Shifts and Transitions

Le résumé fourni par la source

Briefly summarizing settlement planning since ancient India, this chapter focuses upon the British colonial period. It explains how colonial planning thought and priorities, from catalyzing empirical mapping of the vast, alien country to designing large-scale infrastructural systems, were aimed at extracting all possible surpluses from the progressively poorer country. Apart from building the three entrepôts of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, which facilitated global trade while serving as torchbearers of India’s modern urbanization, the colonists built an impressive array of new settlements, enabling India’s military control (e.g., cantonment towns), political governance (e.g., Civil Lines), and physical infrastructure (e.g., railway towns and canal colonies) superintended by colonial engineers and imperial bureaucrats. In addition, colonists also introduced new modes of education, cultural preferences, and social mores. Thus in a short period of a couple of centuries, colonial interventions not only fostered an entirely new urban order but also changed the manner in which Indians perceived their own history and future. This chapter concludes by illustrating how colonial practices like land classification and institutions like urban improvement trusts set the context for city planning in postcolonial India.

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