New Delhi: At Delhi’s Purana Qila this week, a five-minute anthem was blasted across the ramparts: “Ye Indraprastha hai” (This is Indraprastha). The event was organised with support from the Delhi government, was the latest beat in a growing campaign to rename Delhi as Indraprastha, a demand that now spans letters to ministers and political endorsements, invoking the national capital’s “civilisational roots.”
Delhi’s Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra released the song at the event, dubbed the “Indraprastha anthem”.
“We are collectively reviving the real history of Delhi, a history that was long hidden or misrepresented. Delhi’s distorted history is being replaced with the truth of Indraprastha,” Mishra said at the event.
Neera Misra, chairperson of the Draupadi Dream Trust that organised the event, said that the song – written and co-produced by her with singer Shibani Kashyap – is to spread awareness about the “forgotten” contributions of Indraprastha, the mythical capital of the Pandavas in Mahabharata.
“If an anthem is for a nation, why not for a city which has a long history and is linked to our civilisational roots…” Misra said. The song, released Wednesday – the day Yudhishthir is said to have been anointed Chakravarti King – opens with a verse tracing the city’s journey from the Mahabharata to modern Delhi.
The latest momentum to rename Delhi to Indraprastha came last week when BJP MP Praveen Khandelwal wrote to Home Minister Amit Shah urging the government to rename Delhi to reflect its “civilisational and cultural roots.”
“Delhi’s history not only dates back thousands of years, but also embodies the soul of Indian civilisation and the vibrant tradition of Indraprastha,” Khandelwal wrote in the letter, also suggesting statues of the Pandavas be installed across the capital.
Before this, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Delhi unit had sent a seven-point recommendation to Kapil Mishra, seeking to rename the Indira Gandhi International Airport as Indraprastha International Airport and the Delhi Railway Station as Indraprastha Railway Station.
“Names aren’t mere changes; they mirror a nation’s consciousness,” Surendra Gupta, Delhi VHP General Secretary, wrote in the letter shared with ThePrint. “When we say Delhi, we only see a 2,000-year horizon. But when we say Indraprastha, we connect with 5,000 years of glorious history.”
Neera Misra’s campaign, however, dates back further. In 2014, she objected to the Delhi Development Authority’s proposal to name the city’s fourth archaeological park after Dinpanah, founded by Mughal emperor Humayun.
“After three and a half years of letters to ASI and the Culture Ministry, the name was changed to Indraprastha Archaeological Park. It’s linked to the Mahabharata, and it has heritage value,” she said. Misra started the Indraprastha Festival at Purana Qila in 2016.
Also read: Hindus didn’t record their history right. Indraprastha’s foundation, age still uncertain
Archaeological hunt for Indraprastha
The question of whether Delhi and Indraprastha are the same city remains unresolved. The first excavation at Purana Qila in 1954 by veteran archaeologist B B Lal linked the site to the Mahabharata period, identifying traces of Painted Grey Ware (PGW) pottery associated with that era.
“The reference to Inderpath [an ancient city that existed within the fort walls] finds mention not just in ancient Indian literature but even Persian literature. It is one of the five places the Pandavas wanted,” archaeologist K K Muhammed said in a 2015 Doordarshan documentary.
But later excavations have been less conclusive. In 2014, ASI archaeologists found PGW shards – in flood layers, not stratified soil – making the link to Mahabharata tenuous. Former ASI joint director general R S Bisht reasons that the two are being linked because they were found in other sites featuring in the epic.
The current ASI Director General Y S Rawat disagrees; says it’s hard to connect with the Mahabharata. “We don’t even know when those events actually happened,” he said.
(Edited by Stela Dey)