BBC - Culture - Is this the perfect city?
▻http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151211-is-this-the-perfect-city
By Jonathan Glancey
11 December 2015
Chandigarh, India’s most prosperous and greenest city, was born of dreams at the time of one of the country’s worst nightmares. In 1947, India gained its independence from Britain. As part of this process, the country was divided in two and some 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced. Ethnic tensions and rivalries led to up to around a million (estimates vary) brutal murders.
In the Punjab region, the dividing line between the two states meant that the old capital, Lahore, was now a part of Pakistan. In 1949, Chandigarh was decreed. Not only would this be the capital of Indian Punjab, but it would be the very model of a modern city promising peace, democracy and a new social order free of bitter divisions.
