Colonialism and South Asia: Cuttack, 1803-1947

The common historical experience of colonialism and imperialism has left profound impact on the polity, society, economy and culture of the third world countries like India. The impact was particularly striking on urban India, which underwent radical structure-functional transformation under the Pax-Britannica. In fact, the modern hegemonic culture of Orissa owes largely to the specificities and the dynamics of the process of colonialisation as centered on and manifested at Cuttack City. In its dominant modern economic forms, it’s backward status in particular, Orissa carries the colonial bandwagon. Its premier city (its erstwhile capital city), Cuttack; be it in the aspects of its morphology, polity, society, culture and economy; draws significantly from its colonial past and bear its imprints. It can not be gainsaid that the modern Cuttack city is largely a by-product of colonialism and its endangered process of urbanisation. Lamentably, given their phenomenal impact, both colonialism and imperialism are still under-researched in India, where, of late, several issues concerning these complex phenomena are only beginning to concretely addressed in its urban history. In Orissa, the urban history in its true sense of the term is almost nonexistent; not to speak of the history of its colonial urbanisation. The nonchalance of Orissan historians appears poignant, given the fact that the urban culture of modern Orissa owes in a large measure to the colonial urbanisation at Cuttack. Against this background, the present study of the colonial urbanisation at the old capital and the millennium city of Cuttack assumes considerable importance. At micro level, the present study shall not only illuminate the complex process of colonial urbanisation at Cuttack in particular but also in a large measure contribute to the understanding of both the colonial and the contemporary urbanisation in Orissa, particularly in such town planning areas as sanitation, neighbourhood and community life, policing and civic order, land-use pattern, community health etc. At macro level, the study starts off as a maiden venture with the modest goal of contributing a bit in the virgin area of the modern history of Orissa in tune with the pursuits of urban history in India and abroad. Both the macro and micro issues converge and illuminate one another as the study dilate the complex process of colonial urbanisation in Orissa centering on Cuttack by raising the problems and issues currently in debate in India and abroad, i.e., nationalism, colonialism and culture as part of the larger discourse between modernism and post-modernism. The book is divided into six chapters. Introductory chapter provides a theoretical schemata for the book by following the trajectory of the concept of colonial urbanisation or colonial city in the theoretical literature. Chapter two provides a historical backdrop for the study. Chapter three tries to recapture the evolving morphology of the city. Chapter four critically analyzes both structure functional and the cultural aspects of the urban polity and society at colonial Cuttack in particular and that of Orissa in general. Chapter five traces the complex process of the evolution of colonial economic forms in Orissa as articulated from its capital city. Chapter six summaries findings of the study. The study utilises an array of sources like government records, missionary records, travelers’ accounts, private papers, printed literature and the oral data in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the problems it addresses. The data have been collected from several places like British Library, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, South Asian Center of Cambridge University, School of African and Oriental Studies of London University, National Archives, Nehru Memorial Library, National Library, West Bengal State Archives, Orissa State Archives, Orissa State Museum, Board of Revenue of Orissa Record Room, Cuttack District Record Room, Utkal Sahitya Samaj etc.