History
Purana Qila, situated on the banks of Yamuna, was constructed by the Pandvas some 5000 years ago. It is where Humayun's capital Din Panah was located. Later it was renovated and named Shergarh by first Afghan emperor of India, Sher Shah Suri. The Hindu king Samrat Hem Chandra Vikramaditya (also: "Hemu"), often referred to as the last Hindu emperor of India, had his coronation in this fort after defeating Akbar's forces at Agra and Delhi in the Battle for Delhi on 7 October 1556. The Fort was supposed to be unlucky for rulers who occupied the site; Humayun, Sher Shah Suri, and Hemu all had but relatively brief tenures ensconced there---Humayun on two separate occasions, having lost the Fort to Sher Shah only five years after erecting it, and dying within a year of recapturing it 15 years later. Akbar did not rule from here and Shahjahan built a new fort in Delhi known as 'Lal Quila' or Red Fort.
When Edwin Lutyens designed the new capital of British India, New Delhi in 1920s, he aligned the central vista, now Rajpath, with Purana Qila. During the Partition of India, in August 1947 the Purana Qila along with the neighbouring Humayun's Tomb, became the site for refuge camps for Muslims migrating to newly founded Pakistan. This included over 12,000 government employees who had opted for service in Pakistan, and between 150,000–200,000 Muslim refugees, who swarmed inside Purana Qila by September 1947, when Indian government took over the management of the two camps. The Purana Qila camp remained functional till early 1948, as the trains to Pakistan waited till October 1947 to start.
In the 1970s the Purana Qila ramparts was first used as a backdrop for theatre, when three productions of National School of Drama were stage here, Tughlaq, Andha Yug and Sultan Razia, directed by Ebrahim Alkazi. In the coming decades it has been the venue of various important theatre productions, cultural events and concerts. Today, it is the venue of a daily sound and light presentation after sunset, on the history of the "Seven Cities of Delhi", from Indraprastha through New Delhi.
Read more about this topic: Purana Qila, Delhi
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