Housing the Republic by Sobhana Nair is no ordinary architectural history, but a love letter to a building that once held the soul of India’s democracy–the old Parliament House, now rechristened Samvidhan Sadan–and to the turbulent, intimate, imperfect institution that grew within its circular walls.I, too, share the author’s pang. As a student of political science and a journalist who covered its proceedings and later a member of Parliament, to me, it was never a mere brick-and-mortar building but a three-dimensional experience.Jairam Ramesh’s brief foreword sets a startling tone. He invokes Joseph Goebbels’ 1928 declaration about entering the Reichstag “to use the arsenal of democracy in order to assault it with its own weapon.” It’s a comparison that underscores the political transformation of India’s parliamentary space into a field wide open for the Executive’s ploy. Sobhana meticulously narrates the evolution of the Parliament House.The book unfolds as both elegy and inquiry, tracing how a colonial Council House became the heart of a republic and how its physical form shaped, and was shaped by, the politics conducted inside it. She has done justice to the capital city too. Lord Hardinge, the largely forgotten architect of New Delhi’s conception, emerges as a pivotal figure. His arrival in India was almost comic: he missed his train in London and reached Bombay 16 days later as the 13th Viceroy. Yet, he refused to let the new capital resemble an ordinary British cantonment.The design of the Parliament building itself was a drama of clashing temperaments. Edwin Lutyens was imaginative, idealistic, sometimes impractical; Herbert Baker was pragmatic. The final building was a compromise – Baker’s three-part arrangement set within Lutyens’ circular form.Interestingly, the circular corridor that was undervalued is my favourite place and I have strolled endless times as a journalist and a lawmaker. It is, according to the author, among the building’s most democratic spaces – a place for photographs, tea, gossip, and the informal politics that no chamber could contain. The new Parliament, which often feels like a grand mall to me, doesn’t have such a space.I also miss the iconic and historic Central Hall. It functioned as the backstage where party colours faded and common problems of public expectation briefly united rivals. Leadership contests, informal negotiations, the free exchange of ideas between government and Opposition all found room.Story continues below this adWhen the new Parliament opened without an equivalent space, the complaint was not mere nostalgia; it was the loss of a physical condition that had sustained cross-party politics. The old chambers forced members into close proximity. Faces could be read, interruptions landed, persuasion happened in real time. Imperfect acoustics and cramped seating produced a living, argumentative body rather than a managed spectacle. In the new building members are divided and they withdraw to numerous echo chambers.Also Read | Why Gen Z remembers country singer Dolly Parton as ‘Book Lady’Sobhana meticulously narrates the evolution of the Parliament House from a building that once upon a time housed multiple arms of democracy, including the Supreme Court, Election Commission and even the Princes’ Chamber. Later on, all these organisations parted and found their own abodes. Even then, overcrowding and lack of other amenities, including fire safety, were cited to pave the way for a new structure. Needless to say, three complexes were added – Library building, Parliament House Annexe and Annexe extension – in due course but never found a mention when lack of space was discussed.Sobhana has written about her interface with incidents, including the Parliament House attack, which eventually led to making the building inaccessible for the common man. I still relish those days when I used to park my Bajaj Super scooter just in front of the space near the portico. After the 2001 attack, accessibility tightened; the CISF now controls entry points that once fell more clearly under the Speaker’s authority. The complex has grown “like an amoeba,” swallowing surrounding roads.The new building occupies a triangular site, deliberately set at a respectful distance from the old circle. Visual continuity is retained – green for Lok Sabha, red for Rajya Sabha, peacock motifs, jaali light – but the human scale has changed. Members sit further apart; informal closeness is reduced. Architecture, Sobhana reminds us, is never neutral. It can stabilise a new order by giving it a physical form around which to gel, as Charles Goodsell argued. Yet, as Ambedkar warned, a good Constitution can be made to work badly by those who operate it, and hero-worship in politics remains a road to degradation. The building itself cannot protect democracy; only the people who inhabit its chambers and the public who claim it as their own can do that.Story continues below this adThe old building’s imperfections helped create a parliamentary culture of friction and improvisation. The new one is larger, better equipped, more orderly. Whether that order deepens democratic life remains an open, urgent question. The two buildings, close enough to feel like a conversation frozen in stone with only a thin sliver of sky slipping between them, India’s democratic experiment continues.Brittas is a Rajya Sabha MP from CPIM