On 29 November 1912, a decisive notification was published in Part One of the Government of India Gazette, establishing the legal basis for the large scale acquisition of government land required for the construction of New Delhi, the new capital of British India.

This notification followed the Delhi Durbar of 1911, during which King George V announced the transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi. The British administration was therefore required to identify an appropriate site and secure the necessary land without delay for the establishment of the new city.

According to the notification, and under Sections Three and Six of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, the southern suburban districts of Delhi were declared compulsory acquisition zones. These included extensive tracts covering Raisina Hill, Malcha, the Revenue District of Mehrauli, and areas extending to the western bank of the River Yamuna.

The land identified for acquisition comprised all those areas selected for the Viceroy’s House, the Central Secretariat, the Civil Lines extension, the Central Avenue, and the wider administrative framework of the proposed capital. The notification made clear that New Delhi was not intended merely as a political centre, but as a modern, comprehensively planned urban seat of government, designed to accommodate administrative institutions, major boulevards, residential settlements and commercial districts.

Government records indicate that the land being acquired consisted largely of agricultural fields, woodland tracts and small rural settlements. These areas were incorporated into a consolidated urban scheme in accordance with the recommendations of the Town Planning Committee of 1912.

Through this notification, the Collector of Delhi was instructed to carry out all requisite procedures without delay, including land surveys, demarcation, mapping, valuation, verification of local records and completion of acquisition proceedings, to ensure the timely construction of Lutyens Delhi.

Lutyens Delhi refers to that part of New Delhi designed by the British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. This area includes major government buildings such as the Viceroy’s House (present day Rashtrapati Bhavan), the Parliament House, the North Block, the South Block and the Central Secretariat. Its broad avenues and ordered urban layout continue to form the core of New Delhi’s administrative identity.

The Gazette notification of 29 November 1912 occupies a foundational place in the history of land acquisition, urban planning, colonial architecture and state control of territory in the Indian subcontinent.

These official British government records are preserved today in the National Archives of India and the India Office Records at the British Library, where the proceedings of 29 November 1912 are recognised as the formal beginning of the construction of New Delhi.

▫This decision is regarded as one of the most consequential developments of its era, shaping the historical geography of land, real estate, urban division, agricultural territory, industrial regions, coastal zones and the boundaries that connected transport routes across the region.

▫The refusal to accept this resolution has shaped the Palestinian experience ever since.

On 29 November 1947, during its second session, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution one hundred and eighty one, known internationally as the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. Through this resolution, the Assembly recommended the division of British administered Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab. The plan also proposed that Jerusalem and Bethlehem be placed under an International Trusteeship in recognition of their religious significance and administrative sensitivity, thereby placing them under international supervision.

The resolution received thirty three votes in favour, thirteen against, while ten states abstained.

The plan was presented to the General Assembly by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, established in May nineteen forty seven. The committee consisted of eleven neutral countries and was mandated to recommend an international solution for the political future of Palestine following the end of the British Mandate. Over several months, the committee conducted extensive field visits, hearings and inquiries across Palestine, and eventually submitted its final report. The report included maps, boundary lines, the proposed division of the territory, and detailed allocations of agricultural land, industrial areas, coastal regions and transport corridors. It is considered one of the most comprehensively documented land division plans of the modern century and represented the first time that the future territorial shape of a region was determined through an international vote.

The plan, however, was never implemented. The Arab states and the Palestinian leadership rejected it as unjust, and following the war of nineteen forty eight, Israel took control of far more territory than had been assigned under the resolution.

In the years that followed, the nineteen forty nine Green Line, the nineteen sixty seven war, subsequent military occupations, political negotiations and the Oslo process created the borders and administrative arrangements that exist today. These territorial realities do not follow the lines proposed in Resolution one hundred and eighty one.

For Palestine, the rejection of the resolution resulted in the loss of the state envisaged for it. The wars of nineteen forty eight and nineteen sixty seven deepened this loss. Almost all land allocated to the Arab state came under Israeli control. The nineteen forty nine Green Line further confined Palestinian territory, while the post nineteen sixty seven arrangements fragmented Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem into separate and often disconnected zones. The vision of a unified and sovereign Palestinian state remained limited to documents and maps.

In the present moment, after the most prolonged and destructive conflict of recent history, from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty five, both Palestine and Israel stand in a state of devastation. The coastal territory of Gaza has been almost entirely destroyed. It is this shattered landscape that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has spoken of transforming into a Riviera once the war has ended.

(Official records of the United Nations, the General Assembly archives, Encyclopaedia Britannica, BBC Archives and the Al Jazeera Timeline all confirm this event as taking place on twenty nine November nineteen forty seven.)