Kolkata and Delhi

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Module 8.1

Colonial Capitals: Kolkata and Delhi

Role Name Affiliation

National Coordinator

Subject Coordinator Prof. Sujata Patel Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad Paper Coordinator Dr. Ashima Sood Assistant Professor, Woxsen School of Business, Hyderabad

Dr. Surya Prakash Upadhyay Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Himachal Pradesh

Content Writer Dr. Jayani Bonnerjee Assistant Professor, O.P. Jindal Global University

Content Reviewer Dr. Surya Prakash Upadhyay Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Himachal Pradesh

Language Editor Leela Solomon

Technical Conversion

Module Structure Module Title Section 1: Introduction Section 2: Kolkata and New Delhi as Seats of Imperial Power Section 3: Migration and the Urban Landscape Section 4: Poverty, Marginalisation and Urban Development Section 5: Kolkata and Delhi as Global Cities

Description of the Module Item Description of the module

Subject Name Sociology

Paper Name Sociology of Urban Transformations

Module Name Colonial Capitals: Kolkata and Delhi

Module Id 8.1

Pre-requisites None

Objectives This module gives you a broad overview of the urban transformations that have taken place in the erstwhile colonial capital cities of Kolkata and New Delhi. It aims to introduce you to concepts and themes of postcolonial urbanism, and also explains how the colonial past of these cities continues to shape their present condition. Keywords Colonisation, imperialism, migration, urban development, global city

I. Introduction

Colonial capitals grew as concentrated seats of political and economic power, which led to a hugely unequal urban development in erstwhile colonies (see Modules 3.2 and 3.4 for further information). Kolkata and New Delhi are no exceptions. While Kolkata initially grew from a cluster of villages to a key port of the British Empire and was later turned into the capital, New Delhi was purposely planned and built to be the new capital of British India (in great contrast to old Delhi, the seat of earlier imperial powers). Both these cities also bore the burden of a large number of refugees that arrived as a result of the turmoil surrounding Partition and Independence in 1947, which changed the demography and urban structure of these cities considerably. Although both cities share histories of being colonial capitals, the development trajectories of Kolkata and Delhi followed rather different paths. Through the 1960s and 1970s, Kolkata struggled with declining industrialisation that affected the economy of the city. At the same time, there was an apathy that typified municipal governance in the city, and Kolkata quickly acquired the epithet of a “dying city”. Delhi, in contrast, continued as the centre of political power and although it did have its share of bad governance, it was never seen as a city in decline. In recent times, both Kolkata and Delhi have been vying to emulate other world cities in various ways that recreate pockets of global experience. In this module we chart the trajectories of urban histories of Kolkata and Delhi through four main aspects:

1) We will study the growth of these cities as seats of imperial power. In this section we consider different ways in which Kolkata and New Delhi developed as colonial capitals. We also discuss how and why political power was represented through architecture which defined the visual aspect of both cities (also see Modules 3.2, 3.4)

2) We assess the role of migration in the growth and development of Kolkata and Delhi through a few case studies that are historical and contemporary (also see Modules 1.8, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9).

3) We outline how urban development became the buzzword in both cities in the post-

colonial period. We consider some examples of measures taken the “develop” these cities and

debate to what extent these were successful (also see Modules 3.9, 3.11, 3.12, 6.4).

4) Finally, we present the debates around ideas of the global city and look at the implications of imagining Kolkata and Delhi as world cities (also see modules 1.9, 1.12).

II. Kolkata and New Delhi: As Seats of Imperial Power

To understand the different ways in which Kolkata (known as Calcutta till 2001) and New Delhi developed as capital cities, and also the reasons behind the shift of the capital city, one has to understand the different processes that marked both stages of colonialism - the first stage marked by the dominance of the East India Company and the second stage as part of the British Empire. In the early stages of colonialism, when the East India Company was at the helm of power, concerns around trade and commerce predominated. The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 seriously undermined the political capabilities of the Company and its rule was ended by placing Queen Victoria as the sovereign of India. From this point onwards, an imperialist ideology was used as a political symbol of control and rule. Urban planning was used extensively to translate the political symbols of imperialism into visible form. Kolkata became the colonial capital because of its strategic location along the trade route, whereas New Delhi was deliberately planned with a deeper political ambition of imprinting British imperial rule in India (Bonnerjee 2001; also see Legg 2007). In this section, we look at different planning policies that shaped the urban landscapes of Kolkata and New Delhi during colonial times.

Figure 1: Victoria Memorial (Source: Wikimedia common)

Contrasting ideas and opinions exist about the level of planning intervention in Kolkata. On one hand, the prevalent image of the city is that of an unplanned and disorganised city, which also typified the initial days in the history of Kolkata. Rudyard Kipling, for example, has described

Kolkata as “chance-directed, chance erected, laid and built/on the silt/ palace, byre, hovel-poverty and pride-/side by side” (Kipling, quoted in Thomas 1997). On the other hand, despite the 4

haphazard impression of the city in Kipling’s verses, Partho Datta notes that, “[Kolkata] had not only been planned, it had been severely planned” (Datta 2012: xiii). Both viewpoints reflect different aspects of urban development in Kolkata during colonial times.

Although Kolkata was, at that time, the headquarters of the East India Company, Cotton points out, there was “little thought of territorial power or aggrandisement in the mind of the factors of those days” (Cotton 1904: 27). The prosperity of the traders led them to build beautiful houses along the river bank which earned the city the grand title of “city of palaces”. But this title did not have any imperial connotation. The “palaces” were grand and showy houses, demonstrating economic power, but in no way did they come to signify political power (Bonnerjee 2001). Various communities, and not just the British, benefitted from the economic growth and “embarked on an orgy of speculation in private houses” (Marshall 1985:90). However, these lavishly built mansions were sparse. The cluster around the Fort William was the most prominent, leading, Pradip Sinha, the noted urban historian, to comment that Kolkata resembled the early Victorian city, “representing a lifestyle, oblivious of the congestion and decay behind the impressive façade…” (Sinha 1978:8). This image of colonial Kolkata is in stark contrast to that of New Delhi, where every inch of space was meticulously planned (Bonnerjee 2001).

By the end of the 18th century, Kolkata had emerged as the second city of the British Empire. However, unplanned growth had led to municipal problems such as overcrowding and unhealthy drainage. These problems began to be addressed during the times of Lord Wellesley, who appointed an Improvement Committee in 1803 to look into the developments of Kolkata. Datta points out that the push for planning came from a range of people such as “European civil servants, doctors, merchants and influential Indians…civil engineers, architects, town planners came much later”

(Datta 2012: 5). In 1817, funds were transferred to the Lottery Commissioners, who prepared a comprehensive Lottery Committee Report that proposed raising lottery funds for a range of urban improvement projects. While improving health and sanitation was the principal motive for these plans, it also led to significant changes in the indigenous neighbourhood patterns that were typified by winding lanes and a close-knit structure. The changes that were introduced in the urban space of 5

Kolkata were not simply part of improvement and beautification projects, but also a tool to control colonial subjects. As Archer points out that the new paradigm of “corridors, avenues, straight lines and grids…was not just a matter of fire protection or drainage, or even the augmentation of the city’s imperial splendor…it was also the imposition of new means of control” (Archer 1994 cited in

Home 1997: 59).

By the 1850s debates around the shift of the capital city had already begun, and coincided with the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857. Bernard Cohn (1983) suggests that the relationship of authority between the coloniser and the colonised underwent significant changes around the time of the Mutiny, when rebellion in the ranks of native soldiers was crushed, and the British took siege of Delhi, the capital of the declining Mughal Empire. Cohn (1983) further points out that, previous attempts of Governor-Generals to impose authority in the imperial framework of the Mughals led to a contradiction in the “cultural-symbolic constitution”. This contradiction was eradicated with the proclamation of Queen Victoria as the Empress of India in 1858. Following this, there was a need to find a capital city effectively uphold the imperial aura. Delhi came under the British rule in 1857 and made the capital of British India in 1911.

Between 1877 and 1911, three coronation ceremonies or durbars were held in Delhi. The first was the Imperial Assemblage in 1877 that crowned Victoria as the Empress of India. The second and third took place in 1903 (coronation of Edward VII) and 1911 (coronation of George V). These durbars consolidated the image of Delhi as an imperial city (reflecting its earlier imperial connections), and paved the way for the construction of a colonial capital. Writing on Delhi between the two empires, Narayani Gupta (1981) points out that the city acted as a strategic gateway into India. The case for the creation of New Delhi was not different, and the durbars were events to reassert the new “cultural-symbolic constitution” (Cohn 1983). The symbolism of the durbars was replete with notions of power, particularly the representation of imperial power. Narayani Gupta describes the 1911 Durbar as Badshahi Mela and compares George V and his consort to a “twentieth century Mughal couple” (Gupta 1981:167). What is interesting to note is, as

Hosagrahar points out, that the durbars were “carefully conceived pageants where design and architecture were often the site for struggle for the control of symbols” (1992: 90).

To explain the way New Delhi looks today, one has to understand the need of the imperial powers to create a sense of power through visual means. Whereas, the durbars recreated the necessary pomp and pageantry to highlight rituals of power, import of town planning ideas from England ensured the implementation of health and sanitation measures. A Town Planning Committee was set up, with Edwin Lutyens, Swinton Jacobs and JA Brodie and later added Herbert Baker, who decided the location and the layout of the new capital. It was decided to locate New Delhi right next to Shahjahanabad to bring out the contrast between the two imperial powers. As Irving (1981: 89)

comments, “the enlightened planning and homogeneous clarity of the new Delhi formed, to British eyes, a symbolic contrast with the heterogeneous confusion and narrow, twisted byways of the

existing city”. From the hexagonal layout of the roads, the broad avenues, and the clear lines of classical architecture used to build the Viceroy’s House (now, Rashtrapati Bhawan) (Figure 2), the debates around planning New Delhi belied the political ambitions associated with colonial rule. The contrasting landscapes of old and new Delhi continue to mark the way the city appears even today. As Legg remarks, New Delhi can be interpreted as a space of sovereignty in three respects: (1) as a capital transfer that was the result of an undemocratic decision-making process; (2) as an urban landscape that represents “peaceful domination” and (3) as a “self-contained city with a …clear distinction from the neighbouring city of ‘Old Delhi’” (Legg 2007:29).

Figure 2: Rashtrapati Bhawan (source: Wikimedia commons)

III. Migration and the Urban Landscape

Migration, both historical and contemporary, has significantly altered the urban landscape of Kolkata and Delhi. Whether seen through particular waves of migration at specific times in history, or through a continuous process, migrants have influenced the social and economic aspects of the cities. In this section, we bring three different examples of migration to Kolkata and Delhi and explain how these have shaped the characteristics of the cities. First, we examine the migration of

communities from outside India to Kolkata during colonial times, such as Armenians, Chinese,

Jewish and Parsi, and see how they contributed to the cosmopolitan nature of the city. Second, we focus on a large wave of migration to both Kolkata and Delhi during Partition, which defined the urban future of the cities. Third, we bring out regional migration, particularly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, to Kolkata and Delhi.

IV. Colonial Cosmopolitanism

Like many other colonial port cities in the world, Kolkata was an important node in the trade and migration routes. As the second city (after London) of the British Empire, Kolkata attracted a range of migrants from across India, as well as outside. Most of these migrant communities, such as the Armenians and Parsis, had arrived in India much before the colonial period and came to Kolkata to expand their trading network that carried among other goods, opium, to China and other places in East Asia. The Chinese and Jewish communities arrived in 18th century, also through the different colonial trading routes in West and South East Asia. At present, very few of these communities remain in Kolkata (apart from the Chinese community which still has around 4,000 members, the numbers of the other communities are well below 100). Yet, the influence of these communities continues to shape an idea of a cosmopolitan Kolkata (Banerjee et al 2009; Chatterji 2009).

Each of these communities created its own networks of educational institutions, places of worship and sites of socialisation (such as clubs and associations) that shaped the landscape of Kolkata. Dotted mostly around central Kolkata, one can still find a Parsi Fire Temple (on Metcalf Street or Bandook Galli), the Armenian Church of Holy Nazareth (in Burrabazar), the Magen David (Figure 3) and Beth El Jewish synagogues (Brabourne Road and Pollock Street), and several Chinese temples such as Sea Yip, Nam Soon and Gee Hing (around Blackburn Lane). Most of these communities also have their own cemeteries and burial grounds in the outskirts of the city. Apart from community institutions and buildings, many of the wealthier merchants, particularly from the Armenian and Jewish communities built huge mansions and made money in real estate. Esplanade Mansion and Chowringhee Mansion, for example, were built by Elias David Joseph Ezra. Most members of these communities live/d in and around central Kolkata and shaped the neighbourhood landscape of the city. Kolkata, for example, is the only city in India to boast of two Chinatowns (one in central Kolkata, near Bow Bazaar; and the other in Tangra). Alongside the above-mentioned communities, Kolkata was also the site for one of the largest Anglo-Indian communities. As a community of mixed-descent, Anglo-Indians have a special fondness for Kolkata, which was once their political, social and cultural heart (Blunt 2005).

Fi Figure 3: Inside Maghen David Synagogue, Kolkata (Source: Wikimedia commons)

The historical presence of these communities added to the idea of a cosmopolitan Kolkata. Although not many members of the communities remain in the city, Kolkata continues to be a city of immense nostalgia for them (Bonnerjee 2012). In recent times, the West Bengal government has also taken an interest in the history of these communities and several heritage projects have been planned for the preservation of these sites and memories.

Delhi, like Kolkata, was also located along a trade route. This trade route over the period of hundreds of years before colonialism brought in several communities from West and central Asia, who understood the strategic location of the city. Some of these communities, such as the Mughals, left an indelible impact on the city’s landscape and history. However, unlike Kolkata, Delhi has never been described as a cosmopolitan city. Instead, given the presence of a large expatriate community in the present times as well as a diverse group of regional migrants, Delhi’s cosmopolitanism is more contemporary.

V. Partition Migration and the Cities

Partition is a major turning point in the history of both Kolkata and Delhi. It is estimated that in the aftermath of Partition, 15 million people crossed the western border between India and Pakistan, whereas several millions crossed the eastern border (Chatterji 2007:105). Many of them made their way to Kolkata and Delhi. Besides the atrocities and violence that accompanied Partition and shattered any existing sense of neighbourliness in the cities’ everyday lives, the arrival of such large number of refugees posed a huge challenge to the urban municipalities. In the immediate aftermath, the cities had to deal with sheltering problem of refugees. Writing about the plight of Muslim refugees in Delhi, Gyanendra Pandey mentions that overnight Delhi turned into “refugee-stan”

(1997: 2263). Refugee camps, such as Kingsway camp (in Delhi) and Cooper’s camp (in the outskirts of Kolkata) were initially set up to house these people who streamed into the city. While many of these older camps were makeshift ones and were later dismantled, other more permanent settlement colonies in the cities were set up by the government. For example, several (now) upmarket neighbourhoods in South Delhi, such as Kalkaji, Lajpat Nagar and Malviya Nagar were created by the Ministry of Rehabilitation as resettlement colonies. Chittaranjan Park, or CR Park as it is known popularly, was developed in 1960s, particularly for the Bengali community displaced from then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). CR Park, which was initially called East Pakistan Displaced Persons (EPDP) Colony, has grown into the Bengali neighbourhood of Delhi (although other communities have also recently moved in). Faridabad too, to the southeast of Delhi, was developed as an industrial hub and a refugee colony by Jawaharlal Nehru for the large number of people who migrated from Pakistan just after Partition. In Kolkata, on the other hand, the lack of funds and cooperation from the central government did not allow the state government to construct many such colonies in the city (Sanyal 2014). Refugees, instead, squatted on large tracts of empty land in the South of the city, in areas of Jadavpur, Bijoygarh and Netaji Nagar, which like the Delhi- counterparts have developed into middle-class neighbourhoods.

Besides changes in the urban landscape of Kolkata and Delhi, Partition also changed the demographics of these cities considerably that in turn reshaped communal and social relations. A wide range of scholarly work looks into the lived refugee experience in the city. Ravinder Kaur’s

(2007) book on Punjabi Hindu and Sikh migrants who moved from Pakistan to Delhi, for example, provides a detailed narrative of resettlement in the city, and the ways in which the refugee experience varied along caste and gender lines. She writes about a colony in Lajpat Nagar, which was set up for young widows, whose movements were under stringent watch by social workers, and 13

also about the Karol Bagh area which changed from a Muslim neighbourhood to a Punjabi one

through resettlement projects. Similarly for Kolkata, Manas Ray’s (2002) memoir, “Growing up

Refugee” shows how the earlier waves of migrants were upper caste Hindus and that there was a clear geographical division in the settlement patterns of different caste groups.

VI. Regional Migration to Kolkata and Delhi

Both Kolkata and Delhi have been important industrial hubs historically and along with the cities’ roles as political capitals, have attracted migrants from all regions of India. Regional migration has influenced the social fabric of the cities considerably over time. In Kolkata, for example, Marwari, Gujarati, Tamil and Punjabi migrants came as traders, businessmen and officials in the colonial administration. Migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh came mainly as labourers to work in the jute and paper mills that formed an important part of Kolkata’s economy in colonial and postcolonial periods. Interestingly, most of these communities have created residential enclaves of their own. So for example, Lake Market and its surrounding areas developed as a “South Indian” enclave,

Bhawanipore became the chosen location for the Gujarati as well as Punjabi community, and Burrabazar developed as the residence-cum-business area for the Marwari community. This led to the well-known anthropologist NK Bose to describe Kolkata as a “premature metropolis” (Bose

1965), who noted that although Kolkata neighbourhoods were often mixed in terms of class, people usually tended to cluster together based on their ethnicity. A parallel comparison has been drawn by Dipesh Chakrabarty in his work on migrant labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The culture of migrant workers, Chakraborty (1989) remarks, resists the homogenisation process of industrialisation and modernisation, and instead, retains primordial connections to the rural hinterland through ties of kinship, language and religion.

While regional identification through neighbourhoods is not as prominent in Delhi, and the Punjabi identity of the city overrides many others, the city has witnessed large waves of migration from various regions. The case of labour migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is particularly important, as they came to contribute in to the construction boom as Delhi rapidly grew, and also to the several industries that have fuelled Delhi’s economy. Many of these migrants settled in the eastern part of

Delhi. Yamuna Pushta, a settlement that became infamous because of the violent slum eviction drive in 2004, has a large population of migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (see the next section for more information on slum evictions in Delhi). Another neighbourhood which has become well known because of its eviction drive as well as the presence of migrant labourers is Kathputli 15

Colony, where artisans and puppet makers from Rajasthan have settled over time. The presence of a large migrant population in both Kolkata and Delhi became a focus of development debates and we deal with that issue in the next section.

VII. Poverty, Marginalisation and Urban Development

Writing about post-colonial governmentalities surrounding urban development of Delhi, Stephen Legg (2006:183) notes:

The colonial project grew slowly out of economic exploitation and political manipulation… it did not necessarily begin with a dramatic rupture, and [it] has certainly not ended with one. Despite this, there have been attempts to sever the patterns of economic and social dependency….one of the most explicit attempts to sever these links with the past is that of

‘development’.

Urban policies aimed at putting Delhi and Kolkata on the development path have involved a wide range of issues from addressing poverty to infrastructure development. In the immediate post- independence period, the cities grappled with the issue of de-industrialisation, particularly in Kolkata, where commercial decolonisation began in the 1960s (when British-led firms were Indianised), along with the declining importance of Kolkata Port, which affected traditional industries such as jute and paper mills. Continuing de-industrialisation through the 1970s and 1980s in Kolkata added to the economic woes of the city. Poverty became synonymous with Kolkata, and much of the urban development plans were aimed at improving the conditions of the city. Along with the myth of the “dying city”, Kolkata was also swamped with images of poverty. Hutnyk, in his book The Rumour of Calcutta: Tourism, Charity and the Poverty of Representation (1996), analyses a range of narratives from literature, maps, backpackers’ stories and missionary work. Hutnyk

(1996) concludes that a politics of representation, which valorizes western “rumours” about Kolkata, results in a “poverty of representation”. While Delhi did not have an “image-issue” like Kolkata, there were concerns around improving the civic conditions in the city. The image of the city was, of course, a primary concern for urban developers. In this section we examine whether urban development plans in Delhi and Kolkata have successfully tackled poverty or created more marginalisation in the cities.

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the organisation that is responsible for development of Delhi, was formed in 1955 and since then a range of housing and infrastructure projects have been implemented. A Delhi Master Plan was formulated in 1962 to ensure an organised and planned development of the city, which was subsequently modified a few times. However, the complex

history of the city (with the two imperial cities of Shahjahanabad and New Delhi existing side-by- side) and continuous migration confirmed that there were gaps between the plans and implementation process. As Amita Baviskar (2003) points out:

Delhi’s Master Plan envisaged a model city, prosperous, hygienic, and orderly, but failed to recognise that this construction could only be realised by the labours of large numbers of the working poor, for whom no provision had been made in the plans (Baviskar 2003:91).

In this article, Baviskar narrates the story of a young migrant, Dilip, who lived in her neighbourhood in Delhi, and who was beaten to death by some house-owners and policemen for defecating in the local park. The story effectively portrays the struggle over urban space between the middle-class and the poor (often, migrant) population that have defined implementation of urban development plans. Many such struggles have often been around claims for a space of dwelling in the city, and have played out at different historical periods. During the Emergency (1975-77), for example, large-scale demolitions of slums forcibly removed people from parts of old Delhi to the marshy parts of East Delhi. Emma Tarlo (2003) has written about how jhuggi (slum) inhabitants in Seelampuri narrated their history in Delhi through such events. In later periods too, such as during the Asian Games (1982) and the Commonwealth Games (2010), large-scale evictions have taken place. What is missing from many of the debates around urban development in Kolkata and Delhi is the admission that the presence of slums in these cities are related to the failure of planning in the first place. Reviewing slum demolition policies in Delhi since the 1990s, Veronique Dupont (2008:

79) comments that, “despite its initial stated good intention to integrate people with low incomes

into the urban fabric… the public policy of urban planning and housing implemented by the

Delhi Development Authorities (DDA) failed to meet the demand of the poorest section of the

population”. The sheer number of evictions (Bhan and Shivanand 2013 estimate that 218

evictions have occurred in Delhi between 1990-2007) shows that urban governance in Delhi has not been an inclusive one.

In Kolkata, where slums have formed part of the popular image of the city, a different political scenario resulted in a slightly different trajectory for slum dwellers. Governed by the Left Front between 1977 and 2011, a kind of urban populism existed in Kolkata, whereby squatters through complicated “political bargains and negotiations…establish tenuous access to land, livelihood and shelter” (Roy 2003: xxxv). Partha Chatterjee (2004) explains such negotiations as demands of the

“political society”. He marks the difference from the notion of civil society, where negotiations

would be between the state and its citizens. In the case of Indian cities, Chatterjee (2004) points out, a complex relation between population groups and governmental agencies that administer policies shapes the development of a “community” identity. Despite such arrangements, however, since the late 1990s, several eviction measures have taken place in Kolkata, many of which have been in the

eastern fringes of the city. A new economic policy approach characterised by aggressive capitalism led to new developments in this part of the city and set up contestations between original and new settlers. In her book, City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics of Poverty, Ananya Roy (2003) examines these new economic and political developments in Kolkata and explores the dynamics of gender and class in persistence of poverty. Using postcolonial theoretical ideas, in her book Roy describes how poverty in these areas is reproduced through narratives that are gendered as well as class-ed. In this sense, Roy highlights the importance of ideas and narratives around poverty and marginalisation that reinforce its presence in cities.

VIII. Kolkata and Delhi as Global Cities

The move towards economic liberalisation since the 1990s is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the Indian cities. Restructuring of the economy and opening up the market to the world have introduced social changes that have left a deep impact within a short span of time. As shopping malls become more and more ubiquitous and glitzy new housing developments sprout in hitherto uninhabited areas, the Indian city strives to look and become more global. Kolkata and Delhi have joined this bandwagon too, although the scale and pace at which the cities have witnessed change is different. In this final section, we study how Kolkata and Delhi are striving to become global cities, and what it means for its residents.

The 2010 Commonwealth Games was an occasion for Delhi to showcase its global ambitions to the world. Backed by the DDA’s Master Plan for Delhi 2021 or Vision 2021, the city geared up to introduce massive changes in the way the city looks. The Metro Rail project (Figure 4) was given a push by the Delhi Government, and it was completed to revolutionise transport in the city. Other changes such as the construction of luxury super-malls and residential complexes had been afoot for a while. But as Veronique Dupont (2011) points out, this dream of Delhi as a global city also led to large-scale displacement and eviction drives. The “cleansing drive” directed towards slums and

“undesirable” elements further increased the social-economic divide in Delhi (Dupont 2011). The political process through which these changes took place also underwent significant changes, as the state intervened in matters of urban affairs, thus, creating a political impetus for turning Delhi into a global city. In his recent book, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class City Making in Delhi, Asher Ghertner (2015) argues that aesthetic norms replaced mapping and surveying which are the traditional tools to administer space. In other words, visual aspects of the city, of what looks good and what does not look good, have become the defining parameter through which the urban spaces are judged. Aesthetics, thus, added a rationale for further slum clearance. However, Ghertner further 21

points out that, while this created an unequal city, the value of aesthetics was also appropriated by

slum dwellers which introduced a new dimension for laying claim to urban space.

Figure 4: Delhi Metro (source: Wikimedia commons)

Musing about these changes that are taking place, Partha Chatterjee (2004) asks whether Indian cities are becoming bourgeois. Chatterjee’s question is couched in the changes in the political processes that have taken place, but can also be extended to question the rush of Indian cities to claim a global status. While Kolkata did not get a push like the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, its political leadership does want to remodel it as London! Beautification of the riverfront and the construction of a giant Ferris wheel such as the London Eye are part of such a plan. The rapid changes that are taking place on the eastern fringes of the city are perhaps more indicative of

Kolkata’s ambition to achieve a global status. Pablo Bose (2015) analyses the changes that have taken place over the past decade in these parts of the city. Analysing the development of new housing and the environmental debates that surround construction in a wetland area, Bose (2015) traces the desire of Kolkata to become a global city to its diasporic connections.

Conclusions

This module has traced the development of Kolkata and Delhi through four key ideas that have influenced the cities’ histories as colonial capitals. The first section looks at the debates that surrounded the political decision to shift the capital from Kolkata to New Delhi, and analyses how different kinds of planning in the early and late colonial periods influenced the interventions and developments in urban space. In the second section, we present the different waves of migration that shaped Kolkata and New Delhi. We look at both historical and contemporary migration to understand how the cities engaged with these different strands of migration, and how these gave

rise to specific neighbourhoods and social spaces in the cities. In the third section, we focus on urban

developmental issues, particularly poverty, and find how certain groups, migrant or otherwise, have become marginalised in the city. The issue of marginalisation also comes up in the final section, where we discuss the idea of Delhi and Kolkata as global cities, and consider whether such developments are inclusive. Beginning at the colonial period, and tracing the development of these two cities till their current ambition to be global cities, this module traces a historical timeline through which Kolkata and Delhi have passed, and identifies key events which mark these time periods.

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