Jantar Mantar, Delhi: the 300-year-old observatory that became a place for public voice
Most people in Delhi know Jantar Mantar as a road where people gather with placards. Fewer stop to look at the strange, beautiful structures behind the wall: giant instruments of brick, lime and stone, built almost three hundred years ago to measure the sky.
An observatory for a calendar
Jantar Mantar was built in the 1720s by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II of Amber, the ruler who later founded Jaipur. Jai Singh was a keen astronomer and mathematician. The Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah, at whose court he served, supported his project to make the astronomical tables used for the calendar more accurate. Small brass instruments were not precise enough for him, so Jai Singh built instruments the size of buildings: the larger the scale, the finer the reading.
The name is usually explained as coming from yantra (instrument) and mantra (formula or calculation), softened over time in everyday speech to "jantar mantar". Delhi's observatory was the first of five that Jai Singh built. The others were at Jaipur, Ujjain, Varanasi and Mathura; the Mathura one has not survived. The one at Jaipur is the largest and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The instruments
The most striking structure in Delhi is the Samrat Yantra, the "supreme instrument": a huge triangular wall, its long edge pointing at the celestial pole, with a curved quadrant on each side. It is a sundial on a giant scale. The shadow of its edge moves across the quadrants as the sun crosses the sky, and the time can be read from markings on them.
Around it stand others. The Jayaprakash Yantra is made of hollow hemispheres set into the ground, with markings that let an observer read the position of the sun or a star. The Ram Yantra, a pair of round structures open to the sky, was used to measure how high a body stood above the horizon and in which direction. The Misra Yantra, a "mixed instrument", combines several tools in one building.
Walking among them today feels like stepping into an outdoor sculpture park, but each curve and step had a purpose. The observatory is a protected monument looked after by the Archaeological Survey of India, and it is open to visitors.
From observatory to landmark
As telescopes and printed tables took over in the 19th century, the instruments stopped being used for serious astronomy. New Delhi grew up around them in the 20th century. Connaught Place rose to the north, and Sansad Marg ran past on its way to Parliament. The observatory, once on the edge of the old city, ended up in the very centre of the capital.
A place to be heard
Location changed the observatory's role in the city's life. The road beside it is only a short walk from Parliament, yet narrow enough to be managed. From the 1990s it became the best-known place in Delhi for people to gather and make their demands known, after large gatherings at the Boat Club lawns near India Gate were stopped.
Over the years the road has seen farmers and students, ex-servicemen and teachers, people who had waited years for a job or a result, and people with a single grievance and a hand-painted board. Some sat for a day; some stayed for months. Hunger strikes, candle-light vigils, songs and slogans have all been part of the scene.
The arrangement has not always been settled. In 2017 the National Green Tribunal ordered that gatherings at Jantar Mantar stop, after residents complained about noise and crowding. In 2018 the Supreme Court held that a complete ban was not right, since peaceful assembly is part of the freedoms the Constitution protects, and asked the authorities to frame guidelines so that protests could be held in a regulated way. Since then, gatherings at Jantar Mantar take place with permission and within limits set by the police.
Why a game about it?
For many Indians, "Chalo Jantar Mantar!" ("Let's go to Jantar Mantar!") is a phrase with a picture attached: a crowd setting off, placards, slogans, the dhol, chai on the way, and barricades ahead. Chalo Jantar Mantar, the game, turns that picture into a light-hearted contest between a crowd and the people trying to manage it. It does not take sides in any real issue. Everything in it is made up, and its version of the Samrat Yantra sits at the heart of the map.
If you are in Delhi, though, the real thing is worth a visit. Go early in the morning, when the light is soft and the shadows on the Samrat Yantra are easy to follow, and remember that the people who built it were trying to read the sky with nothing but stone, sunlight and patience.