why is delhi the capital of india?

Delhi is the capital now because it was the capital of British India after 1857. It was the capital of British India after 1857 because it was the Mughal capital. It was the Mughal Capital because it was the Delhi Sultanate capital, and because it was well located, clearly inside india, but still close enough to the invasion route through Afghanistan. It was the Delhi Sultanate capital because the the small sultanate of Delhi gained enough power to defeat all the other sultanates around it.

The Delhi Sultanate was able to do this, partly because many of its rivals were drained and exhausted from fighting Mongol invaders, the Mongol invasions began because Genghis Khan was chasing the remnants Khwarsim Shah. The Khwarsim Shah fled into Pakistan because their lands had been overrun, so on and so forth, until you get to the event when Genghis Khans wife was kidnapped and his small band of followers set out to rescue her

Right now, I do not have material, but I remeber about a a paper  presented by a History professor on the origin of "Delhi" since olden times in a Indian History Cogress Conference. I shall post the details later, after locating and going through.

Edited by M. Nachiappan - 07-Aug-2007 at 06:44