India, March 4 -- It is time to break the heritage noose before it completely strangles the life out of "The City Beautiful." Let us stop worshipping the brick and mortar and start caring about the flesh and blood. The preservationist dogma is suffocating Chandigarh's future. Chandigarh was never meant to be a heritage museum, slowly melting into the Harappan mould in a fast moving world. When Le Corbusier worked upon the dusty plains of Punjab in the 1950s, he didn't set out to build a static monument to the mid-20th century, a would-be relic frozen in time. Yet, today, a small but elitist microscopic vocal minority of self-proclaimed "heritage enthusiasts", living in huge bungalows around the Sukhna Lake, wish to romanticise their feeling of living in a city with the life of a dead taxidermied animal. There is a distinct elitism at play here. Most of those leading the charge against change live in sprawling, low-density bungalows in the upscale sectors. From their manicured lawns, it is easy to preach about the sanctity of the grid, skyline, and line of visibility. Armed with the "heritage" slogan and firing through the media, besides making hue and cry before the courts, these preservationist hardliners are indulging in urban sabotage. They are not just blocking futuristic architectural changes in Chandigarh; they are actually turning the daily lives of its citizens into a logistical hell. A city is a service provider. Its job is to provide shelter, mobility, and economic opportunity. The heritage lobby argues that any change will destroy the "soul" of Chandigarh, forgetting that that the soul of Chandigarh is its people-their energy, their ambition, and their well- being. A city with beautiful empty buildings and frustrated, struggling citizens has no soul; it is a graveyard. The moot question is whether Le Corbusier wanted a "monument" or a "living organism." The heritage lobby is violating his most fundamental principle: functionality. Corbusier's system called 'Modulor' was in fact a human-centric mathematical scale of proportions based on human body, which he used to design the city of Chandigarh to ensure that it felt grounded and harmonious with environment. He called homes as 'machines to live in', and Modulor was a scale to make these machines comfortable. Human comfort was the foremost in Corbusier's mind. Corbusier designed Chandigarh for a population of 500,000. Today, the tri-city ecosystem teems with over 1.5 million people. Should we give up and leave people to the mercy of the "heritage enthusiasts"? The 'status-quoists?" To suggest that a city's infrastructure should remain frozen in 1960 while its population and technological needs skyrocket is not "preservation" -it is a crime against the future generations. Every time a proposal arises to modernise the city-be it a Metro rail system to alleviate soul-crushing traffic, or the vertical expansion of commercial zones to foster a start-up culture-the heritage brigade rushes to the media or the courts. Now even the high court is getting suffocated. The heritage status-quoists scream about "skyline silhouettes" and "architectural purity," seemingly oblivious to the fact that the people trapped in three-km-long traffic jams on Chandigarh's clogged arteries couldn't care less about the silhouette of a building they can't even reach. For the average resident, the "heritage" tag has become a noose. By blocking the increase of Floor Area Ratio (FAR) and preventing the vertical growth of residential units, these lobbyists have ensured that their property prices remain astronomical. Young professionals and middle-class families are being pushed out to the fringes-to Zirakpur, Mohali, or Panchkula-adding hours of commuting to their days. A city designed for bicycles and the occasional Fiat or Standard Herald is now choked with SUVs. Yet, the heritage lobby has fought tooth and nail against flyovers and underpasses, claiming they "mar the visual continuity." Apparently, the visual continuity of a stagnant city is more important to them than the lungs of children breathing in exhaust fumes and wasting hours in stalled traffic. By preventing the modernisation of Sector 17 and other commercial hubs, they have turned the city's heart into a decaying relic. While neighbouring cities evolve into tech hubs, Chandigarh's brilliant youth are forced to migrate to Bengaluru or Gurgaon because the "heritage" rules prevent the creation of modern, high-density office spaces. They treat the Master Plan not as a guide for growth, but as a religious scripture that cannot be amended. But even scriptures are interpreted for the times. Why is Chandigarh's urban planning treated with a rigidity that would embarrass even the most orthodox historian? We must shift the conversation from preservation to evolution. Mass transit is mandatory. A Metro or an elevated rapid transit system is not an option; it is a necessity. If it changes the skyline, so be it. A modern skyline is a sign of a thriving civilisation. We must allow for higher density in designated zones. Expanding vertically is the only way to prevent the environmental catastrophe of urban sprawl in the surrounding areas. For modernizing commerce, Sector 17 needs to be a 24/7 hub of activity, not a dark, eerie plaza after 8 pm. This requires structural changes that the "heritage" rules currently forbid. If Le Corbusier were alive today, he would have taken the lead to suggest bringing down the anachronic features of his 70-year-old plan to make room for new innovations. As of 2026, the global gold standard for urban evolution is Barcelona, but other cities like Paris, Tokyo, Singapore and Curitiba, to name a few, offer equally powerful lessons in how to modernize without losing your identity. While Chandigarh's "heritage" lobby continues to treat the city as a 'time-capsule' of the 1950s, cities across the globe are demonstrating that true preservation is adaptation....