Item Details
Skip Navigation Links
   ActiveUsers:1122Hits:21176289Skip Navigation Links
Show My Basket
Contact Us
IDSA Web Site
Ask Us
Today's News
HelpExpand Help
Advanced search

In Basket
  Journal Article   Journal Article
 

ID129529
Title ProperDestiny of this city is to be the spiritual workshop of the nation
Other Title Informationclearing cities and making citizens during the Indian Emergency, 1975-1977
LanguageENG
AuthorClibbens, Patrick
Publication2014.
Summary / Abstract (Note)
The urban clearance programmes that were pursued on a vast scale during the Emergency are frequently alluded to by historians but remain poorly understood. In particular, historians have reproduced the assumptions and limited scope of the Shah Commission of Inquiry, which published its reports on the Emergency in 1978. Histories of the Emergency's urban policies have, therefore, focused overwhelmingly on Delhi and north India, on the demolition of buildings, and on the role of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's son, Sanjay Gandhi, as instigator of these policies. This article uses case studies to demonstrate that these policies were not limited to Delhi and its environs, and to show that a concentration on the demolition of buildings has led historians to neglect the clearing of unwanted people from India's cities. The article goes on to reassess the thinking that underpinned these policies through a case study of Jagmohan, the head of the Delhi Development Authority during the Emergency. It shows how his ideas on urban aesthetics and civics informed the urban clearance programmes and how these authoritarian republican ideas suggest a way of rethinking the history of the Emergency as a whole.
`In' analytical NoteContemporary South Asia Vol.22, No.1; Mar.2014: p.51-66
Journal SourceContemporary South Asia Vol.22, No.1; Mar.2014: p.51-66
Key WordsIndian Emergency ;  Slum clearances ;  Urban aesthetics ;  Urban civics ;  Urban Politics ;  Demolition ;  Indian History ;  Sanjay Gandhi ;  Delhi Development Authority


 
 
Media / Other Links  Full Text