1st Edition

Urbanisation in Bengal Ideas, Institutions and Policies

Edited By Pallavi Chakravarty Copyright 2024
258 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge India

258 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge India

258 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge India

This volume presents a comprehensive study of the urbanization of Bengal from ancient to postcolonial times. It analyses the notion of urban space, examines the institutions which constitute the ‘urban’, and explores the crises brought about by the Partition. The book highlights the key features of urbanization in colonial Bengal––the print culture, institutions of Western education and Western... Read more

List of Tables

Notes on contributors

Preface by Gopa Samanta

Editor’s Introduction

Section I: An Idea of the Urban Space: From Ancient to Modern Times

1.      Early Historic Urbanization in Bengal: Bangarh, a Case Study

Chirantani Das

 

2.      Cities of the Mind: Representing the Urban in Colonial Bengal

Kaustubh Mani Sengupta

 

Section II: Institutions of the Urban: Print, Education, Health, Census

3.      Popular Print Culture in the late 19th and early 20th century Calcutta

Shrobona Banerjee

 

4.      Breaking Barriers: Women’s Movement and Writings from Late Colonial Bengal

Nilanjana Paul

 

5.      Struggle for space: Bengali Women and Urbanization of Colonial Calcutta

Ata Mallick

 

6.      The Politics Of Census: Bengal And The 1941 Population Enumeration

Subhasri Ghosh

 

Section III: A Struggle for the Urban: Partition and Related Crises

7.      From Refugees To Citizens Popular Protests In West Bengal 1947-6o

Sutapa Dasgupta

 

8.      Carrying on the ‘Rural Home’ in the midst of the ‘Urban Jungle’: Refugee Colonies in the Post-Partitioned Calcutta

Anindita Ghoshal and Urvi Mukhopadhyay

 

9.      ‘Refugee-woman’ in post-Partition Bengal: A Critical Re-assessment of their Roles and Image

Pallavi Chakravarty

 

Section IV: The Urban in the Present: Possibilities and Challenges

10.  Industrialization, Migration and (Un)making of a City: Durgapur Experience

Abhinandan Das

 

Index

Biography

Pallavi Chakravarty is Assistant Professor at the School of Liberal Studies, Dr B R Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi, India. She is the author of Boundaries and Belonging: Rehabilitation of Refugees in India, 1947-71 (2022). She was also Junior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (now Pradhan Mantri Museum and Library, New Delhi). Her primary areas of research are partition studies, women and migration, oral histories. She has authored research papers which have been published in peer reviewed journals and edited volumes of national and international repute.