Dynastic History | The Red Fort — The Capital Moves to Shahjahanabad

Shah Jahan moved the seat from Agra to a new city on the Yamuna and laid the foundations of its citadel. The Archaeological Survey of India puts that on 16 April 1639 and the completion nine years later, on 16 April 1648; other accounts give 1638 for the start and 6 April for the finish. April 1648 is the part everyone agrees on. The ASI names the master builders as Hamid and Ahmad and reports the cost at about one crore of rupees, half of it spent on the palaces — a figure that comes from the court's own accounting and is best read as such.

What the money bought was a walled palace-city rather than a fortress: audience halls, a bath, a mosque, gardens, and a water channel, the Nahr-i-Behisht, threaded through the private apartments. The jewelled throne Shah Jahan had commissioned in the 1630s stood in the Diwan-i-Khas until Nader Shah's army carried it off to Iran in 1739, along with much else from the city. The revenue that paid for all of it was the land tax of the provinces, gathered a harvest at a time from cultivators several hundred miles away.

After the rising of 1857 the British garrisoned the fort, pulled down a large part of the palace quarters and put stone barracks on top of them. Those barracks are still standing, and are part of what the World Heritage listing covers.

The ASI runs the fort today, ticketed. The Prime Minister addresses the country from its ramparts every 15 August.

📸 Cover: The Naubat Khana, the drum house on the approach to the Diwan-i-Aam, Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons