India, May 10 -- Chandigarh was envisioned not merely as a city, but as a disciplined expression of modern India-a place where architecture, space and governance spoke louder than individual identities. A key feature of this vision was restraint: public institutions would not be named after individuals, and statues would not dominate public spaces.

It was a deliberate design philosophy that kept the city free from personality-driven symbolism and focused instead on a collective, egalitarian identity. It was also one of the dream projects of Jawaharlal Nehru, who envisioned Chandigarh as a marker of a new, forward-looking nation.

Alongside him, the then chief minister of undivided Punjab, Partap Singh Kairon, played a decisive role in sh...