in the decades following 1947 cannot be accurately described as dominated solely by Punjabis.
Most of the Punjabi population eventually settled in areas such as West Delhi and South Delhi, which were away from the historical urban core of Shahjahanabad. Many of these neighborhoods, including colonies like Punjabi Bagh, were developed on lands acquired from surrounding villages, reflecting the city’s expansion and urban planning in the post-Partition era rather than continuity with the Mughal or medieval city. These claims I feel should be added as they do reflect post-partition urban Delhi.
This clarification is crucial because it ensures that the article reflects the true diversity of Delhi’s population, the spatial distribution of migrant communities, and the post-Partition urban expansion, rather than presenting a simplified narrative in which the city is labeled predominantly as “Punjabi.” Properly acknowledging these factors preserves historical accuracy, neutrality, and contextual understanding of Delhi’s complex transformation after 1947. HockeyFanNHL (talk) 19:55, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
I recommend that you not open multiple threads. One is enough. Choose one and close the others. The sentence in question is that transformation of Delhi during the Partition of India, the bulk of which I have to confess, in case you cite conflict of interest, I did write a long time ago, but which has since, like all WP ideally should, lived a life of its own, the resettlement of refugees in Delhi was mainly from the Western Punjab and NWFP . Those from Sind and East Bengal were resettled elsewhere. Please see its Resettlement in India section, which I don't think I wrote, at least not extensively. The second and third paragraphs therein speak to the resettlement of refugees from East Pakistan and Sind respectively. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:07, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
This again proves the point that the article, as currently worded, leads to oversimplified conclusions. Just because your past credentials define your role on Wikipedia does not give you the right to "puppy guard" any article. Facts that do not align with previous contributions do not justify neglecting or omitting any part of history. Wikipedia’s policy of neutral point of view (NPOV) requires that all verifiable information be presented fairly, without giving undue weight to one aspect over another. While a significant number of refugees from Western Punjab and NWFP were settled in Delhi, it is important to recognize that Punjabi refugees were also resettled in many other parts of India, including cities and rural areas across multiple states. Presenting Delhi as the primary or sole destination risks giving readers a misleading impression of the scale and distribution of refugee resettlement during Partition. A more nuanced phrasing would better reflect the historical reality.
Please also remember that Wikipedia is a collaborative platform: any editor can contribute to articles, provided they follow the site’s content policies and guidelines, regardless of authorship. HockeyFanNHL (talk) 21:59, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
And by the way, I opened multiple threads because I have several distinct concerns regarding your reverted edits and the reasoning behind them.
I may not be a senior editor on Wikipedia, but that does not mean my contributions are inexperienced or without merit. Each edit should be judged on its verifiability, neutrality, and adherence to Wikipedia’s policies—not the editor’s seniority.

Next time, I expect that you respond to all my grievances and not pick and choose.

HockeyFanNHL (talk) 22:02, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I didn't pick and choose. I typically respond to one thread opened by an editor. The first editor did not open a second thread.
IYou have opened four. I have responded to two. At first you were complaining about the pre-Mughal history of Delhi being not given its due in the lead. After I replied to that complaint, you are now saying that you have no issues with Delhi being characterized as a Mughal city, it is the Punjabi association you object to. You claimed that Delhi also has migrants from Sind and East Bengal, but the vast majority of the migration out of East Bengal to India in 1947 and 1948 waws to West Bengal or Assam. From Sind it was to Rajasthan (then Rajputana) and Bombay State (the portion that is today in Gujarat). You have now changed tack again to accusing me of misusing my "seniority." I have done no such thing, I mentioned the fact of my authorship of the Partition of India page in its early days to head off any objections from you to my referencing it. I am the one who has brought scholarly sourced to bear in my arguments. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:32, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
Again, you have clearly missed my main grievances.
1. Delhi’s historical continuity
My concern is not about Delhi being characterized as a Mughal city. The issue is that the lead oversimplifies Delhi’s history, implying that the city evolved continuously as a single urban entity over 1,300 years. In reality, Delhi has been a succession of distinct urban centers—Lal Kot, Siri, Tughlaqabad, Firozabad, Shahjahanabad, and later New Delhi—each with its own political, cultural, and demographic identity. Conflating these separate cities into one continuous entity misrepresents historical reality.
You are not even acknowledging this point, and accusing me of being against the Mughals- no!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am objecting to the oversimplification of Delhi’s urban history, not the characterization of any particular period.
The Historical Cities of Delhi:
Qila Rai Pithora / Lal Kot – Considered the first city of Delhi, founded by the Tomar king Anangpal in the 8th century and later fortified by Prithviraj Chauhan.
Siri – Built by Alauddin Khalji in 1304, it was the second city and the first major fortified settlement under the Delhi Sultanate.
Tughlaqabad – Constructed by Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq in the 14th century.
Jahanpanah – Built by Muhammad bin Tughlaq in the mid-14th century to connect Siri and Qila Rai Pithora.
Firozabad – Founded by Firoz Shah Tughlaq in 1354.
Shergarh – Built by Sher Shah Suri in the 16th century.
Shahjahanabad / Old Delhi – The last of the seven medieval cities, built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century. Also known as Old Delhi.
New Delhi – Built by the British Raj as the new imperial capital between 1911–1931, designed by architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker. Serves as the modern administrative center of India.
BY THE TIME OF PARTITION, THERE WERE TWO MAJOR HUBS IN DELHI—OLD DELHI (SHAHJAHANABAD) AND NEW DELHI. SCHOLARLY SOURCES THEMSELVES CAN OCCASIONALLY BE INCOMPLETE OR INACCURATE; RELYING ON THEM UNCRITICALLY DOES NOT JUSTIFY OMITTING DOCUMENTED HISTORICAL FACTS..
The previous cities were already abandoned. I have stated this before.
Will you ever respond back about this point? Or will you switch the topic again?
2. Demographic representation
Even if the number of migrants from Sindh and East Bengal was smaller than Punjabis, their presence in Delhi is historically documented. Omitting them from the lead is selective and partial, which violates Wikipedia’s Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy. NPOV requires acknowledging all significant groups and facts, not only the majority or dominant one.
3. Focus on the subject
If the discussion now emphasizes scholarly sources, I am fully prepared to reference them appropriately. The key point is to focus on accuracy and neutrality, rather than deflecting from these substantive issues.
If selective omission continues, I will have no choice but to request moderator intervention to ensure the article complies with Wikipedia policy. Enough of the selective treatment of facts.
The history presented in Delhi’s article should reflect documented historical facts and scholarly sources, not selective choices about what an editor wants included or excluded. Creating or contributing to the article does not give any editor ownership over its content or narrative. Neither you own the land of Delhi, and no editor owns the right to control Wikipedia’s content unilaterally. HockeyFanNHL (talk) 03:03, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
In short, you have to be accurate when it comes to Delhi as a city (urban side), and Delhi as a rural side before 1947.
Delhi is Delhi, regardless of the city or urban side.
As the article literally itself introduces itself with: "Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India.",
there can be no reason why one would not want to include parts of the history of the NCT overall.
And you have exaggerated this tiny topic of saying the statement: "This article is about Delhi city in its various historical incarnations. It is not about the history of the region that is today Delhi, or was Delhi territory earlier, otherwise, lord knows, we'd be including Gurgaon, Rohtak and whatnot."
That itself proves you are contradicting your very own article you created.
When I meant the rural part of Delhi, OF COURSE I WASN'T TALKING ABOUT GURUGRAM AND ROHTAK.
Do better!!!! I was talking about villages WITHIN DELHI NCT.
And now don't come up with a new exaggeration within this.
I don't know why you thought I was trying to include places outside the Delhi NCT.
It is crazy how you literally could come up with such a thought.
But oh well. HockeyFanNHL (talk) 03:19, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Clarifying the description of Delhi’s transformation after Partition

Dear readers,

I recently came across the statement: "During the Partition of India in 1947, Delhi was transformed from a Mughal city to a Punjabi one."

This characterization is an oversimplification—one that overlooks the complexity of Delhi’s urban and rural landscapes, as well as its layered historical identities. There are at least two major reasons why this statement does not capture the full picture:


1. Shahjahanabad vs. New Delhi: Two distinct urban identities Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi, founded by Shah Jahan in 1639, was the historic Mughal city. Its streets, bazaars such as Chandni Chowk, monumental architecture including the Jama Masjid and Red Fort, and dense residential patterns reflected centuries of Mughal urban planning, social organization, and cultural life. While the population was diverse, the city’s identity was deeply tied to its Mughal heritage. In contrast, New Delhi, constructed after 1911 under British colonial rule and designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, represented a fundamentally different vision. It was conceived as a modern administrative capital, characterized by broad avenues, grand government buildings, ceremonial spaces like Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate, and planned infrastructure aimed at governance and imperial symbolism rather than organic urban life. Treating Delhi as a single “Mughal city” erases this dual urban reality. Partition affected both areas, but in very different ways: refugee resettlement in 1947 primarily took place in the urban periphery and newly developing neighborhoods around New Delhi, rather than in Shahjahanabad itself, which retained much of its pre-Partition demographic composition. Conflating these distinct urban experiences into a single narrative ignores how historical identity, urban form, and demographic change intersected differently across the city.


2. The rural dimension of Delhi province Delhi in 1941 was not simply a city—it was a province that included roughly 300 surrounding villages. Out of a total population of around 917,000, nearly 222,000 people (a quarter) lived in these rural settlements. These villages had their own distinct social structures, cultural practices, and agrarian economies, very different from the Mughal-influenced urban core. Partition migration and post-Partition urbanization affected these areas differently. Many villages were gradually absorbed into the expanding city during the 1950s and 1960s, forming the backbone of new neighborhoods, while others retained their agrarian character for decades. Ignoring this rural component reduces Delhi’s transformation to a simple urban story and overlooks the layered, uneven nature of demographic, social, and cultural change that unfolded across the province. HockeyFanNHL (talk) 22:58, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

It is best not to create walls of text, which typically no one reads, especially not when you have also created multiple sections here, and posted on my user talk page, when I have asked WP users not to open threads there about reverts. Data dumps of prose copied from sources are not apt for talk page discussions. Digested summaries of the prose are.
The Chief Commissionership was a late British creation. The 1909 Imperial Gazetteer of India does not mention it; it does so only Delhi Division (of the Punjab), Delhi District, Delhi tehsil, and Delhi city. The most expansive part was called Delhi territory. See the page I created long ago, Ceded and Conquered Provinces and especially the maps therein that I had painstakingly scanned and outlined from the Imperial Gazetteer of India, circa 2007. The Delhi territory map has, however, been illicitly copied by some user recently to Commons from my earlier map on Wikipedia without acknowledging my role.
This article is about Delhi city in its various historical incarnations. It is not about the history of the region that is today Delhi, or was Delhi territory earlier, otherwise, lord knows, we'd be including Gurgaon, Rohtak and whatnot.
This will be my only reply in this thread. Please close it. And please post in the section already opened about the revert by user:Chorchapu, but without the walls of text. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:28, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for the clarification and for pointing out the historical distinctions in administrative terminology — that’s helpful context. I fully agree that this article is about Delhi city and not the broader regional or administrative units like Delhi District or Delhi Territory.
My point, however, concerns how “Delhi city” itself has changed in meaning and geography over time. The term has referred to multiple urban formations — Lal Kot, Siri, Tughlaqabad, Firozabad, Shahjahanabad, and later New Delhi — rather than one continuous “Mughal city.” When the phrase “Delhi changed from a Mughal city to a Punjabi one” is used, it implicitly equates all of Delhi’s historical urban identity with Shahjahanabad, which isn’t accurate given that New Delhi and earlier medieval cities were neither Mughal in origin nor character.
So the issue is not about expanding the article’s scope to the entire region, but about avoiding an overgeneralization within the city’s own evolving historical boundaries. Clarifying that distinction would maintain accuracy without altering the article’s focus or policy compliance. HockeyFanNHL (talk) 18:07, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Hello Fowler,
I’d like to clarify a point about the lead regarding Delhi during Partition. While I understand that the article focuses on “Delhi city” in its historical incarnations, the current wording—“Delhi was transformed from a Mughal city to a Punjabi one”—implicitly treats all of Delhi as Shahjahanabad, the Mughal walled city.
Historically, Shahjahanabad was the Mughal capital founded in the 17th century, whereas earlier medieval cities and New Delhi had entirely different populations and character. Treating Delhi as a single, continuous Mughal city oversimplifies the urban history and conflates distinct phases of the city’s development.[1][2]
Additionally, the demographic claim is incomplete. Refugees after Partition included not only Punjabis but also Sindhis and East Bengalis.[3] Describing the city as having become “Punjabi” does not accurately reflect this multi-ethnic transformation.
A simple clarification in the lead could resolve this while remaining fully within the scope of “Delhi city.” For example:
“During Partition, Shahjahanabad, the Mughal walled city, experienced a dramatic demographic change, with the influx of Punjabi, Sindhi, and East Bengali refugees.”
This preserves historical accuracy, maintains neutrality, and keeps the article focused on the city rather than the broader region.
Thank you for considering this clarification. HockeyFanNHL (talk) 18:50, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Neutrality, Scope, and Accuracy in the Lead

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