When did Britishers shifted the capital to Delhi ?
1912
The transfer of the capital took effect in 1912 — option 1.
Announcement and execution are two different dates, and that is what this question turns on.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 12 December 1911 | King George V announces at the Delhi Durbar that the capital will be moved from Calcutta to Delhi |
| 1912 | The transfer takes effect — Delhi is constituted a separate province under a Chief Commissioner from 1 October 1912, and the Government of India begins functioning from there |
| 1911–1931 | New Delhi is designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker and built |
| 13 February 1931 | New Delhi formally inaugurated by Viceroy Lord Irwin |
Why the shift was made. Three reasons are usually given. Delhi lay near the centre of northern India and was better placed for administration than Calcutta on the eastern seaboard. It carried immense symbolic weight as the seat of the Mughals and of earlier empires, so ruling from there associated the Raj with that imperial tradition. Most immediately, Bengal had become the centre of the swadeshi agitation and of revolutionary activity after the partition of 1905, and moving the capital out of Calcutta — announced on the same occasion as the annulment of the partition of Bengal — was intended to defuse it.
Why option 3 is such a strong distractor. The Durbar of 1911 is the famous, well-remembered occasion, and many candidates give that year. But a proclamation is not a transfer; the machinery of government actually moved in 1912, which is the year the question asks for. Option 4 fails because only one of the two years can be the year of the shift itself.
Hence, the answer is 1912.
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