Friday, February 23, 2001 

Many rulers have sought to perpetuate their legacies by constructing buildings and cities that they hope will last way beyond their time. From the Mughals of India to Asia's post-colonial leaders, they have also - either consciously or unconsciously - imprinted their own personalities on these enterprises. Take Jawaharlal Nehru, the patrician, highly Westernized, first prime minister of India. He mooted the idea of Chandigarh, a planned capital city for Punjab State, shortly after India became independent. To design it he chose Le Corbusier, the radical French architect, perhaps with the hope that modernism and Western ideas would bring order to the chaos of Indian cities. 

Fifty years hence, there are only eight women to every 10 men in Chandigarh because most of its residents are migrant laborers who haven't brought their wives into the city. Somehow, the people of surrounding Punjab and Haryana states don't seem to find it comfortable to live there. Nehru has passed on, but Chandigarh exists as an example of perhaps what he tried to do with India - infuse it with some discipline and method. But India is India, and it can absorb anything and allow all things, however contradictory, to exist side by side, as Chandigarh shows. 

Islamabad, the planned post-colonial capital of Pakistan, is concrete proof of how powerful the country's military has been since the country was created 51 years ago. The original capital was Karachi, some 1,500 km to the south and the bustling commercial center. But after the army took power, the decision was taken in 1958 to build the new administrative capital at a new location just a handy 25 kilometers from army HQ in Rawalpindi. Gen. Ayub Khan was the personality behind the planning and he chose Doxiadis Associates, a Greek firm, to design Islamabad. Why Greek? Because in searching for an identity for the new nation, the Pakistanis consider themselves heirs to the great Indus valley civilizations. And the greatest of the capitals of the Indus had been in Taxila region. Islamabad is modeled on the greatest of Taxila's cities, the exquisite ancient Greek metropolis of Sirkap. 

One look at the main complex dominating the "head" of the city - and where in Sirkap stood the Palace of the Governor - shows what the power structure in Pakistan is and has always been. The presidential palace in Islamabad is situated just above same complex as the government's administrative center, parliament and the senate. The president in independent Pakistan has always been either a military chief or a civillian who was backed by the military. So Ayub's plan reflects the reality of power in Pakistan - the military calls the shots. After democracy was restored in 1989, plans were made to build an official residence for the prime minister. It was the now-exiled Nawaz Sharif who lopped off the top of a nearby hill and built the elaborate prime minister's home. Elevation-wise, it is on the same level as the president's but buildings alone cannot change reality. However Gen. Pervez Musharaff, who overthrew Sharif in a military coup, is not occupying the presidential palace. He hasn't even moved to Islamabad and exercises power from the army chief's residence in Rawalpindi. 

In the boom years of the early 1980s, Sri Lanka too built a new administrative capital adjacent to the colonial capital Colombo. With the unwieldy title of Sri Jayawardhanapura Kotte, it has as its center piece, the new parliament. More than eight years old, the parliament is on an island on a man-made lake. Designed by the brilliant Sri Lankan architect Geoffery Bawa, it resembles the palaces of ancient Sri Lankan kings. The ruler of Sri Lanka at that time was the autocratic President Junius Jayewardene - a somewhat detached person who considered himself the direct political descendent of the ancient kings. So no wonder the new parliament at Sri Jayawardhanapura Kotte has set itself a distance from the land. 

Asia's newest showpiece is the $8.1 billion, high-tech city of Putrajaya, in Malaysia, which officially became an independent Federal Territory on Feb. 1. The new administrative capital is the brainchild of long-ruling prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. In keeping with his desire to bring Malaysia into the Internet age, every house and building in Putrajaya has high-speech optical connections. It has an advanced "intelligent" hospital from where doctors can consult experts around the country via the Net, and "smart" schools where all students will have access to computers. In addition, the use of artificial wetlands aims to keep the city's water free of pollutants. Putrajaya also has a circular traffic plan and a unique, specially designed command and control system that is designed to avoid Asia's No. 1 curse: the traffic jam. 

Disinclined to create a personality cult, Mahathir named the city after Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, the country's first prime minister. But Mahathir's personality has been unmistakably stamped on the city. The biggest building is the prime minister's department, which is at the center of everything. A six-storied granite structure the size of several city blocks, with green windows topped with a green dome, it dominates the city in the same way that Mahathir has exercised a supreme influence over his country since he became prime minister two decades ago. 

These post-colonial heads of government will have left at least some concrete examples of their work - and their personalities. Sri Lanka's current president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, who has been the country's executive head for seven years, harbors the same aspirations. Time and time again, she has held competitions among architects to design various buildings which she hopes will be a lasting reminder of her rule. But the beleaguered president, whose country is devastated by war, has not been able to get any of these projects going. At a time when her ability to govern has even been questioned by Sri Lanka's primary donor countries, Kumaratunga faces the possibility that her rule will be marked by her inability to build anything.