NEW DELHI — Ever since independence, New Delhi’s leaders have commandeered the city’s most valuable real estate for themselves — living in the same bungalows behind the same walls left by British colonialists.

But on Monday, Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s new chief minister, vowed for the first time to break from India’s colonial past by promising that neither he nor his ministers would take up residence in those sumptuous homes.

He also promised to do away with a culture of privilege that allows ministers and top bureaucrats to zip through Delhi’s traffic in motorcades with police escorts and flashing lights.

In a letter dated Monday, a top Delhi police official wrote to Mr. Kejriwal’s private secretary that “Delhi police needs to give the security to him as per the norms,” and asked where the vast police detail should be sent.