Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | Speaking Tree website | July 17, 2017
The capital of British India was initially Calcutta. In 1911, King George V announced the transfer of the capital to Delhi. The British architect, Sir Edwin Luytens (1864-1944) was commissioned to design the new capital. Construction work commenced in 1913, and eventually the magnificent city of New Delhi came into existence.
This was a time when the whole world was being swept by a new political wave: nationalism. Progressive trends in political thought had rendered the colonial system of government untenable. The freedom movement in India was fast gaining momentum. It was apparent that British rule in India would not survive for long. The completion of New Delhi thus coincided with the decline of the British Raj.
After the construction of New Delhi, a French political leader visited India. When he saw the glittering palaces and spacious mansions of the new capital of British India, he expressed his reaction in the following words: “What a magnificent world they built to leave.”
This is not only true of the British in India: it is true of all of us in this world. We come into this world full of desires and aspirations. We exert all our efforts on constructing a “magnificent world” for ourselves on earth. Then, just as our dream world begins to take shape, the angel of death visits us and takes us away from the world we have worked hard to construct, for ourselves. We are then taken to what Arthur Koestler called an “unknown country.”
Life is a tragic story indeed if that is all there is to it. But this world, like everything else in the universe, can only be complete with its counterpart. The counterpart of this world is the hereafter. For those who have forgotten the next world, this life is certainly just a tragedy; but for those who look forward to the life to come, and build for the hereafter in the present life, this world will become an invaluable step towards a new, more successful, existence in the next world.
Life is a tragedy when seen without the hereafter. This tragedy can only be given a happy ending with addition of the life to come.