India is facing a river pollution crisis today. The origins of this crisis are commonly traced back to post-Independence economic development and urbanisation. This book, in contrast, shows that some important early roots of India s river pollution problem, and in particular the pollution of the Ganges, lie with British colonial policies on wastewater disposal during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Analysing the two cornerstones of colonial river pollution history during the late 19th and early 20th centuries the introduction of sewerage systems and the introduction of...

This book is a re-evaluation of modern urbanism and architecture and a history of urbanism, architecture, and local identity in colonial north India at the turn of the twentieth century.

Focusing on Banaras and Jaunpur, two of northern India’s most traditional cities, the book examines the workings of colonial bureaucracy in the cities and argues that interactions with the colonial state were an integral aspect of the ways that Indians created a sense of their own personal investment in the city in which they lived. The book explores the every-day and the mundane to better...

This book explores the social and cultural histories of India, focusing on cultural encounters and representations of subaltern communities from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. Examining cultural encounters between Europeans and Indians during the precolonial and colonial periods, the book analyzes European, especially English, efforts to exoticize or investigate the social practices of the Other. It also presents the culturally conditioned Indian subject's perspective on Europe and the imperial society. The book engages with narratives of suppressed movements of tribals and...