European Architecture and Urban Planning Practices in Colonial India

Articles
Journal of Planning History

9(4) 203–231
ª 2010 The Author(s)
Between Dominance, Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Dependence, Negotiation, DOI: 10.1177/1538513210375395
http://jph.sagepub.com
and Compromise: European
Architecture and Urban
Planning Practices in Colonial
India
Siddhartha Sen1
Abstract
The article discusses the imposition of European models of architecture and urban planning within
India, as well as the negotiations and compromises that took place in shaping colonial urbanism.
Insights from multiple analytical and theoretical frameworks are used in the article, and it draws
from post-structuralism and theories of dependent urbanism to provide an explanation for imposi-
tion architecture and urban planning as instruments of domination, subjugation, and control, and the
discourses that accompanied such practices. Postcolonial theory provides the analytical inspiration
for explaining the resistance offered by the indigenous population against the domination, subjuga-
tion, control and negotiations and compromises that took place in shaping colonial urbanism.
Insights of postcolonial theory are also used for discourse analysis carried out in the article. Drawing
from theories of dependent urbanism, the article examines how the changing nature of the interna-
tional political and economic landscape, and internal political situation, as well as motives for
colonization, influenced the European settlement patterns.
Keywords
dependent urbanism, India, colonial architecture and urban planning, post-structuralism and
postcolonial theory
Introduction
This article discusses the imposition of European models of architecture and urban planning on
India, as well as the negotiations and compromises that took place in shaping colonial urbanism
within India. The article first analyzes some of the instances when architecture was used as a symbol
of domination and subjugation of Indians, and the discourses that justified such architecture or
1
Department of City and Regional Planning, School of Architecture of Planning, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD
Corresponding Author:
Siddhartha Sen, 2201 Argonne Drive, Montebello Complex D-103, Baltimore, MD 21251, USA
Email: siddhartha.sen@morgan.edu
203
204 Journal of Planning History 9(4)
delineated the inferiority of Indian architecture. In conjunction, the article also offers alternative
interpretations, which illustrate that the European desire to impose their own models of architecture
was not always successful, and that Indians were able to negotiate a hybrid form of architecture in
many instances. Additionally, examples of the Europeans compromising and negotiating the models
of architecture that they used, is also provided, and followed by an analysis of how motives for colo-
nization influenced urban patterns; the role of political economy in shaping these patterns; and
attempts made by the British to impose social and political control through planning endeavors.
Discourse that justified planning, absence of planning, and racial segregation, in colonial India, is
also presented, in addition to the role of the indigenous population in resisting the social and political
control imposed by British colonizers.
The article critically synthesizes the literature on European architecture and urban planning in
India, and archival sources such as travelogues, literature, paintings, and photographs, from the colo-
nial period, to develop original and alternative interpretation of the evidence. Given the fact that
study extends over almost three centuries of history and compares Portuguese, Danish, Dutch,
French, and British colonial urbanism, a single theoretical or analytical framework is inadequate.
Instead, insights from multiple analytical and theoretical frameworks are warranted. In providing
an explanation for imposition architecture and urban planning, as instruments of domination, sub-
jugation, control, and the discourses that accompanied such practices, the article draws on material
from post-structuralism and theories of dependent urbanism. In particular, Foucault’s treatise on the
nature and dynamics of discourse, power, knowledge, and architecture; Edward Said’s Orientalism;
and theories of dependent urbanism are relied upon.1 As pointed out by Metcalf and Metcalf, the
doings of social elite have been the driving force for historical change.2 Hence, exercise of domina-
tion and control cannot be ignored from the narrative, despite insights of postcolonial theories. These
theories would urge us to look at the resistance offered by the indigenous population against the
imposition of foreign models of architecture and planning and negotiations that took place in
shaping colonial urbanism. The works of postcolonial theorists such as Ranajit Guha, Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak, Homi Bhaba, and Partha Chatterjee provide alternate explanations about the
resistance and negotiations.3
A brief discussion on the propositions of the treatises and theories used for the analytical frame-
work is necessary to frame the central arguments of this study. First, in considering theories of post-
structuralism, Foucault has argued that it is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined
together. Discourse can be defined as ‘‘the abstraction of any written or oral process of communi-
cation through which meaning is transmitted.’’4 Discourse, on particular subjects, establishes
knowledge and imposes truth in intricate and deceitful ways. Therefore, this functioning of discourse
is inevitably political and hence the constitution of knowledge is inseparable from the exercise of
power. Drawing from Foucault’s notion of discourse, Edward Said developed the notion of Orient-
alism in his seminal work Orientalism,5 widely regarded as the pioneering postcolonial theory.6 Said
regarded the wide body of knowledge developed by various colonial powers about the Orient can be
called ‘‘Orientalism.’’7 According to Said, ‘‘Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the cor-
porate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, author-
izing views of it, by teaching it, settling it, and ruling over it.’’8 Institutionalized discourse that
established knowledge and imposed truth in intricate and often deceitful ways supported ‘‘dominat-
ing, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.’’9 As this study suggests, the British dis-
course on architecture, with their linkages to major intellectual and planning movements in
Britain, undermined indigenous architecture.10 This discourse legitimized the imposition of certain
types of architecture and planning, and the lack of planning in indigenous parts of the colonial cities.
The nature of the discourse also changed over the entire period.
Foucault’s proposition that architecture has always been used to exercise domination, control,
power, and authority is also reflected in European relations to architecture in India. For him,
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‘‘Antiquity had been a civilization of spectacle. To render accessible to a multitude of men the
inspection of a small number of objects: this was the problem to which the architecture of temples,
theaters, and circuses responded.’’11 The spectacle of such architecture was aimed at inspiring multi-
tudes of people by controlling them through spectacular events. In the confines of such architecture,
the citizenry observed and experienced the power of the authoritarian state. As will be demonstrated,
the logic of most British architecture and urban planning in India since the late eighteenth century
has been to create a spectacle. The British resorted to monumental architecture and urban planning to
impress upon Indians a sense of British power. This had been true for other European powers in India
until the British gained a dominant position. The architecture prescribed for palaces of Indian
princes, by the British, is best explained by Foucault’s treatise on modern architecture. According
to Foucault, this is architecture of surveillance, which enables a few to observe and control a multi-
tude of individuals. Indian princes were encouraged to abandon their medieval fortress-like palaces,
because surveillance posed a problem. Additionally, surveillance also played an important role in
guiding British city planning.
Inspired by the insights of Michel Foucault, Edward Saids’s Orientalism, the dependency theory
of Samir Amin and André Gundar Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein’s world system theories,12 a
host of scholars have built on the theory of dependent urbanism.13 Manuel Castells and Anthony
King took the initial steps to articulate theories of dependent urbanism.14 Castells’ work was an
empirical and theoretical exploration of dependent urban patterns, which argued that city growth and
patterns, while differing in form and content in various parts of the developing world, must be under-
stood as an expression of imperialist/neo-imperialist social dynamic, at the level of space. He pos-
tulated that urbanization in the former colonies was dependent on the ‘‘core–periphery’’ relations
thereby creating large primate cities linked directly to cities in their core areas.15 These primate cit-
ies acted as the centers on the periphery through which resources were transferred to the urban core,
which created a considerable amount of estrangement between these primate cities and the rest of
country.
King added a new dimension by introducing the role of culture and power in dependent urbaniza-
tion.16 This relationship between dominance and dependence in colonialism were used as a major
explanatory variable in illustrating how the colonizers imposed certain types of planning. His work
also looks at imperialism and colonialism in the development of the world economy and the role of
cities within this economy.17 Another important treatise introduced by King is motivation for colo-
nization and its effect on colonial urban patterns.18 Spanish and Portuguese colonization included
cultural and religious motives, such as Hispanicization and Christianization, which led to the con-
struction of large number of churches and monasteries. In contrast, the Dutch, British, and French
motives were economic and militaristic, which can be seen in the large number of administrative
buildings that were constructed.
Whether the settlement was seen as temporary or permanent also had an effect on the urban struc-
ture. Whenever it was approached as permanent, a pre-mediated planned city was the result, and the
city became a primary instrument of colonization. In some cases, the indigenous city was eliminated;
in others, it was incorporated in the plan. In both instances, however, the city expressed a real and
symbolic domination by the colonizers. In contrast, if trade was the primary motive, a variety of
physical forms may have resulted, depending on the activities of other powers in the region, which
could range from a mere landing stage and warehouse to a ‘‘factory’’19 or a ‘‘port and fort.’’
Drawing from the above treaties, the article argues that types of European settlements and their
patterns were primarily dependent on the changing nature of the international political economy and
internal political climate. The subsequent wealth and power of Europeans in India, as a result of
these changes, contributed to the rise and decline of European enclaves. Motives for colonization
were a significant factor in shaping urban patterns, and the building activities among Europeans,
as well as wealthy Indians, also were shaped by the colonial economic and political landscape.
205
We shall also see that domination and control, imposition of planning concepts from the core, racial
segregation, and discrimination in provision of services, all played a significant role in shaping
dependent urban patterns.
Several influential postcolonial studies have appeared since publication of Orientalism. Although
these studies differ from Said’s original thesis, they still recognize the role of colonial discourse as a
means of power and control. For Bhabha, an important feature of colonial discourse is its ideological
construction of the ‘‘otherness’’ (i.e., the colonized) that was entirely knowable and visible.20 As he
points out, ‘‘the objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonized as a population of degen-
erate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of
administration and instruction.’’21 This notion of constructing the otherness is also emphasized in
other postcolonial literature. For example, Chatterjee points out that the premise of the colonial
state’s power was ‘‘a rule of colonial difference, namely, the preservation of the alienness of the rul-
ing group.’’22 He maintains that this rule of colonial differences also represented the ‘‘other’’ (i.e.,
the colonized) as incorrigibly inferior and radically different.23 In her essay, ‘‘The Rani of Sirmur:
An Essay in Reading the Archives,’’ Chakravorty Spivak, draws from Foucaultian discourse theory
and Orientalism to discuss this otherness constructed under colonial rule.24 Other Indian historians,
who broadly fall in the postcolonial genre, have also expressed similar views. Shuhash Chakravarty
suggests that the ideology of the British rule was ‘‘to create a permanent gulf of contempt and fear
between the ruler and the ruled.’’25 He continues, that the ‘‘physical separation of the master and the
bonded men was to be conspicuous and visible.’’26 Thus, postcolonial theory provides an analytical
inspiration to examine how colonial discourse used this notion of otherness and racial inferiority to
vilify Indian architecture, impose planning patterns that ensured surveillance over indigenous pop-
ulation, and to justify the lack of planning in indigenous parts of the city. These treatises also provide
an insight on how architecture created a permanent gulf of contempt and fear between the ruler and
the ruled.
However, postcolonial theory also recognizes the role of resistance and negotiation in response to
this Western domination. In fact, Said himself revised his treatise on Orientalism in Culture and
Imperialism, where he recognizes the response to Western domination that eventually culminated
in the great movement of decolonization in former colonies.27 Postcolonial scholars such as
Chakravorty Spivak and Bhabha added to this notion of resistance by arguing that the colonial
experience was far from unidirectional and had transformative effect on both the colonized and
colonizer.28 Postcolonial scholars of Subaltern Studies, such as Guha, Chatterjee, and Chakravorty
Spivak (during her association with the group) have undertaken the task of rewriting the colonial
history of India from the point of view of hidden and suppressed groups using unconventional
sources such as popular memories, oral discourse, and other neglected sources.29 Inspired by post-
colonial studies, a plethora of literature has also emerged on colonial urbanism, including King who
has revised his original thesis.30 Drawing from these studies and theories, the article shows instances
where the colonizers were unable to impose their own models of planning due to resistance from the
Indians. These studies also explain why at times Indians were able to negotiate a hybrid form of
architecture, or why the Europeans adopted this form, despite their desire to impose European
models. The next section presents the use of architecture as a symbol of domination and subjugation
of Indians, as well as the negotiations, compromises, and accompanying discourses that shaped
colonial architecture.
European Architectural Practices and

Accompanying Discourses
Since the early traders did not yet use architecture as a symbol of power, they were content if a
locally available military engineer, clergy, or a carpenter erected a structure that was functional.31
206
Sen 207
Figure 1. View on the Chitpore Road by Thomas Daniell, 1792, Colored Aquatint: An Early Example of
Incorporation of Indian and Classical Elements. Source: Jeremiah P. Losty, Calcutta, City of Palaces: A Survey of
the City in the Days of East India Company 1690–1858 (London: The British Library, Arnold Publishers, 1990).
Neoclassical style became the predominant style of colonial buildings constructed from the last
decades of the eighteenth century until the mid-nineteenth century, especially among the British. For
the British East India Company, the neoclassical style came in vogue because of its connection with
architectural vocabulary of imperial Roman Empire. Because of this connection, such architecture
was embraced as a symbol of imperial power, as the Company began to establish an Empire in India.
This European influence was reflected on wealthy merchants, even in this early colonial period.
For example, Thomas Daniell, an English topographical artist who arrived in Calcutta in 1786, noted
that a certain merchant’s house in Chitpore (the indigenous or native part of Calcutta) was built in a
style that incorporated Indian and classical elements (see figure 1).32 By the mid-1820s, most of the
houses of the wealthy in Calcutta incorporated some classical elements.33 However, it is to be noted
that the traditional plan of courtyard dwelling was retained. For example, an Englishman, James
Kerr observed, ‘‘these houses have generally an open court in the middle, surrounded on three or
four sides by apartments.’’34
Postcolonial theory helps to explain to the adaptation of this hybrid architecture. The Bengali elite
modified and reinterpreted the neoclassical elements to suit their needs. Maintaining the traditional
spatial environment of dwellings with infused neoclassical elements represented a form resistance
to colonial influence. Maintaining a neoclassical facade appealed to the English visitors by suggesting
the adaptation of Western standards.35 However, such a facade and even parlors furnished with
European furniture did not change the traditional organization of the overall household around
207
courtyards and other specialized spaces in the Bengali household.36 Clearly, the Bengali elite were
able to selectively choose European elements and resist others. This is despite the British discourse
that expressed the view that the better class of Indians should try to conform to the ‘‘superior’’ way
of British lifestyles.37 By adopting architectural vocabulary of the British Empire, as suggested by
Chattopadhyay, the Bengali elite was even making symbolic claims in the construction of that empire.38
The prevailing political economy played a significant role in shaping the building activities
among the Europeans, as well as wealthy Indians. The English merchants built neoclassical man-
sions in Calcutta as a physical display of their newly acquired wealth extracted from the colonial
economy. The residences were either located in discrete residential enclaves or isolated retreats out-
side the city, known as garden houses.39 Other Europeans and Indians whose fortunes changed with
a change in colonial political economy also constructed in a grandiose fashion. Garden houses,
which were physical manifestation of conspicuous consumption and expropriation, became popular
among the British.40 The wealthy Bengalis emulated the British by constructing garden houses of
their own. They were often associated with debauchery, pleasure, and conspicuous consumption,
especially those owned by the Zamindars (landlords).41 A large number of building types ranging
from moderate suburban residences to lavish estates were included under the category of such hous-
ing.42 Garden houses were considered a symbol of colonial success. As is related by Mrs. Eliza Fay,
an English woman who visited Calcutta in late 1700s, ‘‘The banks of the river as one may say [are]
absolutely studded with elegant mansions, called here as at Madras, garden houses. The houses are
surrounded by groves and lawns, which descend to waters edge, and present a constant succession of
whatever can delight the eye, or speak wealth and elegance in the owners.’’43
Despite their outward appearance, the English houses of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
Calcutta were far from neoclassical Palladian villas. As pointed out by Chatttopadhyay, the touch
of neoclassicalism introduced to stimulate grandeur in the facades of houses in the White town,
disappeared inside.44 As she demonstrates, the connectedness of the served and service spaces was
necessary because household chores had to be performed by natives. However, the British were
uncomfortable with this spatial arrangement. The discomfort of the British is well reflected by
Emma Roberts, an Englishwoman who came to Calcutta in 1830s. According to her, ‘‘Servants clad
in flowing white garments glide about with noiseless feet in all directions; and it is very long before
people accustomed to solitude and privacy in their own apartments, can become reconciled to the
multitude of domestics who think themselves privileged to roam all over the house.’’45 Nonetheless,
British had to adjust to this social and spatial arrangement, as pointed out by James Kerr, in the
1870s by stating that ‘‘One of the striking features of Ango-Indian life is the great number of domes-
tic servants we are obliged to keep’’46 (see figure 2 for a view of an Englishwoman surrounded by
her female attendants in 1830s).
Postcolonial theory explains this compromise, and as suggested by the theory, we see the trans-
formative effect on the colonizer here. The transformative effect is reflected in adjustments made by
the British, in the spatial and social arrangement of their houses, to accommodate Indian servants
that were needed for life in India. The transformative effect is also evident from the fact that these
houses were actually adaptations of the traditional Indian courtyard house. Like the courtyard of the
Indian house, the central hall served as the focal point of gathering and providing access to rooms.47
Political economy also seemed to have played a role in shaping the spatial arrangement of these
houses. Since speculation by both Indians and British was a primary motive for construction of colo-
nial houses, servants’ quarters were an afterthought.48
Employment of architecture as a symbol of political and imperial power, or architecture of spec-
tacle, became pronounced in the late eighteenth century. This is true for all European interests in India,
but the British were the most successful, due to the British East India Company further consolidating
their stronghold in India. The British governors were insistent on monumental architecture to impress
their power upon Indians. Government houses in Calcutta and Madras are typical examples of this type
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Figure 2. Female Attendants by Sir Charles D’ Oyly, 1830, Colored Lithograph: An Example of Large Number
Domestic Servants in a Colonial British Home. Source: Pratapaditya Pal and Vidya Dehejia, From Merchants to
Emperors: British Artists and India, 1757-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986).
of architecture. The government house in Calcutta is a case in point. When Lord Wellesley came to
India, in May of 1798, as the governor general, he found the existing buildings unsuitable and
insignificant to serve as the governor’s residence.49 By June of that year, Lord Wellesley had decided
on a new residence. The plan prepared by Lieutenant Charles Wyatt of Bengal Engineers was based on
James Paine’s design of Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire built in the eighteenth century.50
209
Figure 3. South East View of the New Government House, Calcutta, by J. Clarck and H. Merke, published by
Edward Orme in 1805, Aquatint: Employment of Architecture as a Symbol of Political and Imperial Power.
Source: Sten Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850 (New York: Taplinger Publishing Company,
(1968[1969]).
Even in their stately buildings, the British had to make compromises in spatial arrangement,
further illustrating the transformative effect on the colonizer. As pointed out by Chattopadhyay,
the government house in Calcutta was different from Kedleston Hall because of the social life
that they had to accommodate.51 Despite the separate servant quarters, the openness and intercon-
nectedness of the spaces were, perhaps, a reflection of the need to have a large entourage of ser-
vants in India.52 The urge to project an image of magnificence and splendor also resulted in
modifications to the original design.53 The emphasis on grandeur was intentional because the
building was a symbol of imperial power (see figure 3 for a view of the new government house).
Unlike its predecessors, the new structure was not just one mansion among several others of
comparable scale, but one that totally dominated others in scale.54 Even the wings of the
building, which stretched out in four directions, were symbols of expanding power of the British
Empire.55 Despite the Company’s dislike and disapproval of this architectural extravaganza, Lord
Wellesley’s successor, Lord Valentia and later Lord Ellensborough also accepted it as a necessary
symbol of political domination.56
Even the siting of the structure symbolized power. It occupied an ostentatious place and loomed
over the city, unobscured by trees, so that the natives as well as foreign visitors could see and
appreciate the power of the British Raj from all points.57 All structures in the vicinity—ranging from
official buildings to private houses—complemented the design of the government house and by the
end of the first decade of the nineteenth century, Calcutta mirrored classical and imperial city.58 To
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use Foucault’s terms, the palace was an object of inspection for a multitude of men, so the citizenry
could observe the power of the state. To use Chakravarty’s terms, the government house was in tune
with the ideology of the British Raj to create a permanent gulf of contempt and fear between the ruler
and the ruled. The physical separation of the master and the bonded men was conspicuous and
visible in the palace.
The writings of Lord Valentia shed light on the role of discourse in legitimizing this architecture
of spectacle. As he wrote: ‘‘The sums expended upon it have been considered as extravagant by
those who carry European ideas and European economy into Asia; but they ought to remember, that
India is a country of splendor, of extravagance, and of outward appearances; that the Head of the
mighty empire ought to confirm himself to the prejudices of the country he rules over; and the Brit-
ish, in particular, ought to emulate the splendid works of the Princes of the House of Timour.’’59 He
continued, ‘‘In short, I wish India to be ruled from a palace, not from a counting-house; with ideas of
a Prince, not with those of a retail-dealer in muslins and indigo.’’60
Such discourse could also be observed among officials of lesser European powers in India. In the
early 1780s, Ole Bie, the official in charge of the Danish trading post in Serampore pointed out to his
superiors that the dilapidated condition of the settlement was likely to arouse ridicule among the
neighboring Europeans.61 He further insisted that the appearance of the colony would reduce
Denmark’s reputation among Indians who liked to see visual manifestation of political power. Bie’s
recommendation was certainly one factor that justified change in Serampore to a magnificent
town by the 1790s. Even Lord Valentia was impressed with the town’s appearance and wrote,
‘‘Serampore, the Danish settlement on the opposite side of the bank, has a pleasing effect, as the
houses are tolerable, and chunamed, like those of Calcutta.’’62
Before the British established their supremacy over French-India, during the wars of the mid-
eighteenth century, the French were also using architecture to express power.63 The most prominent
example of such architecture was the government house built by Marquis Joseph Francois Dupleix in
Pondicherry in the middle of the eighteenth century.64 The building was designed by Dumont, an
engineer, in Franco-Italian or Baroque-Classical style, and as pointed out by Nilsson, its military
weight and magnificence matched Dupleix’s politics in other spheres.
Undermining Indigenous Architecture

Under colonialism, a wide body of knowledge was developed on Indian civilization and culture. In
Said’s terms, this body of knowledge can be called ‘‘Orientalism.’’65 The pioneering figure in the
development of Orientalism was Sir William Jones, who founded the Asiatic Society in Calcutta
in 1784.66 Although Jones’ thesis is associated with language and culture, architecture also was
an integral part of his work. In fact, early Orientalists such as Jones and William Chambers, who
was also an architect, often resorted to architecture to make authoritative statements on Indian civi-
lization and culture. Jones, for example, related Indian architecture to Egyptian influences. Jones’
tendency was to attribute the best aspects of the Indian civilization to Aryan or Indo-European roots.
The early Orientalists, who were products of the Enlightenment movement, claimed that India had
once possessed a golden age, but that the civilization had declined and stagnated or even remained at
a ‘‘standstill’’ because of the influence of medieval Hinduism.67 While the early Orientalists found
merit in Indian culture and civilization, and acknowledged a golden period, the Anglicists, who were
products of Liberal and Evangelical movements of the early nineteenth century found absolutely no
merit in Indian civilization.68
Together, the Orientalists and Anglicists shaped prevailing Victorian views on Indian civiliza-
tion, architecture, and sculpture. The most influential protagonist of the era was James Fergusson,
whose two-volume of History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, in 187669 remained the authority
on Indian architecture long after his death in 1886. Fergusson saw Indian architecture as an
211
expression of religious affiliations, and for him, Indian architecture was Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, or
Saracenic. He used the term, Saracenic, to label the architecture of the Muslims in India. His disdain
for Indian architecture and civilization is reflected throughout the text, beginning in the introduction
to Volume I, where he states that ‘‘It cannot, of course, be for one moment contended that India ever
reached the intellectual supremacy of Greece or the moral greatness of Rome.’’70 To Fergusson,
Indian architecture was ‘‘on a lower step of the ladder’’71 and ‘‘may contain nothing so sublime
as the hall at Karnak, nothing so intellectual as the Parthenon, nor so constructively grand as the
medieval cathedral.’’72 He believed in the theory of declining civilization and wrote that ‘‘the Indian
story is that of backward decline, from the sculptures of Bharaut and Amarâvatı̂ topes,’’73 which
were Buddhist Stupas built during the third and second century BC.
In Bhabha’s terms, the objective of Fergusson’s discourse was to construe the Indians as
degenerate types on the basis of racial origin. He did so by linking the architectural and sculp-
tural expression in India to an expression of inferior art forms of an inferior race of ‘‘Turanian’’
people. To him, Turanians were descendents of people from the Stone Age,74 and in India, they
consisted mainly of pre-Aryan races such as Dravidians. They belonged ‘‘to a lower intellectual
status than the Aryans, but . . . have preserved their nationality pure and unmixed.’’75 For him,
‘‘all that was written in India that is worth reading was written by the Aryans; what was build
was built by the Turanians.’’76 Commenting on Dravidian temples, he disdainfully wrote, ‘‘It
is in vain, however, we look among them for any manifestation of these lofty aims and noble
results that constitute the merit and greatness of true architectural art, and which generally char-
acterize the best works in the true styles of the western world.’’77 Anything that Fergusson
admired was linked to the West’s contribution. Thus, to him, the Indo-Greek colonies (circa
second century BC) of North Western India—arrested the downward progress of Indian art and
sculpture because it was ‘‘impregnated with the traditions of classical art.’’78 Fergusson praised
the infusion of Saracenic architecture in India with the establishment of Muslim rulers from
around 1193 AD because of their Western roots. For him, the architecture of Ghazni ‘‘formed
in fact the stepping-stone by means of which the architecture of the West was introduced into
India.’’79 Nonetheless, for Fergusson, even Saracenic architecture never reached the higher art
forms of Western architecture.
Both official and unofficial discourse on Indian architecture were influenced by Fergusson’s
views for many years. Viewed from the postcolonial theoretical perspective, an important feature
of this discourse was to construe the colonized as a population of degenerates, on the basis of racial
origin as represented in their architectural and sculptural heritage.
Despite this ingrained critique, the British started promoting a style that incorporated Hindu and
Muslim elements (known as ‘‘Indo-Saracenic’’ style) in their architecture starting in the mid-
1860s.80 Scriver notes that technocrats, architects, and allied professionals sought to replace the ear-
lier neoclassical and Gothic revival styles with one that would be representative of the British Raj.81
It was a product of desire to legitimize the Raj by linking it to India’s past, after the First Indian War
of Independence, in 1857. This war, commonly known as the ‘‘Sepoy Mutiny,’’ broke out in the May
when the Sepoys (Indian soldiers) rose in revolt against the British and were able to seize Delhi
within weeks.82 Indians joined them from all walks of life—landlords, peasants, princes, and mer-
chants—irrespective of their religion, in an effort to free India from the British. In certain parts of
India, the resistance continued until the end of 1858.
Ultimately, the British emerged victorious and direct Crown Rule was established in 1858. As
pointed out by Metcalf, from this point forward, the British conceived of themselves not merely
as foreign conquerors, but as legitimate and almost indigenous rulers, likened directly to the
Mughals from India’s own past.83 Metcalf suggests that by mixing styles and manipulating design
elements that were distinctly labeled as ‘‘Hindu’’ and ‘‘Saracenic,’’ the British could proclaim them-
selves masters of Indian culture. The British thought of themselves as the cohesive force that the
212
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Figure 4. The Public Works Office photographed shortly after its Completion in 1872: An example of
Venetian Gothic in Bombay. Source: Philip Davies, Splendours of the Raj: British Architecture in India, 1660-1947
(New York: Penguin Books, [1985] 1987).
Indians themselves could not achieve, given indigenous communal divisions. The free use of Indian
design elements, irrespective of historical significance, was rooted in the Victorian assumption of
the static culture of India. Since India’s society was unchanging, its architectural styles and elements
were also seen as interchangeable static elements that could be used according to the needs of the
colonial builder and not linked to historical trends.
The Indo-Saracenic style became the stamp of official colonial architecture until the early twen-
tieth century except in Bombay and Calcutta and for religious buildings. Bombay was a predomi-
nantly Gothic city because the British administrators in Bombay sought to preserve it as a
European city in their discursive practices.84 (see figure 4 for an example of Gothic architecture
in Bombay). Bombay was a commercial and trading city, which served as a link between Europe
and Asia. It was outward looking and, therefore, European architectural styles, such as Gothic revi-
val, seemed most appropriate for Bombay. There were only a few Indo-Saracenic buildings and
Gothic structures that incorporated Indian elements of design in Bombay. Similarly, Calcutta had
a long tradition of classical architecture and could not shake this influence. In fact, Lord Curzon rein-
forced Calcutta’s adherence to classical architecture when he conceived of the classical Victoria
Memorial Hall, as an everlasting symbol of the British Empire (see figure 5).85 Religious buildings
(mainly churches) strictly adhered to the Gothic style because it was the architectural language of
Christianity. Incorporation of ‘‘heathenish’’ elements from ‘‘Hindu’’ or even from the competing
‘‘Muslim’’ architecture was considered sacrilegious.86
Indo-Saracenic was also the principal style encouraged by the British for the Indian princes dur-
ing the last decades of the nineteenth century (see figure 6 for an example of such architecture).
According to the British view, this was the most appropriate style because it blended traditional and
modern elements, the style fitted their conception of the role of the native princes as representing
tradition within the modern empire.87 Akin to this architectural style, the princes were supposed
to represent India’s past and future simultaneously.88 The architecture promoted by the British for
the palaces of Indian princes finds expression in Foucault’s treatise on modern architecture. The
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Figure 5. The Classical Victoria Memorial Hall in Calcutta: Lord Curzon’s conception of an everlasting symbol
of the British Empire. Source: Photograph by the author, 2003.
Indian princes were encouraged to abandon their medieval fortress-like palaces because surveillance
posed a problem. This is well reflected in the words of Rudyard Kipling, the well-known British
author and poet, upon his visit to the sixteenth century fort at Ajmer in the late-1800s. From this
experience he wrote:
‘‘The cramped and darkened rooms, the narrow smooth-walled passages with recesses where a man
might wait for his enemy unseen, the maze of ascending and descending stairs leading nowhither, the
ever-present screens of marble tracery that may hide or reveal so much,—all these things breathe of plot
and counter-plot, league and intrigue.’’89
Clearly, the British disapproved the layout of medieval hilltop palaces because of the threat to their
security. The new type of palace, with a European interior and an Oriental facade, made surveillance
easier. Postcolonial theory offers an explanation on the varied responses, from the princes, to this
architectural imperialism. While some princes did not even build new palaces due to scarcity of
resources and remote locations, others were able to employ their own resources to erect palaces
inspired by Italian or French styles.90 Although some princes resisted complying with the British,
there were others who confined such architecture to public buildings, simply to appease the British.
In 1911, classicism was revived through the construction of the state buildings in the new capital
of New Delhi, a construction process completed in 1931 (see figure 7 for an example of such archi-
tecture). There was considerable debate about the choice of architectural styles in which the propo-
nents of the Indo-Saracenic as well as pure classical style lost ground.91 Postcolonial theory provides
an explanation for the compromises on imperial Delhi’s design made by its principal English archi-
tects, Herbert Baker and Edwin Lutyen, despite their intense dislike for Indian architecture. Given
the political climate of intense nationalism, and native antagonism toward the British, it was prudent
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Figure 6. A view of the West Front of the Laxmi Vilas Palace in Baroda, 1900: Architecture of surveillance.
Source: Thomas R. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1989).
for classical architecture to be orientalized through incorporation of Indian motifs and architectural
elements. The plea of Baker and Lutyens for the merits of classicism were tempered by the political
actors who agreed that there was a need to make the architecture of the new capital appealing to the
Orientals as well as to the Europeans. However, in this new age of nationalist India, old symbols
such as the Indo-Sarcenic style no longer legitimized the British power. Hence, even the proponents
of the Indo-Sarcenic failed to hold sway in this intense battle of architectural styles for the new
capital.
The buildings of Imperial Delhi were the last desperate effort of the British to use architecture as a
spectacle and symbol of power, as the nationalist movement was increasingly challenging their
authority. Despite the compromises made to appease the natives, the buildings of Imperial Delhi
were fully intended to create a permanent gulf of contempt and fear between the ruler and the ruled.
The British discourse clearly reflects such intention. For example, the views of King George V, com-
municated by his private secretary, Lord Stamfordham to Lord Crewe, the Secretary of State for
India, stated that the government house must be ‘‘conspicuous and commanding.’’92 He continued
that the Viceroy’s residence, flying the British Flag, must be the first object in view, when approach-
ing the capital and not ‘‘be dominated by the Jumma Masjid and the Fort nor dwarfed by the
ridge.’’93 He continued that ‘‘we must now let him (i.e. the Indians)94 see for the first time the power
of Western science, art, and civilization.’’95
Colonial Urban Patterns and Accompanying Discourses

When examined from the macro perspective, as distinct from the architecture of individual struc-
tures, the early European settlements were rudimentary, as trade was the primary function, and it
was still regulated by local politics and regimes. Portuguese trading outposts were the first European
settlements in India. The trading outposts were all that were needed to maintain the Portuguese
Seabourne Empire.96 The Portuguese transplanted three main institutions and their constitutional
building types in these outposts—the factory, the fort, and the church.97 The main components of
the factories were a warehouse, an office, living quarters, a chapel, and a common dining hall.98 The
215
Figure 7. View of the Secretariat, New Delhi, Circa 1930, Anonymous, Gelatin-Silver Print: An example of
the classical revival. Source: Pratapaditya Pal and Vidya Dehejia, From Merchants to Emperors: British Artists and
India, 1757-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986).
Portuguese set up the first factory in Cochin, along with a fort, by the early sixteenth century. Other
Europeans such as the Dutch, Danes, French, and English also started building factories after the
Portuguese (see figure 8 for an example of an early factory). Whenever possible, the Europeans tried
to get permission for fortification to protect the factory. Since trade was the primary motive for all
early Europeans, trading outposts or factories with some fortification was all that was needed as a
form of settlement.
For those Europeans whose motivation shifted to monopolizing trade by force, territorial posses-
sion became a necessity. Goa became the first major European territorial possession in India when
the Portuguese captured this territory in Western India in 1510.99 For the Portuguese, the possession
of Goa was the final step from mere command of the sea to territorial empire in India.100 The pos-
session was seen as permanent settlement, and the capital, ‘‘Old Goa,’’ became the major instrument
of colonization as the administrative center for Portugal’s empire in the South Asia and East
Indies.101 Afonso de Albuquerque, the second viceroy to India wanted to occupy Goa as a naval base
and colony.102 The importance of Old Goa as a strategic center of the Portuguese empire is well
reflected in his letter to King of Portugal where he wrote, ‘‘Goa must not be dismantled . . . and
I must sustain it at my own cost . . . if Your highness either now or at any other time surrender
Goa to the Turks, then plainly our Lord desires that Portuguese dominion in India should come
to an end.’’103
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Figure 8. The Dutch Factory at Hooghly-Chinsura, 1665 by Hendrick van Schuylenburgh, oil on canvas: An
early form of European Settlement. Source: Jeremiah P. Losty, Calcutta, City of Palaces: A Survey of the City in the
Days of East India Company 1690-1858 (London: British Library, Arnold Publishers, 1990).
‘‘Golden Goa,’’ as it was known, came to be regarded as the ‘‘Rome of the Orient,’’ in the
sixteenth century. The early town planning practices in Goa were dictated by militaristic motiva-
tions. Soon after its capture, the old fort was demolished, and a new one was erected in European
style. The economic motives behind Portuguese colonization—protecting their trade and gaining
supremacy over Arabs—dictated the erection of fortified towns. With the rise of Portuguese dom-
inance in South Asian trade in the sixteenth century, Old Goa acquired the grandeur of a Renaissance
town, mixed with the Indian tradition of elaborate ornamentation. The viceroy’s palace was an
impressive building and perhaps a symbol of power. Most streets were quadrants or segments of cir-
cles (see figure 9). The main street Stada Diretta was a straight street and the finest in Old Goa. The
city was also full of squares and magnificent domestic buildings. Another Portuguese motive for
colonization—Christianization—led to the erection of several churches and monasteries.
Among other factors, the decline of Old Goa is attributable to the rise of Dutch supremacy in the
South Asian seas toward the end of the sixteenth century.104 By the mid-seventeenth century, the
Asian possessions became less important for Portugal compared to the more profitable and the newer
colonies in Brazil, West Africa, and the Atlantic Islands. Despite the loss of Portugal’s interest, Old
Goa’s magnificence and splendor was maintained until late seventeenth century. However, by the
late eighteenth century much of the city was in ruins and the capital of Portuguese possessions in
India was transferred to Panjim in 1843. Old Goa retained its splendor even after the Portuguese
colonial ambitions in India dwindled because of Portuguese motives for colonization—Hispanicization
and Christianization.105 Catholicizing of the Indian population, mixed marriages, and introduction of
Portuguese culture, which ultimately became the dominant culture, created a population (including the
few Portuguese that were left behind) that looked to the colony as their homeland and they were capable
217
Figure 9. A Dutch engraving of Old Goa in the seventeenth century: some indications of street patterns.
Source: J. M. Richards, Goa (Vikas Publishing House: New Delhi, 1982).
of maintaining the glory of the city.106 Thus, racial segregation was not a significant factor in shaping
urban patterns of Portuguese colonization.
The rise and decline of European enclaves with the changes in the international political
landscape, and internal political situation is reflected in towns such as Danish Serampore and
Tranquebar, Dutch Chinsura, and French Pondicherry and Chandernagore. Like most European
settlements, Tranquebar was a rudimentary, but fortified town, erected in the early seventeenth
century.107 The neutrality of the Danes in European politics, between 1777 and 1807, increased their
profits from trade in India. This trade boom transformed Tranquebar to a flourishing neoclassical
town. The spatial patterns of the town were influenced more by religion than race. After the British
occupied Tranquebar in 1808, the town became architecturally impoverished, as a repercussion of
the Napoleonic wars in Europe. The Danish East India Company could hardly afford the resources
needed for Tranquebar’s town planning due to Denmark’s poor economic performance in the first
decades of the century. Furthermore, during the eight years of British occupation, not only were all
links were lost with the mother country, but the British also did little to keep the town in good con-
dition. The Danes had lost interest in Indian trade by the late-1810 because of increased profitability
of trade with China. The colony was eventually sold to the British in 1845, which did little to prevent
the towns’ decline.
Serampore, the other Danish possession, was also occupied by the British in 1808 and was also
eventually sold to the British in 1845 as the Danes realized that their Indian possessions had become
useless to them.108 Similar decline took place in Dutch settlements as their sites of colonization
began to shift to East Asia. For example, Dutch Chinsura was given up to the English about the year
1825 in exchange for British possessions in Sumatra.109
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The rise and decline of Pondicherry, is yet another example of the effect of international political
economy and internal political situation on European settlements. Francois Martin, a merchant of the
French East India Company, founded the town in 1674 on the territory south of Madras.110 Unlike
the Portuguese or Danes, racial segregation was a norm among the French, even in this early period.
The city had a gridiron layout with a canal separating the French from the native town. Pondicherry
reached its golden age under Marquis Dupleix in the mid-eighteenth century. However, the destruc-
tion of the city by the British in 1761 had a significant impact on its built form. After the city was
returned to the French in 1763, it was reconstructed at a modest scale, using much of the old mate-
rial. The new government house, constructed in neoclassical style, was modest compared to its pre-
decessor and reflected the financial difficulties of the French in India and lack of support from the
French government. The British again destroyed the fortifications, in 1778, and building activities
were resumed in the 1790s, but Pondicherry never recaptured its old glory. It was again captured by
the British for the third time in 1793 and finally returned to the French in 1816. However, by that
time, the British had established its supremacy in India and French settlements such as Pondicherry
and Chandernagore were retained for minimal commercial interests, as the sites of French coloniza-
tion began to shift to Indochina and North Africa.
In contrast, British Calcutta came to be known as the city of palaces, by late the eighteenth
century, in the eyes of European visitors. Mrs. Eliza Fay wrote, ‘‘the town of Calcutta reaches along
the eastern bank of the Hoogly; as you come up past Fort William and the Esplanade row it has a
beautiful appearance. Esplanade-row as it is called, which fronts the Fort, seems to be composed
of palaces.’’111 Later on in early 1800s, in his description of the area adjacent to the governor’s
house, Lord Valentia wrote, ‘‘Chouringee, an entire village of palaces, runs for a considerable length
at right angles with it, and, altogether, forms the finest view I ever beheld in any city.’’112 Such
admiration, among Europeans, for Calcutta continued even in the mid- to late nineteenth century. For
example, James Kerr wrote in 1870s, ‘‘On landing, just when you arrive . . . you obtain as good a view
as well can be of the European part of the town, the ‘city of palaces,’ as it is proudly called.’’113
The transformation of Calcutta from humble huts to a city of palaces was directly attributable to
the British supremacy in India, especially in Bengal, and the consequent wealth and power that
acquired. However, indigenous capital also played a significant role in the rise of Calcutta, as the
About Bengali elite took up commercial activity.114 The town was established in 1690 as an English fac-
Kolkata tory, by Job Charnock in the village of Sutanati in his third attempt to establish a permanent British
settlement in Bengal.115 In 1696, the British had permission to defend themselves, resulting in a bas-
tion and wall enclosure to be built in 1697. Subsequently, the construction of a fort began in 1699
and was completed in 1702. Initially, it contained the governor’s residence, workshops, warehouses,
and lodgings for the East India Company’s employees. Although this English settlement grew out-
side the walls of the fort, it was still modest. The Nawab of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, ransacked the
city in 1756, but the British were able to regain power of the city within six months. The resounding
English victory, in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, was a turning point in the development of Calcutta.
As pointed out by the Englishwoman Kathleen Blechynden at the turn of the twentieth century,
‘‘with the triumphant reversal of fortune which followed Plassey, the necessity for keeping the
English factory at Calcutta within the Fort was at an end. The town at once began to expand, and
the European quarter to spread.’’116
During the first century of British presence, colonial and indigenous modes of spatial organiza-
tion existed with tension between both sides. Instead of exercising absolute spatial, political, and
economic control over the city, the British attempted to maximize profit by leaving indigenous sys-
tems of production, finance, and trade in the native town.117 Social and political control did not
become the primary motives for urban planning exercises in Calcutta, until the immediate post-
Plassey period; a new fort was erected and an enormous open space was created in front of it to have
a free view and firing space.
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By the end of the eighteenth century, efforts were made to change the fabric of the city to increase
political authority, legitimize the British presence as an imperial power, and increase surveillance
over the indigenous population. Lord Wellesley appointed a Town Improvent Committee in
1803.118 Wellesley’s committee tried to bring about symmetry and control in the city, by proposing
regulations on native-owned buildings, carving of rectilinear broad venues through the native parts
of the town, improved sanitation, and beautification of the city. Wellesley’s intention was to set the
city as a symbol of power and as a stage for propagation of the empire. However grandiose his plans,
Wellesley and his committee’s efforts could not go beyond the governor’s house and its adjacent
areas.
Subsequently, responsibility of town planning was handed over to a Lottery Committee that was
appointed in 1817, after the outbreak of the Cholera epidemic in Calcutta. The Lottery Committee’s
recommendations included improved drainage, stringent control in manner of living of the indigen-
ous population, promotion of ventilation, and the building of roads, especially through the parts of
town that were originally built by the native Indians. Much of the Committee’s recommendations
were based on the medical theories on spread of diseases prevalent at that time. While Foucaultian’s
notion of surveillance and control and Saidian treatise on colonial discourse both offer an explana-
tion for the committee’s plans, postcolonial theory offers an explanation on the failure of the com-
mittee to fully execute its plans. Only, two streets were completed, because the indigenous
merchants who had much stake in the city were successfully able stall or scale back the operations
of the Committee.119 In many cases, they would hold out for compensation, and since the committee
did not have the power of eminent domain, the resistance from the native population offset much of
the plans. However, much of the Lottery Committee’s city improvement measures were confined to
the British part of the town, especially the Chowringhee. One of the tasks of the Lottery Committee
was to make Calcutta more suitable for the Englishmen to live in the city for a long period of time.120
Even in these early days, racial segregation was the norm, and British differentiated the company
occupied areas as ‘‘White Town’’ and indigenous part of the city as ‘‘Black Town.’’121 Despite the
commonplace and accepted segregation, the allocation of ‘‘white’’ versus ‘‘black’’ areas still had a
blurry boundary line. In looking at the wealthy and exclusive areas for whites, they were situated
around the administrative center of the city, consisting of the Mint, Customs House, warehouses
along the Hoogly River, the Writers Building, the Government House, Council House, and Supreme
Court. Commenting on this enclave, Emma Roberts wrote, ‘‘The Suburb of Chowringee, which has
lately extended over an immense tract of the country, is the favorite residence of the European com-
munity. The houses are all separate, standing in the midst of gardens, sometimes divided from each
other by narrow avenues, though frequently intersected by broad roads.’’122 However, as pointed out
by Chattopadhyay, the boundaries between the White and Back town was quite fluid and at no point
was the White town a homogenous space for the Europeans.123 As she further points out, property
changed hands between Europeans and Indians frequently, and even the density of the European
parts of the town were not as low as was portrayed. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, the design
of these houses where the British lived was a hybrid. Finally, the presence Indian servants blurred
these boundaries. The British, were, however, more successful in maintaining racial segregation in
the cantonment towns.124
Viewed from the postcolonial perspective of colonial discourse, the use of the terms ‘‘White
Town’’ and ‘‘Black Town’’ can be seen as a part of the imperial intention to construct the other-
ness and inferiority of the Indians. Lord Valencia’s writings are an example of such an attempt.
In sharp contrast to his admiration for the ‘‘White Town,’’ as a city of palaces, this is what he
wrote about the ‘‘Black Town:’’ ‘‘The Black Town is a complete contrast to this as can well be
conceived. Its streets are narrow and dirty; the houses, of two stories, occasionally brick, but gen-
erally of mud, and thatched, perfectly resembling the cabins of the poorest class in Ireland.’’125
Later, in 1830s, Emma Roberts, wrote, ‘‘The Black Town, as it is called, extends along the river
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Figure 10. The Black Town of Calcutta by Balthazar Solvyns, 1807, Engraving: an artist’s depiction the
overcrowding. Source: Pratapaditya Pal and Vidya Dehejia, From Merchants to Emperors: British Artists and India,
1757-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986).
to the north, and a more wretched-looking place can scarcely be imagined; dirty, crowded,
ill-built, and abounding with beggars and bad smells’’126 (see figure 10 for an artist’s portrayal
of the Black Town in Calcutta).
Such discourse eventually led to the segregation between the European and the indigenous city,
by suggesting that the unsanitary conditions of the indigenous parts of cities were breeding grounds
for disease. As discussed before, even at the turn of the nineteenth century, the Lottery Committee’s
plans for Calcutta were influenced by such discourse. Such discourse became more pronounced in
mid-nineteenth century with the emergence of medical theories concerning stagnant air, water, and
humidity and its role in breeding disease.127 In addition, the notion of racial and cultural supremacy,
a product of the Victorian discourse, prompted this segregation.128
Thus, by the end of the nineteenth century, Kipling even suggested that turning Hausmanns loose
in the city might benefit it, upon viewing the huts in Machua Bazaar, an indigenous part of Calcutta.
According to him, ‘‘All the more reason, then, to turn several Hausmanns loose into the city, with
instructions to make barracks for the population that cannot find room in the huts and sleeps in the
open ways, cherishing dogs and worse, much worse, in its unwashen bosom.’’129 According to him,
the squalor of the city was attributable to the participation of Indians in the local government. As he
reflected, ‘‘it seems not only a wrong but a criminal thing to allow natives to have any voice in the
control of such a city—adorned, docked, wharfed, fronted, and reclaimed by Englishmen, existing
only because England lives, and dependent for its life on England.’’130 Such types of discourse legit-
imized the lack of planning in the native Indian areas of colonial cities and discrimination through
the provision of civic amenities. This type of discourse continued into the twentieth century, and any
Englishman that questioned such discourse was unpopular and viewed with suspicion by British offi-
cials. The most prominent example was that of the British town planner, Sir Patrick Geddes, who had
some sympathy for indigenous cities.131
After the Indian war of Independence in 1857, political and social control was the driving force in
planning activities. However, as we have seen in our earlier discussion, such a tendency existed in
Calcutta a century earlier in the immediate post-Plassey period. In the walled city of Old Delhi (also
221
known as Shahjahanabad),132 the British altered the spatial structure as they felt that the urban form
was in part attributable to their difficulty in suppressing the war.133 Immediately after the war,
one-third of the built up area was leveled and the entire population of the walled city was forcibly
evicted. In 1859, buildings around a 500-yard radius of Red Fort were cleared for a military security
zone. The city was divided into a cantonment, civil station, and the native city.134 The cantonment
occupied about one-third of the area of the city, where troops were stationed. The civil line or station
was the main residential area for British civilians, while the indigenous population was mainly
confined to the walled city. The civil line was separated from the indigenous city by the north wall,
the 500-yard military security zone, a newly established garden, an existing garden, and a new burial
ground. Besides security, concerns for heath and sanitation were also used as a justification for
demotion in the indigenous city. About Spatial development
The war had changed the British perceptions of disease, and areas where indigenous Indians lived
was seen as unhealthy and considered a threat to public health. Those who had supported or joined
the war inhabited many of the neighborhoods that were demolished. Clearly, Foucaultian notion of
surveillance and control explain British planning endeavors after the Indian war of Independence in
1857. Such control and surveillance was also evident elsewhere in India.135 In Lucknow, for exam-
ple, social control was imposed through new building regulations that enforced uniform architecture,
which suppressed balconies and ornate design. The new colonial suburbs did not allow the construc-
tion of traditional courtyard houses as they were designated as ill designed and poorly ventilated.
Bombay was also re-planned from the 1860s onward to make it a modern city that was worthy of
a central place with the British Empire.136 Conscious transfer of planning concepts from Britain also
emerged at that time. As pointed out by King, members of the metropolitan society carried with them
conceptual models of their own society and culture to the colony.137 Such models were important in
structuring the settlement patterns they created in the colony and were used to transform colonial
cities in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The transfer of planning concepts from Britain became more pronounced from the early twentieth
century with the development of city planning theory, legislation, and ideology in Britain.138
Besides transplantation of planning ideologies, the creation of Imperial Delhi is an example of a
demonstration of the power of the British over Indians. In this case, the British commissioned archi-
tects and town planners to design a new capital that would be a ‘‘garden city’’ as well as ‘‘a city
beautiful’’ to elevate the image of imperial government above the indigenous life and commerce
of Old Delhi, ignoring the civic needs of the old indigenous city.139 The choice of Delhi was sym-
bolic. It was the site of several Durbars, which the British had held.140 The British believed that the
location would provide an appropriate setting to present their power over the Indian subcontinent,
since the city was the strategic and glorious capital of the former Mughal Empire and site of Hindu
legends.141 Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India wrote:
‘‘Delhi is still a name to conjure with. It is intimately associated in the minds of the Hindus with sacred
legends which go back even beyond the dawn of history . . . . To the Mohammedans it would be a source
of unbounded gratification to see the ancient capital of Moguls restored to its proud position as the seat of
the Empire.’’142
The city was to serve as a spectacle not only for the natives but also for the British at home and other
Europeans. Being also the site of the Indian war of Independence in 1857, and its subsequent sup-
pression, it would also serve as a constant reminder of British victory in that war.143 As pointed out
by Vale, the British viewed the selection of Delhi as a site for a new capital as a reminder of dom-
ination since they believed that the sheer capability to move the seat of British India by royal decree
would be seen as an evidence of the empire’s continued vitality.144 In Foucault’s terms, the entire
city was that of spectacle and surveillance. Processional avenues, imposing plazas, and impressive
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facades characterized the city.145 The triumphal avenues were wide enough for a resplendent army
to troop with an awesome effect on the native spectator.146 Such avenues were not only assertion
of the British rule but were meant to expedite control in the case of an uprising.147 To use
Chakravarty’s terms, the physical separation of the master and the bonded men was conspicuous
in Imperial Delhi, through exclusion of industry and ordinary section of the population in the city.
All deviants including the homeless, the prostitutes, the gamblers, the infirm, the industries, and the
workshops were banished to the old walled city.148
Although surveillance, control, discourse, and display of power shaped Imperial Delhi, the
British were not successful in imposing control and order, in the walled city or the settlements that
developed spontaneously outside it. Complete disregard for building regulations, illegal develop-
ments, and deviant spatial practices had frustrated and angered the colonial authorities for many
decades, prior to the building of Imperial Delhi, and postcolonial theories of resistance and negotia-
tion explain the British failure. As pointed out by Hosagrahar, residents of Old Delhi were able to
maneuver building regulations and codes through legal procedures, noncompliance, and loop-
holes.149 Even planned housing enclaves of the mid-1930s, situated on the outskirts of the old walled
city and the new imperial city, were met with resistance from the indigenous population. Only a
handful of the citizenry were convinced about the virtues of these rationally planned enclaves that
were aimed at providing the physical environment for nurturing ideal citizens of British India. Many
of those that settled in these newly planned communities focused on modernist European models of
architecture and urban design, eventually modified the original plans to suit their needs.
Concluding Remarks
It is clear from the preceding discussion that insights from multiple analytical and theoretical
frameworks are more appropriate for explaining almost three centuries of colonial urbanism in India.
Post-structuralist theories such as Foucault’s treatise on nature and dynamics of discourse, power,
knowledge, and architecture and Said’s Orientalism helps us understand the imposition architecture
and urban planning as instruments of domination, subjugation and control, and the discourses that
accompanied such practices. As discussed, the logic of most British architecture in India since the
late eighteenth century was that of spectacle. The proposition is also true for other European powers,
until the British gained a stronghold in India. The British resorted to monumental architecture to
impress their power on the Indians through their built structures. Such architecture blended the
British ideology of creating a permanent gulf of contempt and fear between the ruler and the ruled.
Lord Valencia’s writings and Ole Bie’s arguments shed light on role of discourse in legitimizing this
architecture of spectacle among the early colonizers. The views of King George the V on the
government house in Imperial Delhi illustrates the continuation of such discourse in the late colonial
period among the British.
The last desperate effort of the British to use architecture as a spectacle and symbol of power was
in Imperial Delhi. Besides impressing the Indians, the buildings were meant to impress the world
about the British Empire’s continued vitality. Imperial Delhi was fully intended to create a perma-
nent gulf of contempt and fear between the ruler and the ruled. The physical separation in the master
and the bonded men was conspicuous, through exclusion of selected undesirable populations in the
city. In Foucault’s terms, the entire city was that of spectacle and surveillance. Nonetheless, post-
colonial theory provides an explanation for compromises that were made in the architectural styles
used in Imperial Delhi. Such theory also explains the failure of the colonial administration in impos-
ing control and order in the walled city and the settlements that developed spontaneously outside it.
The importance of discourse, as a source of power, was revealed in the way the British under-
mined indigenous architecture beginning early in the nineteenth century. Orientalism provides
insights on how the British made authoritative statements about Indian architecture and culture and
223
manipulated indigenous design elements to promote Indo-Saracenic architecture. Viewed from the
postcolonial theoretical perspective, an important feature of this discourse was to vilify Indian archi-
tecture on the basis of race, and construct the other (i.e., the colonized Indians), who is entirely
knowable and visible. This concept of otherness was also used in colonial discourse to distinguish
between the ‘‘Black Town’’ and the ‘‘White Town.’’ The ‘‘Black Town’’ was portrayed as over-
crowded and unhygienic, and it was eventually claimed that the unsanitary conditions of the indi-
genous parts of cities were breeding grounds for disease. Such discourse not only led to the
segregation between the European and the indigenous city but also legitimized the lack of planning
in these native parts of the city.
The nature of discourse changed over time and was related to major historical events, as well as
intellectual and planning movements in Britain. The initial colonial discourse was an effort to
legitimize the architecture of spectacle. As the British began to establish a stronghold in India, after
the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the discourse on otherness and racial inferiority of Indians began to
emerge to justify conquest and establish systems of administration. Such a tendency became more
pronounced after the establishment of Crown rule in 1858, as the British gained complete territorial
control and began to conceive of themselves as legitimate and almost indigenous rulers. The
Enlightenment, Liberal, and Evangelical movements influenced the discourse of late eighteenth and
early nineteenth century in India. During the mid-nineteenth century, discourse was influenced by
British medical theories concerning stagnant air, water, and humidity, and its role in breeding
disease. Finally, the early twentieth century discourse was shaped by contemporary British city
planning theory, legislation, and ideology.
The architecture promoted for palaces of Indian princes by the British were what Foucault has
called the architecture of surveillance. At the same time, postcolonial theory offers an explanation
on ability of princes to respond to this architectural imperialism in a deviant fashion. This explains
how the Bengali elite were able to selectively choose European elements and resist others in their
hybrid mansions in Calcutta. Postcolonial theory also helps us understand the adjustments made
by the British in the spatial and social arrangement of their houses of eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
tury Calcutta, as well as in Wellesley’s palace.
Dependent urbanism suggests that the political and economic landscape played an important role
in shaping the building activities in the colonial urbanism. The wealth acquired by English mer-
chants, because of colonization, enabled them to build neoclassical mansions by the late eighteenth
century in Calcutta, as physical displays of their wealth. Speculation led to incorporation of servants’
quarters as an afterthought in many of these houses. The garden houses of the eighteenth and early
nineteenth-century Calcutta were physical manifestations of consumption and expropriation.
Wealthy Indians and other Europeans, whose fortunes changed with a shift in the colonial political
economy, were inclined to build in a grandiose fashion.
Theories of dependent urbanism also help us understand how the changing nature of international
political economy and the then internal political situation influenced the European settlement pat-
terns. The decline of Portuguese Old Goa, Danish Serampore and Tranquebar, Dutch Chinsura,
French Pondicherry and Chandernagore, and the subsequent rise of Calcutta, reflected these transi-
tions. We also saw that motives for colonization were significant factors in shaping urban patterns.
The early European settlements were rudimentary because trade was the primary motive. Territorial
possession became necessary whenever the motive shifted to monopolizing trade by force, as was
the case of the Portuguese and later the British. Except for the French, none of the other European
powers had significant territorial ambitions or possessions. Hence, many European settlements
remained rudimentary, except for short time periods and were eventually obliterated to obscurity.
The Portuguese motive of Christianization led to the erection of several churches and monasteries
in Old Goa. In contrast, administrative buildings dominated the British colonial landscape because
of their economic and militaristic motives behind colonization. Old Goa’s magnificence and
224
Sen 225
splendor was maintained until late seventeenth century due to the Portuguese colonial motives of
Hispanicization and Christianization. While the British and the French promoted racial segregation
in their settlement patterns, this was not the norm with the other colonizers. Social and political
control was the primary motives for urban planning exercises of British colonization. This was
evident in the tendency for surveillance and control in post–Plassey period in Calcutta; in the
post–First War of Independence period in Delhi and elsewhere in India; even in Imperial Delhi.
In summary, colonial urbanism in India was complex and multifaceted. It was a story of domination,
dependence, and control, as well as that of negotiation, compromise, and adaptation.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank Professor Robert Beauregard of Columbia University, Professor
Raphaël Fischler of McGill University, Professor Andrew Lees of Rutgers University, anonymous
referees, and the editor of the journal for comments on earlier drafts. The author would also like to
thank Page A. Hinerman, Nadji Kirby, and Alexandra Mejia of Morgan State University for their
invaluable research assistance.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of
this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.
Notes
1. For a detailed discussion of these theories and treatises and see, Michel Foucault, The Archeology of Knowl-
edge (New York: Pantheon, [1969] 1972); Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
(New York: Vintage Books, [1975] 1979); Anthony D. King, Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social
Power and Environment (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976); Manuel Castells, The Urban Question:
A Marxist Approach (London: Edward Arnold, 1977); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1978); Anthony D. King, ‘‘Colonialism, and the Development of the Modern South Asian City: The-
oretical Considerations,’’ in The City in South Asia: Pre-Modern and Modern, ed. Kenneth Ballhatchet and
John Harrison (London: Curzon Press, 1980); Anthony D. King, ‘‘Exporting Planning: The Colonial and
Neo-Colonial Experience,’’ in Shaping an Urban World: Planning in the Twentieth Century, ed. Gordon
E. Cherry (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1980); Karlis Racevskis, Michel Foucault and the Subversion
of Intellect (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983); Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of
the Social Environment (Boston: MIT Press, 1989); Anthony D. King, ‘‘Colonialism, Urbanism and the
Capitalist World Economy: An Introduction,’’ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 13,
no. 1 (1989): 1-18; Anthony D. King, Global Cities: Post-Imperialism and the Internationalization of
London (London: Routledge, 1990); Anthony D. King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World Economy:
Cultural and Spatial Foundations of the World Urban System (London: Routledge, 1990); Gwendolyn
Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1991); and Nezar AlSayyad, ‘‘Urbanism and the Dominance Equation: Reflections on Colonialism and
National Identity,’’ in Forms of Dominance: On the Architecture and Urbanism of the Colonial Enterprise,
ed. Nezar AlSayyad (Aldershot: Avebury, 1992).
2. Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, A Concise History of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002).
3. See for example, Ranajit Guha, ed. Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society, Vol. I
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981); Partha Chatterjee, ‘‘Agrarian Relations and Communalism in
225
Bengal, 1926-1935,’’ in Subaltern Studies; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘‘Can the Subaltern Speak?
Speculations on Widow Sacrifice,’’ Wedge 7/8, (1985): 120-30; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘‘The Rani
of Sirmur: An Essay in Reading the Archives,’’ History and Theory 24, no. 3 (1985): 247-72; Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak, ‘‘Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism,’’ Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1
(1985): 243-61; Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse?
(London: Zed Books, 1986); Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, eds., Selected Subaltern Studies
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘‘Subaltern Studies: Deconstruct-
ing Historiography,’’ in Selected Subaltern Studies; Partha Chatterjee, ‘‘More on Modes of Power and the
Peasantry,’’ in Selected Subaltern Studies; Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and
Post Colonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); and Homi K. Bhabha, The Location
of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).
4. Racevskis, Michel Foucault and the Subversion of Intellect, 16.
5. Said, Orientalism.
6. Bart Moore-Gilbert, ‘‘Edward Said: Orientalism and Beyond,’’ in Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Prac-
tices, and Politics, ed. Bart Moore-Gilbert (London: Verso, 1997).
8. Said, Orientalism, 3.
9. Ibid.
10. There have been various attempts to relate Orientalism to colonial architecture both explicitly and impli-
citly. Among others see for example, Thomas R. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and
Britain’s Raj (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and Mark Crinson, Empire Building:
Orientalism and Victorian Architecture (London: Routledge, 1996).
11. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 216.
12. For original formulations of dependency and world system theories, see, Immanuel Wallerstein, The Mod-
ern World System (London: Academic Press, 1974); Samir Amin, Unequal Development: An Essay on
Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976); André Gundar
Frank, Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979); and
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Capitalist World Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
13. Among others see for example, T. Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988); Rabinow, French Modern; Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism; AlSayyad,
ed., Forms of Dominance (selected chapters); and Z. Celik, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations:
Algiers under French Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
14. Castells, The Urban Question; and King, Colonial Urban Development.
15. In this terminology, the core is the metropolitan country (namely the colonizer’s country) and the periphery
is the colony. The core–periphery relationship was that of exploitation of the periphery by the core, by
restricting the main economic function of the colony to production of mineral, agricultural, and other raw
materials for export to the core for manufacturing and consumption. Manufactured goods were exported
back to the periphery for consumption, with the virtual exclusion of any manufacturing in the periphery.
For an overview of the Indian situation, see for example, Amiya Kumar Bagchi, ‘‘Foreign Capital and
Economic Development in India: A Schematic View,’’ in Imperialism and Revolution in South Asia, ed.
Kathleen Gough and Hari P. Sharma (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973); Hamza Alavi, ‘‘India and
the Colonial Mode of Production,’’ Economic and Political Weekly 10, nos. 33-35 (1975): 1235-62; and
David Washbrook, ‘‘South Asia, the World System, and World Capitalism,’’ The Journal of Asian Studies
49, no. 3 (1990): 479-508.
16. King, Colonial Urban Development.
17. King, ‘‘Colonialism, Urbanism and the Capitalist World Economy;’’ and King, Urbanism, Colonialism,
and the World Economy.
18. King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World Economy.
19. This type of settlement is described later.
226
Sen 227
20. Bhabha, The Location of Culture.

21. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 70.
22. Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, 10.
23. Ibid.
24. Chakravorty Spivak, ‘‘The Rani of Sirmur.’’
25. Suhash Chakravarty, The Raj Syndrome: A Study of Imperial Perceptions (Delhi: Chanakya Publications,
1989), 52.
26. Ibid.
27. Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).
28. Bhabha, Location of Culture; Moore-Gilbert, ‘‘Gayatri Spivak: The Deconstructive Twist,’’ in Postcolonial
Theory.
29. See for example, Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies; Chatterjee, ‘‘Agrarian Relations and Communalism in
Bengal, 1926-1935;’’ Chakravorty Spivak, ‘‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’’ Chakravorty Spivak, ‘‘The Rani
of Sirmur;’’ Chakravorty Spivak, ‘‘Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism;’’ Guha and
Chakravorty Spivak, eds., Selected Subaltern Studies; Chakravorty Spivak, ‘‘Subaltern Studies;’’ and
Chatterjee, ‘‘More on Modes of Power and the Peasantry.’’
30. Among others see, S. Raychaudhuri, ‘‘Colonialism: Indigenous Elites and the Transformation of Cities in the
Non-Western World: Ahmadabad (Western India), 1890-1947,’’ Modern Asian Studies 35, no. 3 (2001): 667-
726; Nihal Perera, ‘‘Indigenizing the Colonial City: Late Nineteenth Century Colombo and its Landscape,’’
Urban Studies 39, no.9 (2002): 1703-21; A. D. King, ‘‘Actually Existing Postcolonialism: Colonial Architec-
ture and Urbanism after the Postcolonial Turn,’’ in Postcolonial Urbanism: South East Asian Cities and Global
Processes, ed. Bishop, J. Phillips and W.W. Yeo (London: Routledge, 2003); Anthony King, ‘‘Rethinking
Colonialism: An Epilogue,’’ in Forms of Dominance; Jyoti Hosagrahar, Indigenous Modernities: Negotiating
Architecture and Urbanism (London: Routledge, 2005); Swati Chattopadhyay, ‘‘Blurring Boundaries: The
Limits of ‘‘White Town’’ in Colonial Calcutta,’’ The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 59,
no. 2 (2000): 154-179; Swati Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism, and Colonial
Uncanny (London: Routledge, 2005); Swati Chattopadhyay, ‘‘The Other Face of Primitive Accumulation: The
Garden Houses in British Colonial Bengal,’’ in Colonial Modernities: Building, Dwelling and Architecture in
British India and Ceylon, ed. Peter Scriver and Vikramaditya Prakash (Routledge: London, 2007); and Jyoti
Hosagrahar, ‘‘Negotiated Modernities: Symbolic Terrains of Housing in Delhi,’’ in Colonial Modernities.
31. The discussion on early colonial architecture is based on Sten Nilsson, European Architecture in India
1750-1850 (New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, [1968]1969); and H. R. Tillotson, The Tradition
of Indian Architecture: Continuity, Controversy and Change Since 1850 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1989), unless otherwise stated.
32. Pratapaditya Pal and Vidya Dehejia, From Merchants to Emperors: British Artists and India, 1757-1930
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986).
33. Norma Evenson, The Indian Metropolis: A View Towards the West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
34. James Kerr. The Land of Ind; or Glimpses of India (London: Longman, Green, and Company, 1873), 91.
35. John Archer, ‘‘Paras, Palaces, Pathogens; Frameworks for the Growth of Calcutta, 1800-1850,’’ City and
Society 12, no. 1 (2000): 19-54.
36. Ibid.
37. Evenson, The Indian Metropolis.
38. Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta.
39. John Archer, Colonial Suburbs in South Asia, 1700-1850, and the Spaces of Modernity,’’ in Visions of Sub-
urbia, ed. Roger Silverstone (London: Routledge, 1997); and Archer, ‘‘Paras, Palaces, Pathogens.’’
40. Chattopadhyay, ‘‘The Other Face of Primitive Accumulation.’’
41. Ibid. Note that the British institutionalized the extraction of revenue from land through the appointment of
hereditary revenue officers, known as Zamindars to collect taxes for them.
42. Ibid.
227
43. Mrs. Eliza Fay, Original Letters from India (1779-1815), With Introductory and Terminal Notes by E. M
Forster (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1925), 180-81.
44. Chattopadhyay, ‘‘Blurring Boundaries;’’ and Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta.
45. Emma Roberts, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society, Vol I
(London; WM. H Allen and Company, 1837, 2nd edn), 7.
46. Kerr, The Land of Ind, 96.
48. Ibid.
49. Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850.
50. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision.
54. Archer, ‘‘Paras, Palaces, Pathogens.’’
56. Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850 and Metcalf, An Imperial Vision.
57. Ibid.
59. George Viscount Valentia, Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt, in the
Years 1802, 1803, 1804, and 1806, Vol. I (London: F. C. and J. Rivington [1809] 1811), 191–192.
60. Ibid, 192.
61. The discussion on Serampore is based on Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850, unless oth-
erwise stated. The neighboring Europeans were the Portuguese in Bandel, the Dutch in Chinsura, the
French Chandernagore, and the British in Calcutta.
62. Valentia, Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt, in the Years 1802,
1803, 1804, and 1806, Vol. I, 192. Note that chunam is stucco used in India.
63. After the fall of Pondicherry in 1761, the French power in India virtually came to an end. For a detailed dis-
cussion see Percival Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India: 1740-1947 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1965).
64. The discussion on Marquis Dupleix’s government house is based on Nilsson, European Architecture in
India 1750-1850; and Preeti Chopra, ‘‘Pondicherry: A French Enclave in India,’’ in Forms of Dominance.
66. The discussion on William Jones and William Chambers is based on S. N. Mukherjee, Sir William Jones:
A Study in Eighteenth-Century British Attitudes to India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968);
and Stephen Cairns, ‘‘The Stone Books of Orientalism,’’ in Colonial Modernities.
68. Ibid.
69. James Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, Vols. 1 & II (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal
Oriental Publishers, [1876] 1967).
70. Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, Vol. I, 4.
71. Ibid.
74. Fergusson, History of Architecture in All Countries: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Vol. I,
2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1874).
228
Sen 229
79. Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, Vol. II, 188.
80. Among others see Philip Davies, Splendours of the Raj: British Architecture in India, 1660-1947 (New
York: Penguin Books, [1985] 1987); Tillotson, The Tradition of Indian Architecture; Metcalf, An Imper-
ial Vision; and Peter Scriver, ‘‘Stones and Texts: The Architectural Historiography of Colonial India and
its Colonial-Modern Contexts,’’ in Colonial Modernities.
81. Scriver, ‘‘Stones and Texts.’’
82. Karl Marx was the first philosopher to refer to the ‘‘Sepoy Mutiny’’ as the ‘‘First Indian War of Indepen-
dence. See Karl Marx, The First Indian War of Independence (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing
House, [1857] 1959).
83. The discussion in this paragraph is based on Metcalf, An Imperial Vision.
84. The discussion on Bombay is based on, Davies, Splendours of the Raj; and Metcalf, An Imperial Vision.
For a detailed discussion on the British effort to define Bombay as a European city in their discursive prac-
tices, see the above sources.
85. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision. The memorial was conceived of immediately after the death of Queen
Victoria in 1901 and completed in 1921.
86. Davies, Splendours of the Raj; and Metcalf, An Imperial Vision.
88. Ibid.
89. Rudyard Kipling, ‘‘Letters of Marque,’’ in From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel, Part I, Rudyard Kipling
(New York: Double Day, Page and Company [1899]1907), 20.
90. For a detailed discussion on the various types of palaces that were built by the princes, among others see
Metcalf, An Imperial Vision; and Tillotson, The Tradition of Indian Architecture.
91. For a detailed discussion on the prolonged debate architectural styles to be used in New Delhi, among
others see, Metcalf, An Imperial Vision; and Tillotson, The Tradition of Indian Architecture.
92. Lord Stamfordham as quoted in Robert Grant Irving, Indian Summer: Luytens, Baker, and Imperial Delhi
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 72.
93. Ibid, 72. The Jumma Masjid is one of the largest mosque in India situated in the city of Shahjahanabad
(old Delhi), while the ridge lies to the north of that city. The fort refers to a fortress palace of Mughal
Emperor Shah Jahan completed in 1648.
94. The author has added the phrase in italics.
95. Irving, Indian Summer, 73.
96. See Anthony Disney, ‘‘The Portuguese Empire in India c. 1550-1650: Some Suggestions for a Less
Seabourne, More Landbound Approach to its Socio-Economic History,’’ in Indo-Portuguese History:
Sources and Problems, ed. John Correia-Afonso (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1981).
97. Nihal Perera, Society and Space: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Postcolonial Identity in Sri Lanka
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1998).
98. Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850.
99. Disney, ‘‘The Portuguese Empire in India c. 1550-1650;’’ and Perera, Society and Space.
100. See K. G. Jayne, Vasco Da Gama and His Successors 1460-1580 (New York and London: Barnes and
Noble, Inc. and Methuen and Co. [1910] 1970).
101. The description of settlements patterns, town planning practices and architectural styles used by the
Portuguese is based on Helder Carita, Palaces of Goa: Models and Types of Indo- Portuguese Civil
Architecture (Cartago; London, [1997] 1999); J. M. Richards, Goa (Vikas Publishing House: New Delhi,
1982); Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850; and Perera, Society and Space.
102. K. G. Jayne, Vasco Da Gama and His Successors 1460-1580.
103. The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy to India, Vol III. Translated from
the Portuguese edition of 1774 with notes and introduction by Walter De Gray Birch (New York: Burt
Franklin [1884] 1970), 262-3.
229
104. See, K. G. Jayne, Vasco Da Gama and His Successors 1460-1580; and Frederick Charles Danvers, The
Portuguese in India: Being a History of the Rise and Decline of their Eastern Empire, Vol. Two (Octagon
Books: New York [1894] 1966) for a detailed discussion on the decline of the Portuguese empire in India.
105. For a detailed discussion on motives for Portuguese colonization see Jayne, Vasco Da Gama and His Suc-
cessors 1460-1580; and Geneviève Bouchon, ‘‘Portuguese Documents on Sixteenth Century India,’’ in
Indo-Portuguese History: Sources and Problems, ed. John Correia-Afonso (Bombay: Oxford University
Press, 1981).
106. For discussion on mixed marriages and development of Indo-Portuguese culture see Jayne, Vasco Da
Gama and His Successors 1460-1580; and Geneviève Bouchon, ‘‘Portuguese Documents on Sixteenth
Century India.’’
107. The discussion on Tranquebar is based on Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850.
108. Kathleen Blechynden, Calcutta Past and Present (London: W. Thacker and Company, 1905).
109. Ibid.
110. The discussion on town planning in Pondicherry is based on and S. P. Sen, The French in India: First
Establishment and Struggle (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1947); Nilsson, European Architecture
in India 1750-1850; and Chopra, ‘‘Pondicherry.’’
111. Fay, Original Letters from India (1779-1815), 181.
1803, 1804, and 1806, Vol. I, 192.
113. Kerr, The Land of Ind, 93.
114. See for example, Sunil K Munshi, ‘‘Genesis of the Metropolis,’’ in Calcutta 1981: The City, Its Crisis and
the Debate on Urban Planning and Development, ed. Jean Racine (New Delhi: Concept Publishing
Company, [1986] 1990); and Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta.
115. The description of early town planning practices in Calcutta is based on Blechynden, Calcutta Past and
Present; and H. E. A. Cotton, Calcutta Old and New: A Historical and Descriptive Handbook to the City
(Calcutta: W. Newman and Company, 1907), unless otherwise stated.
116. Blechynden, Calcutta Past and Present, 68.
118. The discussion on Wellesley’s Town Planning Committee and the Lottery Committee is based on
Blechynden, Calcutta Past and Present; Cotton, Calcutta Old and New; Archer, ‘‘Paras, Palaces,
Pathogens;’’ Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta; and Munshi, ‘‘Genesis of the Metropolis.’’
119. See Archer, ‘‘Paras, Palaces, Pathogens’’ for a detailed discussion on the resistance offered by the indi-
genous population.
120. Munshi, ‘‘Genesis of the Metropolis.’’
122. Roberts, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society, Vol. I, 9.
124. See King, Colonial Urban Development; and Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of India. The can-
tonments were the institutionalized form of settlements for military representatives of the British colonial
power. These strategic centers were generally close to where the indigenous populations resided, to main-
tain British control over them and protect the British Empire against external threats.
1803, 1804, and 1806, Vol. I, 192.
126. Roberts, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society, Vol. I, 10.
127. For a detailed discussion of such discourses see King, Colonial Urban Development; and King, Urbanism,
Colonialism, and the World Economy.
128. Ibid.
129. Kipling, ‘‘City of Dreadful Night,’’ in From Sea to Sea, 227.
130. Ibid, 187.
230
Sen 231
131. For a detailed discussion of his views on Indian cities, see Jaqueline Trywhitt, J. ed., Patrick Geddes in
India (London: Lund Humphries, 1947).
132. Since tenth century BC, Delhi had been the site of nine cities and served as the capital of many dynasties,
the last of which was, Shahjahanabad. The fifth Mughal Empire, Shah Jahan who decided to shift his
capital from Agra to Delhi 1638, built it as the capital of the Mughal Empire in the seventeenth century.
See Stephen P. Blake, Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India, 1639-1739 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991).
133. The discussion on Delhi is based on King, Colonial Urban Development; Narayani Gupta, Delhi Between
Two Empires 1803-1931: Society, Government and Urban Growth (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
[1981]1998); and Hosagrahar, Indigenous Modernities.
134. The civil station was developed for the civilian members of the colonizers. It was situated either along
with the cantonment and indigenous city as a part of a major administrative center; or it was part of
smaller administrative town, generally without a cantonment.
135. For a detailed discussion on planning exercises in this period, among others see King, Colonial Urban
Development; Veena Talwar Oldenberg, The Making of Colonial Lucknow, 1856-1877 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1984); and King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World Economy.
136. Among others see Mariam Dossal, Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City,
1845-1875 (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1991).
137. King, Colonial Urban Development; King, ‘‘Exporting Planning;’’ and King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and
the World Economy.
138. King, Colonial Urban Development; King, ‘‘Exporting Planning;’’ and King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and
the World Economy.
139. Irving, Indian Summer.
140. See Jyoti Hosagrahar, ‘‘City as Durbar: Theater and Power in Imperial Delhi,’’ in Forms of Dominance;’’
and Blake, Shahjahanabad. The Durbar was a Mughal ritual of sustaining and validating the structure of
the society by holding court, where administrative matters were attended to, offices and ordinances pro-
claimed, awards bestowed, complains heard, and ambassadors received. The British adopted this indigen-
ous ritual from the eighteenth century when officials held meetings with Indian princes and subordinates.
The British Durbar was formalized it in 1877, when an imperial assemble in Delhi declared Queen
Victoria, the Empress of India.
141. See Hosagrahar, ‘‘City as Durbar.’’ According to Hindu legends, Delhi (then known as Indraprastha) dates back
to the Vedic period in tenth century BC. Mahabharata, a Hindu epic mentioned the construction of the city.
142. Lord Hardinge as quoted in Irving, Indian Summer, 29.
144. Lawrence J. Vale. Architecture, Power, and National Identity, 2nd ed. (Routledge: London, 2008).
146. Ibid.
147. Ibid.
148. Hosagrahar, Indigenous Modernities.
149. The discussion on the resistance offered by the indigenous population in Old Delhi and in the new hous-
ing enclaves is based on Hosagrahar, Indigenous Modernities; and Hosagrahar, ‘‘Negotiated
Modernities.’’
Bio
Siddhartha Sen is a professor and chairperson of the Department of City and Regional Planning in the School
of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University. He has published several articles and book chapters
on development planning and the history of the nonprofit sector in India.
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European Architectural Practices and

Undermining Indigenous Architecture

Colonial Urban Patterns and Accompanying Discourses

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

20. Bhabha, The Location of Culture.

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