Lucknow: The journey from Raj Bhavan to Jan Bhavan encapsulates India’s long and layered struggle to reconcile its colonial inheritance with its republican identity. Spanning nearly eight decades, this transformation is far more than a bureaucratic renaming exercise. It represents a gradual ideological shift—from symbols of imperial raj (rule, authority, dominion) to democratic jan or lok (the people). In January 2026, Uttar Pradesh brought this journey to a symbolic culmination by renaming the Governor’s residence in Lucknow as Jan Bhavan. The decision marked not just the end of a name…
Read MoreFrom Raj Bhavan to Jan Bhavan: How India Rewrote the Architecture of Power
