Related Papers
THINKING URBAN: STORIES OF AND IN URBAN VILLAGES OF DELHI
Kriti Kanaujia
Thinking Urban.... In popular academic thought, we constantly reflect upon a very narrow and somewhat rigid definition of urban. What is Urban, how do we define it, is it a rigid adjective or a common noun. Does it change with time and space or does it remain stationary no matter how many eons pass. Do we stop and think for a moment or do we pass by it like an everyday chore. Do we explore it like a rarity or do we get bored by its ubiquity. These and many more questions, keep on simmering whenever I think of urban. Over the years, I have observed that no matter how much a place is blanketed by the all encompassing urban carpet, it still manages to sneak out its uniqueness through its nooks and crannies, its street corners, its hidden cultures and ideas and very importantly through the people who live in it and by it. Through the many stories and couplets that waft through the vents of these streets, a sense of urban is made, a belongingness is traced and an urbanscape is placed. The urbanscape is an amalgamation of the imaginations and visualizations of the many actors and writers connected to it, perceptions of the onlookers and the dynamics of time and space in which it is located. Delhi, is one such urbanscape; a city of cities and a city in cities which unfolds and narrates the many stories and couplets it has collected through time. Delhi and the many delhis are a reflection and an interpretation of the many actors, writers and onlookers that have traversed its urbanscape throughout time and continue to do so. The urbanscape of Delhi is a juxtaposition of the many stories and the many urbans that have survived through savages of time and the many new and varied stories and urbans that are being thought will survive.
There is Something about Delhi - chapter from the book "India Dreams" - 2005
Paolo S H Favero
Cities
Delhi revisited
2013 •
Sohail Ahmad
The Tenth Delhi: Space, Economics and Politics in the Post-Liberalisation Metropolis
Moulshri Joshi, Kushanava Choudhury
Recent studies of the post-liberalisation Indian metropolis have largely followed a theoretical framework from contemporary urban sociology in the West, drawn from David Harvey, Manuel Castells and Saskia Sassen, among others. These studies show the contemporary city being shaped by global transnational capital—which accumulates wealth through dispossession—resulting in a clearing of the poor and marginal from central urban areas to the periphery, and replacing them with middle- and upper-class newcomers. Concomitantly, new jobs in these cities have shifted from industrial manufacturing to post- industrial services for large transnational firms connected through international networks of global cap- ital. These theories suggest that in the neoliberal city the welfare state has receded, surrendering its role of protecting working-class housing and employment to the interests of transnational capital. We argue that by identifying processes that unfold in New York or Paris in New Delhi, these studies only capture a small part of the picture of urban transformation in contemporary India. In the case of New Delhi, we show how Economic Liberalisation has fundamentally restruc- tured India’s capital city, producing a new iteration of the ancient metropolis, which we call the ‘‘Tenth Delhi’’. However, the new order does not, for the most part, resemble the above-described Western-derived theories. Instead of jettisoning its poor, Delhi has become a magnet for the working classes from across India. There are now more migrants each year to Delhi than to any other Indian city. Instead of the periphery, or squatter settlements on the urban edge, the influx of migrants is found in the oldest settlements of the city, the so-called Lal Dora areas or ‘‘Urban Villages’’, where new forms of rental housing have emerged. The cases of displacement and dispossession in Delhi are well documented, but little has been written about the more large-scale phenomena of ‘‘regularisation’’ where hundreds of the ‘‘Unauthorised’’ housing colonies that exist across the city have been formally regularised. Through a case study of one neighbour- hood called Taimoor Nagar, which contains a patch- work of multiple types of spaces, populations and economic activities, this paper seeks to understand how things work at a small scale to explain a larger system, and to identify patterns that repeat across urban space in terms of spatial ordering, informal norms, economic relations and political change. We argue that capital-intensive dispossession has not been the primary form of urban transformation in post- Liberalisation New Delhi. The liberalisation of state control over spaces and types of economic activity and the expansion of democratically elected representation in this period has also been dramatically important. When most of the economy is unregulated, and most of urban space is unplanned, democratic politics mediates the relationship between urban citizens and the rule of law.
Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research
Delhi’s Journey Part 4
2018 •
Sangeeta Mittal
Journey of any city is a very fascinating one to scholars of urban studies as well as dwellers, visitors, policy makers and managers of cities. Delhi has an extremely rich past dating back to pre-historic times and charting epochs like the Gupta period, Rajput phase, the Sultanate, Lodhis, Mughals, British and finally, capital of Independent India. This paper is third part of a series in which the first part presented a birds’ eye view of the urban character of Delhi from the prehistoric times to 1638: the founding of Shahjahanabad and the second continued the story till the Twilight of the Mughals. The next phase of Delhi history has been covered in a previously published paper by the author- 'Delhi during Pax Britannica'. The third part of this series in this paper encapsulates the impact and aftermath of the 1857 uprising on the city of Delhi, including the three darbars and the announcement of shifting of the imperial capital from Calcutta to Delhi in the last one in 1911. The fourth part contains the redrawing of Lutyens Delhi as showcase Imperial capital; demographic and urban upheaval caused by Independence and Partition and expansion and development of Delhi thereafter. The objective of this series is to contextualize many monuments, travel writings, novels, memoirs, films, myths, stories, stereotypes present in/on Delhi to a continuity as well as complexity of urban and cultural tradition. As thinkers and users of cities, it is imperative that we appreciate the ethos we inherit, consume, represent and create. Using a variety of sources from history, sociology, cultural and urban studies, the paper puts together diverse dimensions of this ancient city and imperial capital from the perspective of underscoring that urbanity has always been a matter of intersecting spaces, lives, powers and intentions.
Commonwealth Essays and Studies
Re-imagining Delhi as an Ordinary City: Siddharth Chowdhury's Quiet Revolution
2019 •
Marianne Hillion
Journal of Postcolonial Writing
Delhi: New writings on the megacity
2018 •
Alex Tickell
Durba Chattaraj, Moulshri Joshi
Recent studies of the post-liberalisation Indian metropolis have largely followed a theoretical framework from contemporary urban sociology in the West, drawn from David Harvey, Manuel Castells and Saskia Sassen, among others. These studies show the contemporary city being shaped by global transnational capital—which accumulates wealth through dispossession—resulting in a clearing of the poor and marginal from central urban areas to the periphery, and replacing them with middle- and upper-class newcomers. Concomitantly, new jobs in these cities have shifted from industrial manufacturing to postindustrial services for large transnational firms connected through international networks of global capital. These theories suggest that in the neoliberal city the welfare state has receded, surrendering its role of protecting working-class housing and employment to the interests of transnational capital. We argue that by identifying processes that unfold in New York or Paris in New Delhi, these studies only capture a small part of the picture of urban transformation in contemporary India. In the case of New Delhi, we show how Economic Liberalisation has fundamentally restructured India’s capital city, producing a new iteration of the ancient metropolis, which we call the ‘‘Tenth Delhi’’. However, the new order does not, for the most part, resemble the above-described Western-derived theories. Instead of jettisoning its poor, Delhi has become a magnet for the working classes from across India. There are now more migrants each year to Delhi than to any other Indian city. Instead of the periphery, or squatter settlements on the urban edge, the influx of migrants is found in the oldest settlements of the city, the so-called Lal Dora areas or ‘‘Urban Villages’’, where new forms of rental housing have emerged. The cases of displacement and dispossession in Delhi are well documented, but little has been written about the more large-scale phenomena of ‘‘regularisation’’ where hundreds of the ‘‘Unauthorised’’ housing colonies that exist across the city have been formally regularised. Through a case study of one neighbourhood called Taimoor Nagar, which contains a patchwork of multiple types of spaces, populations and economic activities, this paper seeks to understand how things work at a small scale to explain a larger system, and to identify patterns that repeat across urban space in terms of spatial ordering, informal norms, economic relations and political change. We argue that capital-intensive dispossession has not been the primary form of urban transformation in post- Liberalisation New Delhi. The liberalisation of state control over spaces and types of economic activity and the expansion of democratically elected representation in this period has also been dramatically important. When most of the economy is unregulated, and most of urban space is unplanned, democratic politics mediates the relationship between urban citizens and the rule of law. Keywords Urban governance Law Informal economy Informal space Urban planning New Delhi Urban studies Urban politics India
Between violence and desire: space, power, and identity in the making of metropolitan Delhi
Amita Baviskar
Journal of Intercultural Studies
Navigating 'New'Delhi: Moving Between Difference and Belonging in a Globalising City
2010 •
Melissa Butcher
