Urbanisation in India

Explore the evolution of urban centers from ancient to modern times, understanding their historical development, cultural significance, and the interplay of social, political, and economic forces shaping cities throughout history.

Urbanisation in India

1 What is Urban History

  1. What is an Urban Centre?
  2. What is Surplus?
  3. What is Urban History?
  4. Urbanism as an Interdisciplinary Project
  5. Urbanism and Comparative Method
  6. Historiography of Urbanism
  7. Urbanism and Modernity
  8. Urban Histories and the โ€˜Cultural Turnโ€™

2 Approaches to the Study of Ancient Cities

  1. The Harappan Cities
  2. Between the Harappan and the Early Historic: An Absence of Cities?
  3. The Early Historic Cities
  4. Early Historic Cities in Texts
  5. Understanding Early Historic Urbanisation
  6. Exploring and Excavating Early Historic Urban Centres

3 Approaches to the Study of Medieval Urbanisation

  1. Idea of Medieval Cities in Europe
  2. Perceptions on Medieval Indian Cities
  3. The Idea of Medieval Urbanism
  4. โ€˜City-Statesโ€™

4 Themes on Modern Cities

  1. Space and Urban Theory
  2. Materialities
  3. Knowledges: Science, Planning and Expertise
  4. Connections and Flows
  5. Textures: Politics and Everyday Life in Modern Cities
  6. Urban History in India: Key Themes

5 An Introduction to Early Urbanism

  1. Characteristics of Early Urbanism
  2. Urban Origins
  3. โ€˜Urbanโ€™ and โ€˜Ruralโ€™ as Categories
  4. The End of the Harappan Cities

6 Distribution and Morphology of Harappan Settlements

  1. Distribution of Harappan Settlements
  2. Morphology of Harappan Cities
  3. Walls, Spaces and Platforms
  4. The Issue of Planning
  5. The Use of Space: Non-Domestic
  6. The Use of Space: Domestic

7 Harappan Economy and Occupations

  1. The Subsistence Economy
  2. The Non-Subsistence Economy
  3. Craft Production
  4. Exchange Networks

8 Harappan Urban Societies

  1. Houses as Sites of Difference
  2. Anthropological Perspectives on Consumption
  3. Specialisation and Specialists
  4. Burial Practices
  5. Ideas about Ethnicity

9 Case Study of a Major Urban Centre- Mohenjodaro

  1. Layout
  2. Public Architecture
  3. Mohenjodaro Houses
  4. Craft Working at Mohenjodaro

10 Archaeology of the Early Historic Urban Centres in North India- Emergence and Characteristics

  1. Surveys and Excavations of Early Historic Urban Centres
  2. Emergence of Early Historic Urban Centres
  3. Characteristics of Early Historic Urban Centres
  4. Debates on Early Historic Urban Centres

11 Archaeology of the Emergence of Early Cities and the Characteristics of the Early Historic Urban Centres- South India

  1. The Processes of Emergence of Urbanisation: The Deccan
  2. Characteristics of Early Historical Urban Centres: The Deccan
  3. The Processes of Emergence of Urbanisation: Early Tamilakam
  4. Characteristics of Early Historical Urban Centres: Tamilakam

12 Urban Centres and Other Types of Spaces

  1. Primary Categories of Habitation
  2. Notions of Space After the Emergence of Urban Centres
  3. Spaces Around the City
  4. The Village
  5. Forest

13 Cities in Texts

  1. Representation of Cities in the Arthashastra
  2. Nigama, Nagara, and Mahanagaras
  3. City in Tripitaka and Dharmasutras
  4. City in Kavyas

14 Early Historic Cities in the Taxila Valley- Archaeological Perspectives

  1. The Taxila Valley
  2. Pre-Urban Settlements in the Taxila Valley
  3. Cities in the Taxila Valley
  4. Sacred Spaces Outside Cities
  5. Cities at a Crossroads

15 Urbanisation in Post-Gupta Period – Archaeological Evidence

  1. Post-Gupta Polity
  2. Urbanism from Texts and Inscriptions
  3. Urbanism from Archaeological Evidence – North India
  4. Urbanism from Archaeological Evidence – Eastern India
  5. Urbanism from Archaeological Evidence – Bangladesh
  6. Urbanism from Archaeological Evidence – South India
  7. Urbanism from Archaeological Evidence – Western and Central India
  8. Character of โ€˜Urbanismโ€™

16 Early Medieval Urbanisation from Epigraphy and Texts

  1. The Proliferation of Land Grants and the Theory of Urban Decay
  2. Urban Decay: A Critique
  3. Social Change and Urban Growth
  4. Representation of Urban Centres in Literary Texts
  5. Representation of Cities in Normative/Prescriptive Texts
  6. Early Medieval Port Cities
  7. Temples and Urbanisation

17 Sultanate and its Cities

  1. Textual Representations of the Sultanate Cities
  2. Debates
  3. Process of Urbanisation
  4. Wave of New Towns
  5. New Trends

18 Regional Cities

  1. Jaunpur
  2. Gaur and Pandua
  3. Kalpi
  4. Mandu
  5. Ahmadabad
  6. Gulbarga and Bidar
  7. Nature of Regional Capital Cities

19 Temple Towns in Peninsular India

  1. Emergence of Temple Towns in Peninsular India
  2. Characteristics of Temple Towns
  3. Case Study: Kanchipuram
  4. Case Study: Tanjavur
  5. Case Study: Srirangam

20 Southern Dimension – The Glory of Vijayanagara

  1. Urban Processes during the Vijayanagara Period
  2. Vijayanagara: Modern Discovery and Sources
  3. Early History of Vijayanagara
  4. The City: Layout, Buildings, and Architecture
  5. Trade and Manufacture
  6. Strategies of Imperial Control, Court Culture, and Nature of the City
  7. Accounts of Foreign Travellers
  8. Decline of the City

21 Sultanate Capital Cities in the Delhi Riverine Plain

  1. Why So Many Cities and Capitals?
  2. The Emergence of Dihlฤซ-i kuhna as Sultanate Capital
  3. The Politics of Constructing Dispensations, Military Redoubts, and Cities
  4. Constructing Cities: Conflicts Amongst and Within Dispensations

22 Spatial Characteristics of Mughal Cities

  1. Cities as Centres of Power and Authority
  2. Patrimonial-Bureaucratic Cities
  3. Camp Cities
  4. Rural-Urban Continuum: The Qasbas
  5. Landscape

23 Urban Patterns in Medieval Deccan

  1. Golconda
  2. Bijapur
  3. Industrial Cities of the Deccan
  4. Manufacturing Town: Bidar

24 Urban Culture and Society

  1. Courtly Culture
  2. Social Morphology
  3. Middle Class
  4. Slaves and Domestic Servants
  5. Familial and Gender Relations

25 Primate Cities – Agra-Fathpur Sikri-Shahjahanabad

  1. Agra
  2. Fathpur/Fatehpur Sikri
  3. Shahjahanabad
  4. Pattern of the Cityscape
  5. Mobility of the Mughal Capital Cities
  6. Symbolism in Mughal Primate Cities

26 Sacred City Spaces – Ajmerbanaras- Pandharpur

  1. Ajmer
  2. Banaras
  3. Pandharpur

27 Case Study – Masulipatnam

  1. Physical Contours of the Port
  2. Water, Health, and City Dwellings
  3. Port and the City: Linkages
  4. Port and the Hinterland: Political Environment
  5. Portuguese and the Port of Masulipatnam
  6. Masulipatnam in the Seventeenth Century
  7. Decline of the Port of Masulipatnam

28 Capitalism, Colonialism and Cities in Early Modern India

  1. Colonialism, Capitalism and Urbanisation
  2. Cities in Early Modern India
  3. European Merchant Companies and the Cities in Kachchh-Gujarat Region
  4. Mandvi
  5. Mundra

29 Port Cities- Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

  1. Surat
  2. Cochin
  3. Goa
  4. Hugli

30 Cities in the 18th Century-1

  1. Dacca
  2. Patna
  3. Ahmadabad
  4. Bangalore

31 Cities in Eighteenth Century-2

  1. Murshidabad
  2. Hyderabad
  3. Poona
  4. Lahore
  5. Srirangapatna

32 Case Study- Lucknow

  1. The Origins and Growth of Lucknow
  2. Political Prowess of the Nawabs and Begums of Awadh
  3. Lucknow as an Administrative and Economic Center
  4. The Mughal, Nawabi, and European Architectural Legacy
  5. Impact of the Annexation of Awadh (1856) and the Revolt of 1857
  6. The Decline in Nawabi Patronage
  7. Re-emergence of Lucknow in the Twentieth Century

33 Dependent Urbanisation and New Urban Forms in Colonial India

  1. Cantonments
  2. Irrigation and Canal Colonies
  3. Railways and Railway Towns
  4. Hill Stations

34 Race, Class and Ethnicity in the Colonial City

  1. From Port to Presidency Towns
  2. Race, Caste, and Class
  3. Health and Sanitation in the Divided City

35 The City as the Site of Spectacle

  1. Colonial Construction Before 1857
  2. The Revolt of 1857 and Its Implications
  3. Interpreting the Empire
  4. New Imperatives of Empire
  5. The Indian Response

36 The City as the Site of Movements

  1. An Urban History of Anti-Colonial Nationalism?
  2. Elite City Spaces
  3. Mobilising the Non-Elite
  4. Cities as Sites of Religious Identities
  5. Lived Cities

37 Modernity and the City in Colonial India

  1. The City as the Space of the Modern
  2. Technologies of the Modern
  3. Indian Engagements with Modernity
  4. New Associational Practices

38 City Planning in India Under British Rule

  1. The Early Years: Social Relationships and Urban Form in the British-Built Capitals
  2. Urban Governance and Nationalist Responses
  3. The Mixed Results of Improvement Trusts
  4. Twentieth Century Nationalism; Patrick Geddes and the Rethinking of Town Planning

39 Predicaments of Post Colonial Cities

  1. Independence/Partition and Resettlement
  2. Producing the New Urban Citizen
  3. A New Impetus to Urban Planning
  4. Critiques of Planning
  5. Social Movements and the City
  6. New Risks and Contemporary Urbanism

40 Case Study – Bombay

  1. The Origins and Growth of Early Bombay
  2. The City in the Cottonโ€“Opium Era
  3. A City Transformed: Early Industrial Bombay
  4. Bombay as a Working Class City
  5. Community and Ethnicity