Delhi (/ˈdɛli/; locally pronounced Dillee or Dehli), officially the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), is the capital of India as well as the country's largest and 2nd most populous metropolis.[1] With 16.7 million residents as of the 2011 census, Delhi is also the 8th most populous metropolis in the world. The region has been given special status of National Capital Region (NCR) under the Indian constitution's 69th amendment act of 1991. There are nearly 22.2 million residents in the greater NCR urban area, which includes the neighboring cities of Ghaziabad, Noida,Greater Noida, Gurgaon, Sonepat and Faridabad along with other smaller nearby towns.[2]
Delhi is known to have been continuously inhabited since 6th century BC.[3] Through most period of its history, Delhi has served as a capital of kingdoms and empires. It has been invaded, ransacked and rebuilt several times, particularly during the Medieval era, and therefore today's city of Delhi is a cluster of many capital cities scattered across the city's dimensions. Delhi is also widely believed to have been the site of Indraprastha(the legendary capital of the Pandavas during the times of the Mahabharata).[4] Delhi re-emerged as a major political, cultural and commercial city along the trade routes between northwest India and the Gangetic plain after the rise of the Delhi sultanates.[5][6] It houses many ancient and medieval monuments, archaeological sites and remains.
In 1639 AD, the Mughal emperor Shahjahan built a new walled city in Delhi which served as a capital of the Mughal Empire from 1649 until 1857.[7][8] The British had captured Delhi by 1803 and George V announced in 1911 that the capital of British controlled parts of India would be Delhi.[9] So a new capital city, New Delhi, was built to the south of the old city during the 1920s.[10] When India gained independence from British rule in 1947, New Delhi was declared its capital and seat of government.
The name Delhi is often also used to include urban areas near the NCT, as well as to refer to New Delhi, the capital of India, which lies within the metropolis. Although technically a federally administered union territory, the political administration of the NCT of Delhi today more closely resembles that of a state of India with its own legislature, high court and an executive council of ministers headed by a Chief Minister. New Delhi, jointly administered by both the federal Government of India and the local Government of Delhi, is also the capital of the NCT of Delhi.
Etymology and idioms
A very common view is that its eponym is Dhillu or Dilu, a king of the Mauryan dynasty, who built the city in 50 BC and named it after himself.[4][11][12] The Hindi/Prakrit word dhili (loose) was used by the Tomaras to refer to the city because the Iron Pillar built by Raja Dhava had a weak foundation and was replaced.[12] The coins in circulation in the region under the Tomaras were called dehliwal.[13] Some other historians believe that the name is derived from Dilli, a corruption of dehleez or dehali—both terms meaning 'threshold' or 'gateway'— and symbolic of the city as a gateway to the Gangetic Plain.[14][15] Another theory suggests that the city's original name was Dhillika.[16] As per Bhavishya Purana,Prithviraj Chauhan, the King of Indraprastha built a new fort for convenience of all four castes, in his kingdom. He ordered to construct a gateway to that Fort and later named the fort the same (dehali). This fort was constructed in Purana Qila area.[17]
The people of Delhi are referred to as Dilliwallahs or Delhiites.[18]
Delhi is referenced in various idioms of the Northern Indo-Aryan languages. Examples include:
- Abhi Dilli door hai (or, its Persian version, Hanouz Dehli dour ast, literally meaning Delhi is still far away, which is generically said about a task or journey still far from completion. In Persian del or dili can mean heart, while other meanings include cordial, centre, love, etc.[19][20]
- Dilli dilwalon ka shehr or Dilli Dilwalon ki meaning Delhi belongs to the large-hearted/daring.[21]
- Aas-paas barse, Dilli pari tarse, literally meaning it pours all around, while Delhi lies parched. An allusion to the sometimes semi-arid climate of Delhi, it idiomatically refers to situations of deprivation when there is plenty all around.[20]
History
Human habitation was probably present in and around Delhi during the second millennium BC and before, and continuous inhabitation has been evidenced since at least the 6th century BC.[3] The city is believed to be the site of Indraprastha, legendary capital of the Pandavas in the Indian epic Mahabharata.[4] Settlements grew from the time of the Mauryan Empire (c. 300 BC).Remains of seven major cities have been discovered in Delhi. Anang Pal of the Tomara dynasty founded the city ofLal Kot in AD 736. The Chauhans conquered Lal Kot in 1180 and renamed it Qila Rai Pithora. The Chauhan kingPrithviraj III was defeated in 1192 by the invader Muhammad Ghori.[4]In 1206, Qutb-ud-din Aybak, the first ruler of the Turkic Slave Dynasty established the Delhi Sultanate. Qutb-ud-din started the construction the Qutub Minar and Quwwat-al-Islam (might of Islam), the earliest extant mosque in India.[4][26] After the fall of the Slave dynasty, a succession of Turkic dynasties, the Khilji dynasty, the Tughluq dynasty, the Sayyid dynasty and the Lodhi dynasty held power in the late medieval period, and built a sequence of forts and townships that are part of the seven cities of Delhi.[27]In 1398, Timur Lenk invaded India on the pretext that the Turkic Muslim sultans of Delhi were too lenient towards their Hindu subjects. Timur entered Delhi and the city was sacked, destroyed, and left in ruins.[28] Near Delhi, Timur massacred 100,000 captives.[29] Delhi was one of the major centre of Sufism during the Sultanate period.[30]In 1526, Zahiruddin Babur, a Timurid descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan from the Fergana Valley (in modern day Uzbekistan), invaded India and defeated the last Lodhi sultan in the First Battle of Panipat and founded the Mughal Empire that ruled from Delhi and Agra.[4] The Mughal dynasty ruled Delhi for more than three centuries, with a sixteen-year hiatus during the reign of Sher Shah Suri, from 1540 to 1556.[31] During 1553–1556, the Hindu king,Hemu Vikramaditya acceded to the throne of Delhi by defeating forces of Mughal Emperor Akbar at Agra and Delhi. However, the Mughals reestablished their rule after Akbar's army defeated Hemu during the Second Battle of Panipat.[32][33][34] Shah Jahan built the seventh city of Delhi that sometimes bears his name (Shahjahanabad), and commonly is known as the Old City or Old Delhi.[35] The old city served as the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1638.[35]After 1680, the Mughal Empire's influence declined rapidly as the Hindu Maratha Empire rose to prominence.[36] In 1737, Maratha forces sacked Delhi, following their victory against the Mughals in the First Battle of Delhi. In 1739, a weakened Mughal Empire lost the Battle of Karnal, following which the victorious forces of Nader Shah, the Turkicruler of Afsharid dynasty, invaded and looted Delhi, carrying away many treasures, including the Peacock Throne.[37]A treaty signed in 1752 made Marathas the protector of the Mughal throne at Delhi.[38] In 1803, during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, the forces of British East India Company defeated the Maratha forces in the Battle of Delhi, ending the Maratha rule over the city.[39]After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Delhi came under direct rule of the British crown and was made a district province of the Punjab.[4] In 1911, the capital of British India was transferred from Calcutta to Delhi.[9] New Delhi, also known as Lutyens' Delhi,[40] was officially declared as the capital of the Union of India after the country gainedindependence on 15 August 1947.[41]During the partition of India, thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees, mainly from West Punjab fled to Delhi, while many Muslim residents of the city migrated to Pakistan. Migration to Delhi from the rest of India continues, contributing more to the rise of Delhi's population than the birth rate, which is declining.[42]The Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991 declared the Union Territory of Delhi to be formally known as National Capital Territory of Delhi.[43] The Act gave Delhi its own legislative assembly in Civil lines, though with limited powers.[43] In December 2001, the Parliament of India building in New Delhi was attacked by armed militants resulting in the death of six security personnel.[44] India suspected the hand of Pakistan-based militant groups in the attacks resulting in a major diplomatic crisis between the two countries.[45] Delhi again witnessed terrorist attacks in October 2005 and September 2008resulting in the deaths of 62 and 30[46] civilians respectively.[edit]
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