Delhi's Belly

Abstract

The article locates Delhi's urban environmental history firmly within the matrix of colonial urban politics, and analyses the relationship between sanitary discourse in Europe and the ‘politics of sanitation’ in India. It describes how colonial town planning, particularly in the context of Delhi, segregated sanitary and unsanitary spaces on a racial basis, the former being inhabited largely by the colonizers and the latter by the colonized. It discusses the technological and administrative measures undertaken by the colonial authorities to improve sanitary conditions on the one hand, and provide fresh water on the other. The article argues that New Delhi, and its water and waste disposal systems, was conceived of in a segregated way with respect to the old city, and civic services too benefited the new city at the expense of the old. It establishes a contrast between conceptions of the city in the West (as modern and progressive spaces) and in India (as unsanitary and therefore uncivilized spaces). Old Delhi, the author argues, was made ‘old’ through neglect and underdevelopment.