The politics of re-planning the Indian city : colonial and nationalist discourses on Ahmedabad, 1895-1928

Abstract

The thesis analyses deliberations about strategies for "improving" the environment of Ahmedabad which took place within the colonial bureaucracy and, after 1915, between that bureaucracy and the leadership of the nationalist movement. The analysis locates all dealings between the colonial administrative hierarchy and the Indian urban environment within a broad framework of intellectual and political activity which will be called the discourse of urban improvement.

The thesis finds that, during the nineteenth century, the planning priorities of the British rulers of Ahmedabad were not dissimilar to those of the largely Muslim rulers who had preceded them. During the twentieth century, however, colonial officials introduced town planning measures which sought to transform Ahmedabad into a central business district, surrounded by dormitory suburbs housing commuters and by industrial suburbs which would be home to mill hands and to the factories in which they worked. These measures were devised by European experts who derived their inspiration almost wholly from Western models and who paid little attention to the needs or wishes of Ahmedabadis. The nationalist movement, which had failed to develop an alternative strategy for the future development of urban India, provided considerable assistance to colonial officials to implement the town planning schemes.

The co-operation of the nationalist movement in urban improvement schemes such as those implemented in Ahmedabad contributed to the fact that, by the time they had ceased to rule India, the British had arguably made a more profound and lasting impression on urban society and the urban environment than they had made on life in rural areas.