This book looks at the typologies of cities and ideas of urbanity. Focusing specifically on cities in South Asia, it analyses the unique planning concepts, archaeology, art, culture, life, and philosophy of various cities of ancient and modern South Asia.
The book explores the concept of urbanity and the idea of an ideal city; it interrogates general notions of urbanity by juxtaposing city life in various periods and geographies of South Asia. By analysing the demography, architecture, rituals, and culture of various cities, it looks at the different spatialities of these places in terms of their size, population, commerce, and philosophy as well as the reasons behind the transformation of these places into urban centres. Drawing from various archeological and literary sources, the volume includes rich details about heterogeneity, rituals, festivals, social stratification, penal systems, famines, and insurrections in ancient cities as well as modern cities like Lahore, Dhaka, and Calcutta, among many others in South Asia.
This book will be of interest to researchers and students of ancient and modern history, archaeology, urban studies, urban and town planning, urban sociology, urban geography, cultural studies, post-colonial studies, ancient and medieval architecture, heritage studies, conservation studies, and South Asian studies.
List of Images. List of Maps. List of Tables. Notes on Contributors. Preface Introduction: Perceiving the Urban: South Asia Part I: Concept of Urbanity 1. Urbanity and the City: A Note Part II: Locating Urban Space: Case Studies from Early South Asia 2. Experiencing the Urban: Neighbourhoods of Ancient Bhir and Sirkap 3. Peripheral City of Māgama : A Case of Tropical Urbanism in Sri Lanka 4. Nature, Knowledge, Construction and Medieval Archaeology: Revisiting the By-lanes of 5. Medieval Capital City Mandu Part III: Texts and Images: Representing Cities 6. Elusive Borders: The City in Gandhāran Narrative Art 7. The City, the Kāma Culture and Daṇḍin: Shades and Varieties of Urban Life in the Daśakumāracarita 8. Cities as a Point of Convergence: Case Studies from Early Medieval India 9. The Deccan Ports and their Hinterlands Part IV: Making of the Cities 10. Dhaka- From an Obscure Urban Settlement to a Mega City 11. Urban Development in Colonial Situation: Early Nineteenth Century Bombay 12. Lahore: A Cultural and Literary ‘New’ Delhi for North India after 1857 13. Anindita Ghoshal- From a Wilderness to Capital City: The Making of Agartala Part V: Urban Fringes and Insurrections 14. Slum Dwellers, as Agencies and Victims of Urbanization in Calcutta From the Past to the Present 15. Locating Metiaburz against the Backdrop of Urban Calcutta: Experiencing Marginality 16. Insurrectionary City: Revolts in Colonial Calcutta, 1918-1946. Index
Biography
Urvi Mukhopadhyay completed her PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She is now teaching as Associate Professor in the Department of History, West Bengal State University, Barasat, India. She has authored The ‘Medieval’ in Film: Representing Contested Time on the Indian Screen (1920s to 1960s) and numerous articles on culture, media, and history. Her research areas include politics of representation, urbanity, and communal constructions. Her ongoing research includes inter-community relations in urban India and textile networks.
Suchandra Ghosh is a professor in the Department of History, University of Hyderabad. She broadly takes interest in the politico-cultural history of early Northwest India, the Indian Ocean Buddhist and trade network, regional history, and the history of everyday life in early India. She has participated in projects relating to India’s relationship with Southeast Asia. She was awarded the Savitri Chandra Shobha Memorial Prize of the Indian History Congress for the book From the Oxus to the Indus: A Political and Cultural Study in 2017.
