Maybe it is a bit of crude "over-determination", but conspiracy theorists may be tickled by the onrush of Raj nostalgia in the five years of a BJP-led Government in India. The past few years, in particular, has been great for Lutyens-iana. First, there was a Home Minister L.K. Advani-encouraged book edited by two civil servants on New Delhi, followed by a President K.R. Narayanan-sponsored glossy by Aman Nath on Rashtrapati Bhavan, a tell-all biography of Edwin Lutyens by his great granddaughter, and, finally, a meticulous architectural history of imperial Delhi by Andreas Volwahsen. Is there a thread that links the prevailing concern for a Hindu future with past imperial splendour?

IMPERIAL DELHI: THE BRITISH CAPITAL OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE By Andreas Volwahsen Prestel/ Timeless Books Price: Rs 4,500 Pages: 303

I think there is. New Delhi was conceived, not merely as a grand city or a statement of sound aesthetics, but with an eye to history. The inspiration wasn't merely Wren and Palladio or even the Mughals, it was an acute awareness of England's mission in India. As Herbert Baker, the architect of Parliament House and the two secretariat buildings on Raisina Hill, gushed (with a telling quote from a colleague), "Only Rome in her greatest days did what England has been doing, as a matter of course, for 100 years." From Clive, who perceived India as a treasure trove to be plundered, to Curzon who wanted India to be his judge, imperial consciousness underwent a radical shift. It was an Empire in full bloom that found expression in the imperial architecture of New Delhi. It was, writes Volwahsen, "a capital characterised by an original clarity but also a strange monumentality".

It was that monumentality that was sought to be decried by the Nehruvian order that reposed faith in what can best be described as socialist frumpiness. Never mind extending the vision of Lutyens and Baker, it built Shastri Bhavan to match North and South Blocks and Janpath Hotel to rub shoulders with Western Court. Where imperial planners conceived a new Garden City-neem trees along Janpath and Aurangzeb Road, imli along Tilak Marg and Akbar Road and jamun trees along Rajpath, Janpath and Ferozeshah Road-socialist town planning was a celebration of congestion and concrete.

SPLIT IMAGE: A 17th century Mahabalipuram edifice (left) and India Gate canopy; (top) Bath in England was a model for Connaught Circus

Today, the wheel has turned a full circle. First, there is an awareness that post-Independence town planning and architecture-with some exceptions-were exercises in ugliness and vandalism. Second, a resurgent India has finally acknowledged the importance of pomp and pageantry in statecraft. In his own hesitant way, Rajiv Gandhi had resumed the ornamentalism of the Raj but it is under the present dispensation that post-colonial squeamishness has been junked. There is an aesthetic convergence between the Raj and the Republic centred on power. A nuclear power has no need for a Le Corbusier; it needs to build on the grand classicism of Lutyens, embellished by Indian styles.

New Delhi was and is an Indian city conceived by Britons. In documenting its architectural history, Volwahsen has preserved an important but ignored chapter of India's heritage. This is a book that should be read and, far more important, imbibed. One day, we may even build cities that match New Delhi's splendour.