Thereafter, the move to Delhi was to symbolise a new alliance with Indians for whom the city had historical associations.
“It was an altogether different kind of empire that was being envisaged, which saw a greater devolution of power to the provinces, and by implication a system that was more responsive to local Indian needs,” writes historian Swapna Liddle in her book,
“If an overarching imperial structure was to be the future of the British Raj, no better capital could be found that Delhi – the seat of the great erstwhile empires of India. Since the early thirteenth century it had functioned, with a few interregnums, as a capital of important powers – the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal empire.”