Gender, Race and the Spatiality of the Colonial Town in India

Britain’s colonization of South Asia began in the early seventeenth century with a handful of East India Company-controlled coastal trading posts, but by the end of the eighteenth century, the Company had extended its territorial control deep into the subcontinent’s interior through annexure, alliances, seizure and purchase. The colonial ports that grew from its original entrepôts anchored its power: Madras (now Chennai) on the south-east coast, Bombay (now Mumbai) on the west coast, and Calcutta (now Kolkata) in the north-eastern Gangetic delta region. Originally, these settlements, essentially fortified trading posts with adjacent, more populous indigenous habitation sites, were similar in morphology, function and demographic composition. ¹ Over time, they, along with the former Mughal centre of Delhi, were transformed into primary cities serving as hubs within the networks of communication and transportation that linked British India with imperial metropoles and other colonies. Their stabilisation and growth led, moreover, to the emergence of secondary, or link, cities, often pre-colonial administrative and market centres such as Bangalore (now Bengalaru) and Bareilly, which connected coastal sites with interior areas of extraction, manufacture and commerce. ² Finally, a unique type of town, the hill station, emerged in the early nineteenth century following Britain’s consolidation of territorial control. Located in temperate mountainous areas, these sites included Simla, Udagamandalam, Naini Tal and Darjeeling. They were built in regions of sparse, usually tribal, occupation and served as summer retreats for British civil servants and businessmen and military personnel, joined later by Indian royals and professional elites. ³ Despite differences in form and function, all three types of towns were hybrid spaces in which Indian and Eurasian residents outnumbered Britons and other Europeans throughout the colonial period. ⁴ In plan, they comprised mosaics of indigenous and European settlement forms and architectural styles, while also generating novel amalgams.