Some changes do not arrive with thunder. They arrive quietly and yet alter the meaning of a state. As a student in the late ’80s, while browsing in the library of IIT Kanpur, I recall reading an article by M V Kamath in The Illustrated Weekly of India (I do not remember the exact issue), describing how Mahatma Gandhi spent August 15, 1947, not in Delhi’s corridors of power, but in Noakhali, walking among riot-affected villagers. In the same article, Kamath was sharply critical of freedom fighters and wrote something to the effect that while the Mahatma was touring Noakhali, our freedom fighters were busy converting Viceroy’s House into Rashtrapati Bhavan.
In many ways, the Narendra Modi government’s move to shift the North and South block offices is a historical correction, a shedding of the colonial mindset. The move has brought back the thoughts I had as a student, and got me wondering why it was not done years ago. The structures on Raisina Hill were conceived by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker after the capital was shifted from Kolkata to Delhi. Monumental and axial, they were designed to communicate permanence and distance. The imposing North and South blocks were conceived as symbols of imperial power, meant to dominate visually and psychologically.
Independent India inherited these edifices. While the Tricolour replaced the Union Jack and the spirit of governance transformed, the language of elevation endured in the architecture. The republic assumed authority within grand imperial buildings, even as its moral centre often stood beside the vulnerable. For generations of prime ministers, ministers, bureaucrats, and government officers, those spaces symbolised arrival, responsibility, and entry into the highest circles of governance. To leave such architecture is, for many, akin to relinquishing something prized.
Yet this moment invites a more searching question: Were we elevated by the building, or was the building elevated by the work done within it? The relocation of the Prime Minister’s Office to Seva Teerth and other offices to Kartavya Bhavan may, at first glance, appear procedural. Yet it represents something deeper: A shift in the moral geography of power. This deeper aspect has not been fully fathomed by many and has not received the mainstream attention it deserves.
When institutions move from structures built to signify imperial dominance to spaces named after seva and kartavya, the transition asks something of us. It asks us not merely to occupy new premises, but to internalise a new ethical construct, to decide whether authority is to be projected or practised with humility. The very name “Seva Teerth”, with its inscription “Nagrik Devo Bhava”, reframes the state. It suggests that authority is not to be worshipped. It shifts the grammar of governance from command to service. Today, in a quiet way, this feels like a new awakening.
Citizen-centric governance should not be merely a rhetorical flourish; it needs to be an operational discipline, getting rid of the Raj-style clerical mindset as well. It requires integration across departments, clarity in outcomes, and speed in decision-making and execution. Physical space, however, does matter because it shapes institutional mindset and working ethos. This transition is not merely symbolic; it is also infrastructural. The new governance complexes are built with modern technology and spatial configurations that enable collaboration rather than hierarchy. The lack of elevated architecture also plays a role in ensuring that citizens find government offices accessible and non-imposing.
Of course, this transition does not and should not erase history. South Block and North Block will remain part of India’s rich historical heritage, reminders of a complex journey through colonialism, the sacrifices of our freedom fighters, Independence, and democratic consolidation. Their conversion into museums will allow younger generations to understand our long history and the struggles of our forefathers. But authority has moved, and that movement carries an important civilisational meaning.
Indeed, with this move, we shed one of the last visible edifices of imperial hierarchy. In many ways, it signals the maturity of a nation that aligns physical governance infrastructure with its moral philosophy. It rearticulates what Bharat as a nation-state stands for. It is a historical shift whose deeper importance will unfold in the history written for a modern, Viksit Bharat.
The writer is Secretary to the Government of India, DST
