Kartavya Path
The road Britain built to crown an empire — now where India parades its Republic every 26 January.
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Edwin Lutyens conceived this east-west boulevard as the ceremonial spine of imperial New Delhi, deliberately aligning the sightline from Raisina Hill so it runs unbroken straight to India Gate — interrupted only by the distant National Stadium. Most flanking buildings were designed by Lutyens and Herbert Baker. Today the same axis carries Republic Day parades and state funeral processions, giving it a weight few city streets can match.
What to look for
- The North and South Secretariat Blocks rising on either side as the road climbs Raisina Hill toward Rashtrapati Bhavan
- Parliament House appearing to the right when you walk in from India Gate toward Vijay Chowk
- The canals and tree rows lining both verges — part of Lutyens's original ceremonial design
Janpath crosses the avenue en route; roads from Connaught Place, the financial centre of Delhi, feed in from the north — easy to fold into a longer city walk.
Kartavya Path is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Delhi, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Delhi pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Delhi
- Red FortThe ramparts where Jawaharlal Nehru raised India's flag on 15 August 1947 still host that ceremony every Independence Day.
- Qutb MinarSuccessive dynasties handed this tower off across 170 years — Aibak started it in 1199, Firuz Shah Tughlaq capped it with a cupola in 1368.
- Humayun's TombThe red-sandstone ancestor of the Taj Mahal — commissioned by an empress, designed by Persian architects, and finished a century before Agra.
- Jama MasjidShah Jahan built his imperial mosque at the highest point of Shahjahanabad — the Mughal capital — and it was regarded as a symbolic gesture of Mughal power across India.
- Lotus TempleTwenty-seven marble petals, grouped in threes, fold into a single hall where any person of any faith walks in without condition.
- India GateAround 13,300 names carved in stone — soldiers lost across Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and the Afghan frontier.